By Jim Hietala, The Open Group
One of two key focus areas for The Open Group Security Forum is security architecture. The Security Forum has several ongoing projects in this area, including our TOGAF® and SABSA integration project, which will produce much needed guidance on how to use these frameworks together.
When the Network Application Consortium ceased operating a few years ago, The Open Group agreed to bring the intellectual property from the organization into our Security Forum, along with extending membership to the former NAC members. While the NAC did great work in information security, one publication from the NAC stood out as a highly valuable resource. This document, Enterprise Security Acrhitecture (ESA), A Framework and Template for Policy-Driven Security, was originally published by the NAC in 2004, and provided valuable guidance to IT architects and security architects. At the time it was first published, the ESA document filled a void in the IT security community by describing important information security functions, and how they related to each other in an overall enterprise security architecture. ESA was at the time unique in describing information security architectural concepts, and in providing examples in a reference architecture format.
The IT environment has changed significantly over the past several years since the original publication of the ESA document. Major changes that have affected information security architecture in this time include the increased usage of mobile computing devices, increased need to collaborate (and federation of identities among partner organizations), and changes in the threats and attacks.
Members of the Security Forum, having realized the need to revisit the document and update its guidance to address these changes, have significantly rewritten the document to provide new and revised guidance. Significant changes to the ESA document have been made in the areas of federated identity, mobile device security, designing for malice, and new categories of security controls including data loss prevention and virtualization security.
In keeping with the many changes to our industry, The Open Group Security Forum has now updated and published a significant revision to the Enterprise Security Architecture (O-ESA), which you can access and download (for free, minimal registration required) here; or purchase a hardcover edition here.
Our thanks to the many members of the Security Forum (and former NAC members) who contributed to this work, and in particular to Stefan Wahe who guided the revision, and to Gunnar Peterson, who managed the project and provided significant updates to the content.
An IT security industry veteran, Jim is Vice President of Security at The Open Group, where he is responsible for security programs and standards activities. He holds the CISSP and GSEC certifications. Jim is based in the U.S.
