The Importance Of Cyber Security

Preparation is focused around stopping incidents before they occur. To reduce the likelihood of a cyber incident at Zara the company must have certain preparations in place to protect their network and systems. If the best security practices are implemented all those who need to understand the incident response plan will be ready to act and have access to all the resources they need. First and foremost, Zara will hire a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) to establish and manage all internal security policies. Zara currently does not have this position or anything similar to it.

A number of security and supply chain risks exist, especially when technologies are acquired from other countries and companies abroad. Adversaries also target technological products for the purpose of applying attacks to organizations, employees are used in those attacks. Using technologies that the organization does not have control over also pose a risk to the organization. Mitigating factors should always be put in place when outsourcing services to vendors and service providers to manage the risks. A number of security and supply chain risks were identified and those must be managed properly to make sure that organizations are not vulnerable to attacks.

Guiding Principles Several statues have been enacted in order to uphold the fundamental rights to the privacy of an individual’s information. In particular, these laws pertain to what it is known as personally identifiable information (PII). PII should always be protected via means of encryption and additional security measures not only when it is being transmitted across the internet, but also when it is being stored locally on a server. Many of these security and risk oriented rulings mandate the requirements of securing individuals’ personal information. Some of the acts and models even go as far as to designate how an organization must respond to and notify instances of persona data breaches.

For example, a company needs to make a profit to stay in business and it should include goals to protect information from hackers. If a company gets a reputation of having security breaches, people would not want to do business with the company and they would lose profits. The CIA triad of confidentiality, integrity, and availability can be used by the ISG to meet the goals. Confidentiality is to protect information by allowing the correct people to have the permissions to access and use information. Integrity makes for the information is accurate and changes cannot be made to the information without the correct permission.

Executive Summary At this time the measures available to ensure information security include organizational controls such as limiting access to data, firewalls, antivirus systems, encryption, and application controls. When the security of the business fails and the private information of individuals is compromised the company faces many legal actions that can ruin the success of the organization. One way companies use information security that I find to be very helpful is encrypting (Rainer & Turban, 2009). Encrypting ensures that information is protected which is very important to me. Even if a cybercriminal is able to enter into a business’s network and collect information, the information will be encrypted and difficult for a hacker to use to his or her advantage.

However, breach or organizational data include interference with aspects of the intellectual property, revealing of trade secrets through fraud, access to consumer information without official permission among other risks. On the other hand, sabotage includes the attack that is often directed to service, for example, sending of bogus messages to people or efforts by the cyber criminals to disable organizational systems among other significant issues (Knowles et al., 2016). Cyber attacks result in several losses in organizations that disrupt their routine operations, an aspect that impairs the management control system of an organization (Dutta, Lawson, & Marcinko, 2016). However, despite the enormous losses incurred by organizations over the decades as a result of the cyber attack, it is imperative to appreciate that only a few crimes are reported or give adequate detail on the damage that is experienced. Moreover, most of the cyber crime incidents go undetected for years especially in the industrial fraud of accessing company confidential information.

Businesses need a strong firewall in order to prevent viruses, malware and other cyber threats and attacks. It is important that the firewall is monitored, reinforced, checked, and updated regularly by qualified IT services provider. All computers require the protection of a firewall, which is the key part to keep networked computers safe and secure. Having firewall makes the corporation a less attractive target. How much a corporate invests in firewalls inversely proportional as to how much it stands to lose in case of a successful attack.

If a user is unable access the system, it is assumed to be unavailable from the users point of view. Information security is the continuous process of practising due care, and diligence to protect information from unauthorized use, access, deleting or modifying. The never ending or continuous process of information security involves ongoing practice, protection, detection, documentation, monitoring and review. This makes information security an essential part of all business operations across various domains.

The fear of what noncompliance brings can also entice management’s support. At the very least noncompliance can damage a company’s reputation. Data breaches continue to haunt Target, Sony, and TJ Maxx to name a few. An effective information security policy can limit the damage to our reputation by laying out a course of action to take if a breach occurs. Poor security controls can also incur monetary damages through fines and remediation costs.

Society today is plagued with crime that is difficult to combat, constantly changing, and has no borders; this type of crime is called cybercrime. The United States of America is attacked on a daily basis by cyber criminals both foreign and domestic. The crimes committed involve fraud, identity theft, theft of proprietary trade secrets, and even theft of national secrets. The 2009 Internet Crime Report indicates there were 336,655 received cybercrime complaints in 2009 and a total monetary loss of $559.7 million (“2009 Internet Crime Report,” 2009). Cybercrime affects everyone; therefore, individuals, corporations, and government entities are responsible for safeguarding information against these attacks.