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Privacy & Technology Introduction The advent of information technology springs from the idea that information superhighway is made available to all people from all walks of life. All sorts of information are made accessible at the tip of ones fingers and can be retrieved in a short period of time through the amazing Internet technology, computerized or electronically processed data system. What used to be data, like records or public documents, gathered for weeks or days can now be obtained in minutes or seconds. What used to be information for selected or privileged few intellectuals are now exposed to the public regardless of state, race, ethical culture, sex or status, not to mention a few restricted information that are confined to certain age levels, or those that are sensitive to security and privacy.
One of the many challenges that confront the man at the helm of his business is learning how to cope up with the shifts, the moves, the discontinuities, the broken cycles, the changing conditions and even forecasts of progress. Consequently, there have been varying results in managing business and technology conditions. They are inevitable conditions faced by man day by day. Man deals with such conditions by managing them well in such a way that the supposed negative conditions that can become threats to the business are converted to positive ingredients and opportunities for effective application of breakthrough ideas. Privacy Issues Today, time is of the essence, and everything moves fast and progresses conveniently and convincingly. Privacy is one issue people contend with in this fast-paced life.
Admittedly, there are numerous companies that have Internet Privacy Policy, which explains how they obtain personally identifiable information from users of online services, including what kind of information they obtain, how they obtain it, if through registration or through automatic means and how they use it. According to Philip Agre and Marc Rotenberg's Technology and Privacy: The New Landscape, privacy is the capacity to negotiate social relationships by controlling access to personal information. As laws, policies, and technological design increasingly structure people's relationships with social institutions, individual privacy faces new threats and new opportunities. (Agre & Rotenberg, 1997). Of course there are systems to regulate or monitor good Internet practices.
However, recent developments reveal that, organizations are concerned to protect their IT resources including data that are both stored or transmitted in a network. This paper, therefore, looks into the many ramifications and effects that the introduction of the Internet has had on an organizations security and at the same time present solutions to these problems and how these solutions achieve their goals. All these effects shall be discussed from the information security and associated risks perspective. My Experience in advances in Technology More and more advancements are introduced and the challenge that continues to confront organizations is to know how they can protect the interests of their Internet users, in terms of keeping their privacy and protecting their interests from the public.
Their alarm is not to be taken lightly because today, there are more transactions commencing across regions and across countries through the Internet. For example, I happen to know a company with a computer security means to protect some of their IT assets against threats, identifying and overcoming vulnerabilities, mediating risks, and minimizing or reducing the impacts of various attacks. Some of the threats to these IT assets included the loss of data integrity, availability, and confidentiality of data. Attacks, under the same context, refer to activities that are initiated to make the threats into reality. Vulnerabilities, in the broadest sense, refer to the weaknesses in the IT assets and systems that make attacks possible. An attack risk refers to the probability of an attack happening, while attack impact refers to the seriousness of the effects of an attack when and if it occurs (Ryan, 2004).
They were able to control the vulnerability, not the threat itself. Control is effected through addressing vulnerabilities and finding ways to overcome them. The company suffered a huge loss because their files were lost due to these attacks (Sunner, n. d. , p. 7). Challenges and Recommendations The threats to a system and the systems data are said to be varied, from carelessness to employees who are dissatisfied and out to wreck internal systems, to computer hackers who are able to get access to the IT systems in a network (Federal Trade Commission, 2003). Attacks can come in the form of key catcher attacks, network sniffing, spy ware, virus or worm attack, compromised software with inserted backdoor, identity theft, buffer overflow attacks, website defacing, spamming, and phishing (Ryan, 2004).
Known countermeasures against attacks, created to protect systems from them, are said to include symmetric key encryption, public-key encryption, secure hashes, certificates, firewalls, security protocols, IPSec, SSH, SSL/TSS, intrusion detection, DCMA, and the concept of trusted computing (Ryan, 2004). Specific vulnerabilities with regard to system access for systems based on the Windows operating system, as ranked by SANS in its twenty top vulnerabilities lists, are said to include weak passwords on Windows accounts or network shares, and default configuration and passwords for servers. Prescribed measures to protect against these vulnerabilities are the enforcement of strong passwords and the auditing of passwords using Lophtcrack or John the Ripper, the prevention of Windows from storing the LM hash in its Active Directory and SAM database taking off from instructions provided by Microsoft, the restriction of anonymous access in network shares, and the modification of default settings for Microsoft SQL databases and Internet servers (SANS Institute, 2005). Meanwhile, email risks and vulnerabilities relate to infections caused by various forms of malware that are transmitted from network to network via email. Mapping that to the terminology developed here, the threat is the exposure of internal networks and users to malware that are borne by email. The vulnerability, in technical jargon, is the time interval when the email does not have an authenticated digital signature.
