Information Technology has always been a source of information that requires vigilance due to its ability to affect its users’ lives drastically. Not only can one communicate and share conversations, documents, pictures, etc. throughout the world, there is also private and confidential information stored that is not ought to be shared. The problem I’m investigating is called hacking, which essentially means gaining unauthorized access to someone’s private and confidential information.
A major problem like Hacking for IT and its related fields is hazardous to the security of organizational secrets since if a person can gain access to confidential information, that information can be used for personal gains. If not used, the intruder could also harm that information making it useless or misleading the actual users of that information.
There is a common philosophy in the computer world that “if you can make it, you can break it”. This philosophy is often used to describe the mentality of hackers who think that if a program can be made, it can be unmade. The virus industry has boomed because of this philosophy as viruses keep on coming in while the anti-virus companies keep on building their cures. Since hacking is a technological problem just like viruses, this problem can also be fixed through a technological solution.
In search of information regarding ‘hacking’ and its solutions, I visited the www.infosyssec.com website. The website from the outlook looks cluttered and heavily textual. However, being a Meta website, this is a feature expected from such sites. With long pages full of new links and information, the first impression was of a page crammed with the meaningless information. However, the interface helps to clear out the mess in a second. The left side panel clearly describes the website’s research facilities and projects. It contains links of information relevantly titled with their headings and contains guides for certain researches.
The guide on the website proved to be an effective framework to prevent hacking. The first and foremost thing to do is to implement a firewall. A firewall, as the name suggests, acts like a barrier that only allows authorized entry into the network. Also having an updated anti-virus keeps the viruses at bay that may help in allowing hackers to gain entry into the network. Furthermore cookies should be disabled; no passwords must be saved on the computer; auto-complete wizards must be turned off and the history should be erased after each use. Most hacking is done through a Trojan virus installed from a source unknowingly thus care must be taken that when downloading software from the internet or installing programs they must originate from authentic and trustworthy sources.
The best solution for me would be to install an anti-virus program and keep updating it regularly so that my computer and network is secure from Trojans and backdoors that allow hackers to gain access to my data. Although most people would opt for a firewall as first priority, I would choose the anti-virus since it would serve multiple purpose of keeping spywares and viruses from my computer at the same time making it more secure from intrusion.
The website proved to be quite useful in the end. Although at times the website looked unstable and I found a few broken links, there was still a lot of information that could be used for other problems too. My first impression of a cluttered website was replaced by the impression of a informative website. Such websites are one window stops for the users as all information can be taken from only one source. Thus I believe that this website fulfills the needs of the users of any need related to information technology.
Where science has given us various tools and techniques to help us tackle many problems, it also has given a weapon to the people to chance their evil on others. However technological problems can only be solved using technological solutions since science created them and only science can put an end to them.
References
The Security Portal for Information System Security Professionals. (n.d). Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning. Web.