o what's the big problem
with the Internet? Well it's a
totally open system which connects computers around the world. At
one time it was relatively easy to secure networks from external
attack as the networks did not have any public connection. These
days, with more people working from a mobile base or from home,
there is a greater need for external connections into a network.
Many companies also have several sites which connect to the Internet
to make an Intranet. At one time the connection between the sites
would have been achieved with a leased line. These days it is less
expensive to use the Internet to create the connection. Thus organizations
must try and make their systems secure for many reasons. One is
that data which they hold on their
databases must be secure and there are restrictions on who can view
the data and who can edit it. They must also
guard against malicious attacks where their systems
can be damaged in some one.
External
attacks can be reduced with strong firewalls, and data encryption, but internal attacks can be difficult to
protect against as users already have access to the organization
network. There have been several cases of employees doing damage
to computer systems so that they could either cause the organization
to lose business or to keep themselves in a job.
Legal
laws on Internet access will take some
time to catch-up with the growth in technology, so in many cases
it is the moral responsibility of site managers and divisionleaders to try and reduce the amount of objectionable
material. If users want to download objection material or set-up
their own WWW server with
offensive material, they should do this at home and not at work
or within an educational establishment. Often commercial organizations
are strongly protected sites, but in open-systems, such as Schools
and Universities, it is often difficult to protect against these
problems.
These
days, viruses tend to be more annoying than dangerous. In fact,
they tend to be more embarrassing than annoying, because a macro
virus sent to a business colleague can often lead to a great deal
of embarrassment (and a great deal of loss of business confidence).
A
particularly-worrying source of viruses
is the Internet, either through the running
of programs over Internet, the spread of worms or the spreading
of macro viruses in electronic mailattachments.
The best way to avoid getting these viruses is to purchase an up-to-date
virus scanner which checks all Internet programs and documents when
they are loaded.
So,
with viruses and worms, it is better to be safe than sorry. Let
the flu be the only virus you catch, and the only worms you have
to deal with are the ones in your garden.
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