--- sourceDocument: Australia Platform security sourceDocumentLink: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/australia/platform-security Release : - australia ft:locale : - en-US ft:publication_title : - Australia Platform security ft:clusterId : - psec bundleId : - psec workflow : - Platform --- # Security Best Practices # Security Best Practices {#ariaid-title1} Release version: Australia Updated March 12, 2026 ![](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/portal-asset/ico-clock) 3 minutes to read Summarize ![AI sparkle icon](https://servicenow.com/docs/portal-asset/ai-sparkle-icon) Summarized using AI This content was generated using new OpenAI-powered functionality. Results are provided on an as is basis and are not guaranteed to be accurate or complete. ## Summary of Security Best Practices Security Best Practices help you implement privacy and security configurations on your ServiceNow instance to improve your security posture. This functionality guides you through best practices with step-by-step instructions, progress tracking, and activity history, enabling you to organize and manage security tasks aligned with your organizational goals. Show full answer Show less ## Key Features * **Home Page:** Provides an overview of your progress with visual graphs showing completed best practices overall and by maturity level. You can filter practices by maturity phases such as Build a foundation, Enhance the experience, Optimize the functionality, and Add advanced features. * **Security Best Practices Table:** Lists best practices with fields including Name, Maturity Level (reflecting impact and implementation phase), Status (Open, In Progress, Completed), Priority (Immediate, Later, Not applicable), and Security Goals addressed (e.g., access control, encryption, monitoring). * **Details Page:** Displays comprehensive information on each best practice, including priority, maturity level, status, and links to further documentation. It offers tabs for an overview, task steps with detailed implementation instructions, and activity history to track progress and user/system actions. * **Task Management:** Enables creation and delegation of Security Tasks related to best practices to facilitate team collaboration and work tracking. * **Filtering and Saving Lists:** Allows filtering the best practices table based on various criteria to create customized worklists for different roles or projects. ## How This Benefits ServiceNow Customers By leveraging Security Best Practices, you can systematically enhance your instance security starting with foundational changes and progressing to advanced configurations. The guided steps and monitoring capabilities help ensure compliance, reduce risks, and improve your organization's overall security posture. Tracking progress and activities provides transparency and accountability across teams responsible for security tasks. Use Security Best Practices to implement privacy and security configuration tasks on your ServiceNow instance. Identify best practices to improve your security posture, and follow step-by-step instructions on how to implement them. Security Best Practices provide the following: * The home page shows an overview of your progress on implementing security best practices. You can also organize and manage lists of security best practices according to your organization's goals. * The overview page provides details of each security best practice, the steps to implement them, and a record of all activities and comments. * The task steps page provides you with instructions on how to implement security best practices. * The activity page tracks the history of the user and system actions related to your security best practices. {#security-best-practices-manager__ul_pp5_d32_fbc} ## Security Best Practices home page {#security-best-practices-manager__section_ph2_yl1_ccc} The home page displays a Manage your best practices section, which includes graphs provide an overview of your progress. Completed overall : Displays a count and trend line of best practices you have completed. Select the card to view the Completed Overall metric page in [Security metrics](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/P0w~xxDwxt3mFpsKPs3Y6A "Monitor over 50 different Security Metrics to identify potential security threats or insecure behaviors. Set thresholds for email notifications, visualize, and analyze the data in multiple ways. Export the data, or create dashboards with the metrics that are most important to your organization."). Completed by maturity level : Displays a chart of completed best practices organized by maturity level (see a description of maturity levels in the proceeding table). Select the card to view the Completed by Maturity Level metric page in [Security metrics](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/P0w~xxDwxt3mFpsKPs3Y6A "Monitor over 50 different Security Metrics to identify potential security threats or insecure behaviors. Set thresholds for email notifications, visualize, and analyze the data in multiple ways. Export the data, or create dashboards with the metrics that are most important to your organization."). Build a foundation : Select the Build a foundation button to filter the table on this page to display only best practices in the Build a foundation maturity level. These are lower impact changes you can make to start improving instance security. Create a task : Use the +Create task button to create a Security Task to track or delegate best practice work. For details on Security Tasks, see [Security Tasks](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/qd3ZhynMRXewTLU8VJEJYA "Use Security Tasks to monitor, prioritize, and assign all your security-related tasks in one place."). The table enables you to apply filters so that you can sort and save filtered lists, which you can use as work lists for different use cases or roles. See [save a filtered list](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/YdjZ5mzBAKKJV5R2heJG4w#save-a-filter-for-future-use "Save filters in your security best practices for later reuse to streamline your review process.") for more information. The following are explanations of the fields related to the security best practices table.