IT Risk Management: Data Governance and Security Strategies
This paper presents a comprehensive IT risk management plan designed to address both internal and external data security threats. It outlines the structure of a formal data governance program — including governance councils, data stewards, and role-based access controls — as a primary mechanism for preventing unauthorized internal data access. The paper also examines technical security measures such as encryption, masking, tokenization, and redaction for protecting sensitive data against external breaches. Finally, it advocates for migrating sensitive data to cloud service providers whose physical and digital security infrastructure can supplement enterprise-level defenses. The plan concludes by emphasizing the alignment of organizational governance policies with cloud provider capabilities.
- Introduction to the Risk Management Plan: Dual-focus plan addressing internal and external breaches
- Data Governance as a Foundation for Security: Governance councils, stewards, and role-based access controls
- Protecting Data from External Threats: Encryption, masking, tokenization, and redaction techniques
- Cloud Storage as a Security Strategy: Cloud providers as outsourced security infrastructure
- Summary of the Risk Management Plan: Key recommendations consolidated into a policy summary
✍️ How to write this paper — guide, tools & examples ▾
What makes this paper effective
- The paper establishes a clear dual-focus early on — internal access-control failures and external breaches — and consistently returns to both throughout, giving the argument structural coherence.
- It moves logically from governance policy (roles, councils, stewards) to technical controls (encryption, masking, tokenization) to infrastructure solutions (cloud migration), creating a layered, escalating defense model.
- The use of a direct quotation from Harper (2014) to support the cloud security argument demonstrates how to integrate source material at the right moment for maximum persuasive effect.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates effective use of hierarchical argumentation: it opens with a high-level policy framework, then progressively narrows to implementation-level solutions. This technique shows how to organize a policy recommendation paper so that abstract governance principles are grounded by concrete technical and vendor-level examples, making the argument both credible and actionable.
Structure breakdown
The paper consists of five sections. The introduction frames the two-part problem. The second section defines data governance and describes councils, stewards, and role-based access tools. The third section addresses technical data-protection measures for external threats. The fourth section makes the case for cloud service providers as a security resource. The final section recaps all recommendations in a concise summary.
Introduction to the Risk Management Plan
The risk management plan addressing this scenario is two-fold in nature. Specifically, it is designed to account for the external breach of a company's information technology security infrastructure. Additionally, it must encompass critical facets of data governance that can rectify the weak access-control policies exploited in an internal breach. The risk management policy will therefore address both issues holistically through a comprehensive approach that integrates data management and security measures. The governance mechanisms advocated as part of this policy should unequivocally reduce the risk of data breaches, both internally and externally.
References
Harper, J. (2014). (Big) data governance for cloud deployments. www.dataversity.net. Retrieved from
Harper, J. (2013). Walk softly: Why non-invasive data governance wins. www.dataversity.net. Retrieved from
Create your account
Always verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.