New Bitkom Guideline on IT Security – IABG is Co-Author

The InfoKom segment of IABG has, together with other ITC companies, been responsible for the guideline issued by the Federal Association for Information Management, Telecommunications and New Media (Bitkom) entitled 'Security for Systems and Networks in companies'.

The development of information technologies has progressed inexorably in recent years in the IT Security field. The trend is moving more and more to the realisation of a company-wide IT security strategy instead of the realisation of individual isolated technical security solutions. IT and its security must be understood as a means of organising the corporate processes efficiently, securely and authentically. Therefore IT security is an important tool in the management of companies in order for it to do justice to its responsibility towards the company, the employees, customers and shareholders.

This development is reflected in the content of this version. Not all the items of information in the first edition were updated. We have included for the first time sections on 'Legal Aspects of IT-Security' and 'Control Procedures'. New statutory regulations, for example 'Basel II, but also in the meantime newly occurred events – such as the Enron case – have proven that the measures on IT security may no longer be considered to be technical matters concerning IT administrators. It has been demonstrated that corporate managements are also confronted, due to questions of liability, with introducing the corresponding ITC control systems for the proper operation of all their EDP operations in their companies. Included among them are well-known IT security measures, such as the regular and automatic updating of the virus protection program. Also included, however, are less well-known measures such as the function separation in processing of accounting data, so that these may not be manipulated unnoticed.

As one of the test centres licensed by the German Information Security Agency, IABG has wide experience in the conceptualisation of security architectures. It tests and assesses IT systems, application software and IT components in accordance with national and international standards. The security services of IABG extend from the concept to the realisation. It offers solutions for all possible applications, from the PC in the worldwide network to highly complex and critical infrastructure.