{#security-best-practices-manager__table_ktk_yh2_fbc__entry__2} | Name | Description | |-|-| | Name | Word used to identify a security best practice. | | Maturity level | Applications and features that have been arranged by the order of impact to provide you measurable results. The values for maturity levels are: * Build a foundation * Enhance the experience * Optimize the functionality * Add advanced features {#security-best-practices-manager__ul_ltk_yh2_fbc} These can also be thought of as crawl, walk, run, and fly phases. | | Status | Current state of a best practice: * Open * In progress * Completed {#security-best-practices-manager__ul_mtk_yh2_fbc} | | Priority | Order of importance for implementing a best practice in your organization: * Immediate * Later * Not applicable {#security-best-practices-manager__ul_ntk_yh2_fbc} | | Goals | Security category that a best practice addresses: * Address initial security configurations * Secure emails * Monitoring logs * Manage access controls * Protect with encryption * Keep instances up to date {#security-best-practices-manager__ul_otk_yh2_fbc} | | First introduced | Which Security Center version the best practice was introduced. | | Changed | Which Security Center version the best practice was changed. | | Removed | Which Security Center version the best practice was removed. | [Table 1. Summary of fields used in the security best practices table] {#security-best-practices-manager__table_ktk_yh2_fbc} ## Security Best Practices details page {#security-best-practices-manager__section_fhv_1m1_ccc} Select a best practice from the table to view its page. At the top of the details page, you can view general information about the security best practice including priority, maturity level, and status. Use Complete Best Practice button to mark a the practice as complete, or Reopen Best Practice button to mark the practice complete. Use the +Create Task to create a Security Task to track and delegate this task. For details on Security Tasks, see [Security Tasks](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/qd3ZhynMRXewTLU8VJEJYA "Use Security Tasks to monitor, prioritize, and assign all your security-related tasks in one place."). This page provides more information on the best practice, divided into tabs: Overview : This tab contains the Priority drop-down menu, which enables you to specify the security best practices that are important to you at this time and which are not applicable. The details section provides content about the features associated with the security best practice, and the documentation section provides one or more links where you can find additional information. The Progress card on the right shows the number of steps completed versus the total number of steps included. Select go to next step to navigate to the next incomplete step. The best practice update history card provides a snapshot of the release information for the best practice. You can track which ServiceNow Security Center version the security best practice was released in, and which versions it was subsequently last updated in. Task Steps : This tab provides step-by-step instructions for how to implement this security best practice. See [complete a security best practice](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/_NqIsEijpR13~nO2J8MPqg "Complete a security best practice to implement security configurations on your ServiceNow instance.") for more information. Activity : This tabe displays timestamped activities listed from newest to oldest. Use search and filter to query for information. See [apply filters to the security best practices table](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/YdjZ5mzBAKKJV5R2heJG4w#apply-filters-to-the-security-best-practices-table "Apply filters to return more relevant results for your security best practices.") for more information. * **[Complete a security best practice](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/_NqIsEijpR13~nO2J8MPqg)** Complete a security best practice to implement security configurations on your ServiceNow instance. * **[View activity of a best practice](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/vXMPRKpG82WqA4iRYmyOHg)** Track the chronological and timestamped history related to a security best practice that you're completing on your ServiceNow instance, along with the user that initiated the activity. * **[View data of completed best practices](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/MzSwCmAHBcpF_4YBsCSqjQ)** See visual representations of the total amount of best practices completed, or segmented by maturity level. * **[Filter the security best practices table](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/YdjZ5mzBAKKJV5R2heJG4w#apply-filters-to-the-security-best-practices-table)** Apply filters to return more relevant results for your security best practices. * **[Best Practices](https://www.servicenow.com/docs/S7VR~Xwf9IzCGoLnTi8X5Q)** Learn details about the Best Practices in the Security Posture Console.