Information security considerations for higher learning institutions

Information security is the most important element in an organization including the High Learning Institution (HLIs). Apart from technological aspect, HLIs must enforce proper policies, procedures, and standards in compliance with laws and regulations to ensure safe and secured environment. This research has two main objectives. First is to identify the major component of information security framework (ISF). Secondly, to investigate IT personnel perceptions on the existing information security policy practices. Two modes of data collection were used in this study; interview and survey respectively. Hence, this research has defined five major components in the ISF through the preliminary investigation via interview with the IT personnel in HLIs. Based on the developed ISF, a survey was conducted to fulfill the second objective. As a result, it shown that most of them are concerns with the existing policy and practices. Nevertheless, improvement of policy content, awareness and compliance must be focus in order to ensure the information security level is at topmost. This paper explains the results and future hope in detail.