The Impact of Network Security in Corporations Today:



Network and Computer Security

Steve Mallard

© - 2007

The Impact of Computer and Network Security in Corporations Today:

Understanding the Impact and Solutions of Computer and Network Security in Today’s World

by

Steve Mallard

Computer and Network Security

Copyright © 2007 Steve Mallard

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Printed in the United States of America

The Problem

In today’s world of the internet and ecommerce, many companies lack the expertise and training to secure their critical network infrastructure and data. Because of this fallacy, many companies’ infrastructures are subject to being compromised. With extortion, cyber theft, malicious attacks and internal theft occurring at an unprecedented pace, many companies are just becoming aware of the aforesaid problems. While a few companies and corporations awaken to a new world of problems, many continue to sleep, totally oblivious to what is happening as they go about their daily work. This research gives terminology and briefs from the Information Technology industry. This research provides an in-depth understanding of what network and infrastructure security problems are present and what will be required from companies and corporations in order to protect themselves from malicious activities.

Research Method and Design

The research behind this paper combines information from industry experts, national publications, the Internet, technology college textbooks and a large school system (A higher education facility) implementing a strategy for the ongoing development of a security plan for protecting their network infrastructure and data. The use of information from the latter was most beneficial to discussions of internal network infrastructure, interpretation of friendly vs. malicious and how to implement compliance for Computer and Network Security. The implementation plan outline is provided in Chapter 2, followed by the methodology used and a detailed plan in use at the researcher’s place of employment (A higher education facility) in Chapter 3.

Findings

As the study concludes, the primary requirement for compliance with network and infrastructure security is a strong and robust internal policy and procedure for the infrastructure of companies with continual training. Companies with no policies or weak policies will continue to fail with their compliance of security initiatives and the costs for repairing or troubleshooting their network will be far greater than that of a company within compliance. Ultimately, those companies with a strong policy and procedure that includes disaster recovery and failure will excel. Individual users, including the main hierarchy of the Information Technology Department will have more assurances that they are protected as well as their individual client’s data. Companies and corporations must support Computer and Network Security initiatives along with meeting the budgetary needs of their department in order to maintain a healthy profit margin for the end product produced by the business. The lack of security in today’s infrastructure could result in the demise of the corporation.

The Impact of Computer and Network Security in Corporations Today:

Understanding the Impact and Solutions of Computer and Network Security in Today’s World

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Problem Statement

Since the advent and infancy of the internet, many U.S. companies and corporations have functioned and operated with very little Computer and Network Security in place in their network infrastructure. Although many of these companies and corporations have hardware firewalls and intrusion detection systems in place, many of these businesses do not have policy and procedures to guide and govern their infrastructure security. Policies along with personnel are the backbone of the Computer and Network Security. This backbone is the fragile structure that keeps companies secure in today’s digital world. These directives (Policy and Procedures) insure that companies and corporations will be in compliance as long as the CIO or IT manger enforces them.

Although a definite and structured compliance has not been put in place, directives and training are the true tools needed to help companies maintain a form of security within their organization.

Until now, computer security and locking down the network infrastructure has been on the back burner with most companies and corporations because of cost. According to a corporate poll in A nationally recognized information technology magazine, 99% of U.S. companies now use some type of preventive antivirus technology with 98% of these companies now using firewalls. This electronic security poll was based on compiled information from larger corporations and their practices and does not include small to midsize companies found throughout the United States. The recently released polls in this research paper show are usually focused on larger companies and corporations in the United States. The main reason for this was found by interviewing several midsized and smaller companies locally. These smaller companies and corporations usually have outsourced their Information Technology infrastructure to private organizations that do not have written policy and procedures written for these smaller companies. Normally, these companies do not have any type of policy and procedure in place for their current clientele. Because of this practice, these companies and small corporations do not look at industry related security trends, security issues or any relevant areas of computer security. Although it was found that ................
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