Ensuring Safety of Hotel Guests
Hotels rely on their IT assets to assist them in performing their daily business activities. Networks connect hotels with centralized application services, corporate Intranets, e-mail systems, the Internet, business partners and other stakeholders. Wireless 802.11 b/g networks in hotel guestrooms are becoming ubiquitous. Data zips back and forth across the enterprise. How safe are these systems and networks? Are they secure from external threats? What about internal threats? What should hoteliers and IT managers be doing to ensure the safety of their operational and guest data? Risks Hoteliers are faced with external and internal threats that can affect the security of their data. Failure to mitigate these risks
can have serious repercussions. External threats, which are not within our control,
include hacker threats, viruses, worms and denial-of-service attacks. Internal factors
that threaten data security include loose (or less stringently followed) employee security policies, less-than-rigid data backup, storage and restoration-testing policies, and insecure networks.
External Factors
External attacks “can pose greater risks to Information Technology (IT) operations than hurricanes, floods, power outages, and the like.”1 The distributed nature of today’s computing environment allows many opportunities for potential wrongdoers to cause havoc.
Are your networks secure from hackers, viruses and worms? Hackers use computers to find weaknesses and backdoor entryways into corporate networks. Once inside, they can plant viruses and worms capable of seeking out confidential data, e.g. addresses in address books
(which can be used to send mass spam mail), stealing sensitive guest and empl...
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...is, data-mining, CRM and direct marketing. They will however have to pay close attention to external and internal factors that have the potential to harm their IT infrastructure. They must employ robust risk mitigation strategies that are regularly tested. All security compliance directives must be adhered to and monitored to ensure compliance. These efforts will help ensure the safety of your IT assets.
Bibliography
Gordon, Tedd; vice president; IBM Global Services; Business Continuity and Recovery Services. Disaster Recovery Planning. Toigo, J.W. 2000 Prentice Hall.
Operators Weigh Options as Senate Moves toward New Data Security Rules. January 2006. http://www.prleap.com
http://usa.visa.com/download/business/ accepting_visa/ ops_risk_management/ cisp_PCI_Data_Security_Standard.pdf
Demystifying Compliance. Rasmussen, M. Forrester Research, March 2004.
The Operating System (OS) is the heart of computer server and client systems; therefore they are the pivotal components of the Information Technology (IT) architecture. The OS contains the crucial data, information, and applications, which are vulnerable, and can be infiltrated to cripple the entire IT architecture of the organization. Therefore, it becomes mandatory to properly safeguard the OS from an internal or external intrusion (Stallings & Brown, 2012). This critical thinking report will highlight the security concerns that may impact the OS. Further, the security guidelines and best practices for the OS in general, along with the specific fundamentals regarding the Windows and Linux OS are comprehensively illustrated.
disaster and who is to preform those steps. With a clear, documented disaster recovery plan in place the risk from a disaster can be minimized. While there is no way to plan for every disaster that could happen, the likely disaster can be planned for and the risk minimize as much as possible. The disaster recovery plan is the documented efforts that IT will perform to minimize the risk of catastrophic failure. This document is a requirement for any IT audit that is performed on the Clinica Tepeyac information systems department.
Tasked by the ACF, our team of disaster case managers and responders are on the scene within 72 hours of its start. From there, ACF Immediate Disaster Case Management (ACF IDCM) starts meeting with those suffering from the disaster to fully access what is needed for a proper recovery. While tasked by the ACF, the IDCM program is completely self-sufficient while receiving support from BCFS EMD’s Incident Management Team. Through BCFS’ support, the program is provided complete operations, logistics and planning support to meet its
The way forward lays in a security risk management (SRM) approach that protects your company from the most severe threats to critical IT systems and operational processes. SRM helps your organization understand its assets and analyze the vulnerabilities it must address. Security risk management also facilitates internal and external compliance initiatives. It enables your organization to enforce policies that relate to the integrity of customer data, the configuration of corporate applications and databases, and the accuracy of financial reports. Companies that take a systematic approach to SRM reap additional benefits: operational efficiencies that lead to better management of resources and reduced costs. It's up to all the parties involved in the IT operations and security mission to demonstrate that they can take on the demands of this new challenge.
