Hi,

This is just a small message to make forum members aware of a new book in the area of information security management - "A Practical Guide to Managing Information Security", Steve Purser, Artech House (2004). My apologies if this is not the right place to post this message - the other messages in this area made me think that some members might be interested in this book.

I wrote this book in response to questions that have been sent to me following conferences and seminars that I have given over the past few years. The goal of the book is to present what I believe are the major challenges in managing information security in modern commercial environments and to provide a set of practical methods and tools for meeting these challenges. By necessity, I have concentrated on what I consider to be the most important issues in today's environments and this is not a catalogue of security techniques.

In a nutshell, the book shows how to design and successfully implement an information security strategy, whilst still responding appropriately to short-term requirements. In order to do this, the book covers the following topics, using a case study to illustrate the method:

- A descrription of what I believe to be the major issues in today's environments.
- An overview of methods and tools currently available to managers.
- A description of the management approach
- How to define, agree and implement an information security strategy.
- How to use policy and standards effectively.
- How to improve the scalability and flexibility of the current process.
- How to design and implement an IT Security Architecture.
How to create a security-minded culture.

This is a book for practitioners and is based on real experience. I have made every effort to show where and why things can go wrong and how to avoid such problems. I hope it will help managers avoid the mistakes I made in the past.

Regards,

Steve Purser.