SAN FRANCISCO--Do you have any way of gauging how effective your organization's information protection plan is? If not, what kind of questions should you be asking? Does your organization even have an information protection plan? If not, where would you begin? What kind of electronic commerce controls should be in place? What kind of backup and recovery measures need to be implemented? Is your organization's physical security status adequate?

Does your organization's personnel policies address information protection issues? Is your security awareness program aggressive enough? Many network professionals are being asked to review their organization's information protection or information security programs in the light of emerging technologies; many others are being asked to build such programs for the first time.

To help you meet these challenges, the Computer Security Institute (CSI) has revised and updated the Information Protection Assessment Kit (IPAK). IPAK is an inexpensive tool that will give you a clear view of how comprehensive your program is, as well as a way to gauge its progress over time.

Crafted with the input of numerous leading authorities in the field, including Charles Cresson Wood of Baseline Software (http://www.baselinesoft.com) and Rik Farrow (http://www.spirit.com) the IPAK now includes eleven sections each consisting of twenty controls.

The eleven sections range from "Business Controls" to "Internet Security Controls," and from "Personnel Policies and Practices" to "Web Security Controls." The twenty IPAK items in each section are specific and practical. Each set of IPAK controls has its own easy to use answer sheet that enables you to judge your organization's degree of compliance with each particular control.

The revised and updated IPAK (IPAK-e) features a new section on "Internet Commerce Controls," as well as a simplified scoring system, and comes with an electronic version in a Microsoft Excel file.

(IPAK-e requires that you use Microsoft Excel '97 or higher.) While there is never a guarantee of perfect security, full compliance with IPAK-e indicates that you've significantly reduced risk exposure. IPAK-e is available for $157 to CSI members; $197 to non-members. To order IPAK-e, click here.