Security helps the organization meet its business objectives or mission by protecting its physical and financial resources, reputation, legal position, employees, and other tangible and intangible assets through the selection and application of appropriate safeguards. Businesses should establish roles and responsibilities of all personnel and staff members. However, a Chief Information Officer should be appointed to direct an organization’s day to day management of information assets. Supporting roles are performed by the service providers and include systems operations, whose personnel design and operate the computer systems. Each team member must be held accountable in ensuring all of the rules and policies are being followed, as well as, understanding their roles, responsibilities and functions. Organizations information processing systems are vulnerable to many threats that can inflict various types of damage that can result in significant losses (Harris, 2014). Losses can come from actions from trusted employees that defraud the system, outside hackers, or from careless data entry. The major threat to information protection is error and omissions that data entry personnel, users, system operators and programmers make. To better protect business information resources, organizations should conduct a risk analysis to see what
The size of the business which is being exposed to the disaster should also be considered. An understanding of which components are vital to the company’s day to day operations and which components are needed less and could be replaced later. Depending on the size of the company and what type of work is performed and whether the work takes place in an office environment or on the road or a home in a home office. There are options available where a company will make plans for you and provide a work place environment in the event that the office is unavailable for use. This however adds cost so should only be considered in the cases where the cost for the service is less than the cost would be to make plans
The World Wide Web has become a catalyst for hackers, organize criminals, insider threats, political, social action groups, and anonymous groups to excite fear on individuals, private and the public sector. These threat actors can launch malware, rootkits, spam, botnets and a host of other threat vectors at any occasion. IT Specialist and system administrator’s job duties are to test, patch and install the latest security updates and software fixes on an organization existing system. However, this task can become a race against time in trying to mitigate a security breach.
This plan is designed to minimize operational and financial impacts of such a disaster, and will be activated when a local Incident Manager (or, in his/her absence, one of his/her alternates) determines that a disaster has occurred. Specific details on incident response and subsequent business recovery actions and activities are included within the respective local recovery team plans. 1.3 Scope The incident management plan goal is to provide initial actions and procedures to respond to specific events that could impact critical technological and communications business activities at Machine Shop Industries.
Print. Nelson, Lauren. " Crisis Communications Case Study Tylenol." BCMpedia. A Wiki Glossary for Business Continuity Management (BCM) and Disaster Recovery (DR).
Disaster Recovery Planning is the critical factor that can prevent headaches or nightmares experienced by an organization in times of disaster. Having a disaster recovery plan marks the difference between organizations that can successfully manage crises with minimal cost, effort and with maximum speed, and those organizations that cannot. By having back-up plans, not only for equipment and network recovery, but also detailed disaster recovery plans that precisely outline what steps each person involved in recovery efforts should undertake, an organization can improve their recovery time and minimize the disrupted time for their normal business functions. Thus it is essential that disaster recovery plans are carefully laid out and carefully updated regularly. Part of the plan should include a system where regular training occurs for network engineers and managers. In the disaster recovery process extra attention should also be paid to training any new employees who will have a critical role in this function. Also, the plan should require having the appropriate people actually practice what they would do to help recover business function should a disaster occur. Some organizations find it helpful to do this on a quarterly or semi-annual basis so that the plan stays current with the organization’s needs.
In reference to computer science, physical security is one of the most important accomplishments a business can achieve. Due to the advent of the modern technical age, all of a company’s records are held on their data systems. First and foremost, theft or loss of historical records and accounting data would instantly cripple an enterprise and could very well lead to its ultimate demise. The high profile news reports just in the last decade verify that. Hackers stole the financial records of several banks, which included the personal information of thousands of customers. Ditto for the Veterans’ Administration, for an employee’s laptop was stolen off site. Inside the computer’s hard drive were the ever important Social Security Numbers of hundreds of thousands of veterans and their families. For example, a financial institution goes to stark measures to ensure the money and securities stored there are safe. Not only are there outside locks on the doors and an elaborate alarm system, there is a fireproof steel vault with the finest timed locks available. Most usually, the valuables are further stored in locked boxes inside that vault. Just like that bank, an organization must strive to make physical security a priority. However, simply locking the data and equipment is far from sufficient. The information technology also needs an “alarm” of sorts, so that the company’s police, the information security specialists, can identify the threat and diminish or eliminate it.
To combat those threats and ensure that e-business transactions are not compromised, security technology must play a major role in today's networks. Why Networks Must Be Secured? Attacks: -. Without proper protection, any part of any network can be susceptible to attacks or unauthorized activity. Routers, switches, and hosts can all be violated by professional hackers, company competitors.
This report aim to explain how is achieved risk control through strategies and through security management of information.
Emergency management is often described in terms of “phases,” using terms such as mitigate, prepare, respond and recover. The main purpose of this assignment is to examine the origins, underlying concepts, variations, limitations, and implications of the “phases of emergency management.” In this paper we will look at definitions and descriptions of each phase or component of emergency management, the importance of understanding interrelationships and responsibilities for each phase, some newer language and associated concepts (e.g., disaster resistance, sustainability, resilience, business continuity, risk management), and the diversity of research perspectives.
This report aim to explain how is achieved risk control through strategies and through security management of information.