The impacts are a cost to business because of operational losses and other liability impacts (Sunner, n. d. , p. 7). Internet e-mail is said to be fragile, basically because the Internet e-mail architecture only promises a best-effort service level for delivering email to their destinations, and is said to work only because the infrastructure components cooperate to make it work (Galvin, 2000). This fact has implications on how email itself can be made secure. Put another way, the security architecture itself, as part of the Internet, cannot be controlled by either the recipient or the creator of the message. Security countermeasures with regard to vulnerabilities in email transmission can only be implemented at the endpoints, through the use of such tools as encryption to prevent messages from being intercepted in an unwanted fashion (Galvin, 2000).
The e-mail security vendor Borderware, specializing in industrial-strength Internet firewalls, lists 38 vulnerabilities in email systems, from which it draws several conclusions. Some of these vulnerabilities are the vulnerability of mail server operating systems to buffer overflows and similar kinds of attacks, the passing of incoming mail traffic directly to internal mail servers, platforms such as Outlook accepting and / or correcting malformed messages, roaming users forwarding confidential business email to public mail platforms such as Yahoo and Hotmail, the fact that AV vendors are said to be reactive in dealing with new viruses that propagate before they are stopped, use of email for personal purposes, the introduction of viruses via infected attachments, and the ability of spammers to abuse mail servers at will (Borderware Technologies, 2004, pp. 4 - 10). Studies reveal that the US Congress is still considering a number of bills that impact the Internet. There are rules being developed to protect the Internet users accordingly. Debates in Congress are taking place that include the following issues: (1) whether to continue the moratorium on Internet taxation; (2) whether and how to revamp regulations to increase the availability of high-speed connections to the Internet; (3) and how to protect the privacy of Internet users (Bridis, 2003). Conclusions Considering that these issues are still being given much attention, one can say that the government, particularly Congress, views the huge potential of the Internet technology to influence people in countless ways, be they information, knowledge, education, communication, and a lot more.
The Internet technology can do more ways than one in spreading progress and development in peoples lives within a nation and across the globe. However, such huge potential can put danger to a number of lives if not properly regulated and controlled to a certain extent by the government. It can be a tool used for abusive practices or unlawful and dangerous schemes considering that it is too open to free communication and transfer of technology. If not properly monitored, unlawful elements can further their plans and atrocious acts can proliferate without being caught or held liable for their own crimes.
Indeed technology is here to stay and will continue to progress for people to use for their own advantage, yet it could be a dangerous tool to perpetrate unlawful or criminal acts to achieve dangerous ends. It is but right that the US government must take pro-active measures to monitor, regulate and ensure that the Internet technology is properly used to attain such valued purposes for which it is intended and thus protect the interests of humanity. REFERENCES Agre, Philip E. , Rotenberg, Mark (1997) Technology and Privacy: The New Landscape Retrieved Oct. 30, 2006 at: web Borderware Technologies Inc. (2004). Thirty Eight Email Security Risks. Retrieved 30 October 2006 from web Bridis, Ted. (June 25, 2003) Internet Users Want More Privacy. CBS News.
Retrieved October 30, 2006 at: web Federal Trade Commission (2003). Security Check: Reducing Risks to your Computer Systems. Retrieved October 30, 2006 at: web Galvin, J. M. (2000). Insecurity from End to End. Retrieved October 30, 2006 at: web Ryan, M.
D. (2004). Computer Security Lecture Notes. Retrieved October 30, 2006 at: web SANS Institute (2005). The Twenty Most Critical Internet Security Vulnerabilities.
Retrieved October 30, 2006 at: web Sunner, M. (n. d. ). MessageLabs Turning Email Security Inside Out. Retrieved 30 October 2006 from web
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