Week Five B.I.T

 ETHICS AND SECURITY:

Explain the ethical issues surrounding information technology

Information is a source of power and, increasingly, the key to prosperity among those with access to it. Although, advancements in information systems also involve social and political entities, and this makes ethical considerations in how information is used all the more important. Electronic systems now reach into all levels of government, into the workplace, and into private lives to such an extent that even people without access to these systems are affected in significant ways by them. New ethical and legal decisions are necessary to balance the needs and rights of everyone.

http://libr.org/isc/issues/ISC23/B9a%20Ruth%20Rikowski.pdf

Describe a situation involving technology that is ethical but illegal

In today's modern age with the accessibility to the world wide web, a prime example of a ethical situation which could be ascertained as illegal would be; there is a situation in which a work college has being accessing confidential data of a business, so another employee breaks into there account to demonstrate to business owners that the employee has being hacking confidential data. Although it's ethical to show to the business owners of the employees mis behavior, it's illegal to access another person account breaking confidentiality rules and also rules of privacy.

Describe and explain one of the computer use policies that a company might employee


Ethical computer use policy;

Code of Computer Ethics and Acceptable Use policy provides for access to information technology (IT) resources and communications networks within a culture of openness, trust, and integrity. In addition, companies/institutions committed to protecting themselves, students, faculty, and staff from unethical, illegal, or damaging actions by individuals using these systems.

The purpose of this policy is to outline the ethical and acceptable use of information systems at companies/institutions world wide. These rules are in place to protect students, faculty, and staff, i.e., to ensure that members of the company or institution to have access to reliable, robust IT resources that are safe from unauthorized or malicious use.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_ethics


What are the 5 main technology security risks?

Human Error, Natural Disasters, Technical Failures, Deliberate Acts, and Management Failure.
Outline one way to reduce each risk?

Human error: Two approaches to the problem of human fallibility exist: the person and the system approaches

The person approach focuses on the errors of individuals, blaming them for forgetfulness, inattention, or moral weakness

The system approach concentrates on the conditions under which individuals work and tries to build defences to avert errors or mitigate their effects

Natural disasters: attempting to access the information which was once stored on the computer system, after a natural disaster, this is why all business's need to use back all systems up onto external hardware or to an online source.

Technical failure: Is where the computer system either crashes or receives a virus, another reason to keep all work backed up onto online sources. 

Deliberate acts: Are acts committed by people within and without of the business to access viable data. Having set up a secure system which involves employees to have a password helps the business from not getting hacked, also having anti hacker software helps the company from loosing important information. 

Management failure: Management need to continually back up data, and have both hard and soft copies of all important information. Management also need to keep staff up to date with all important procedures in case of emergencies.

What is a disaster recovery plan, what strategies might a firm employee?

Business's after a disaster need to recover via implementing an action/communication plan to strategize how to keep the business progressing and locate data to pick up where they left off. 

The business must operate under the business continuity plan whilst in disaster mode, which means that all operations must be done off site and data must be slowly replaced to help the business regain ground. whilst this is happening the company must document all processes and check to see if all information is safe and unharmed