Information Security

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Introduction

Being in 21st century, seeing technological transformations is not a big deal any more.

Today where there are no limits to the enhancements of technological aspects, it has become possible for one

to get all his day to day work done using technologies like desktops and mobile phones, while sitting on a

chair. It is now easy for one to reach any point or perform any sort of work on the internet, without regard

to the geographical or time boundaries. Data have always played the biggest role while performing any

work. One can say that the value of a business is in its data. No matter how small or big a company is,

they always need to have a plan to keep their customer’s information secured enough. A

secured place is always successful in inviting more individuals.

WHAT IS INFORMATION SECURITY?

The practice of keeping essentials safe and only allowing access to information to people who are authorized

to see it is what we call INFORMTION SECURITY. Whether it is digital or non-digital information, IS contains

the strategies for managing the processes and tools to detect and prevent the threats to it. It is critical for

every business to keep its data secured and protected as the value of an organization leads within its data.

U.S. Central Intelligence Agency was the one who started this concept of securing their data and they made

sure that their data is not being altered or used by anyone who is not authorized to access it.

PRINCIPLES OF INFORMATION SECURITY

Information security governs the following overarching four principles:

Confidentiality:

Confidentiality is the property, in which information in the system not disclosed to everyone, only authorized users

can access it.

Integrity:

Integrity is to prevent system information from errors as it ensures the accuracy and completeness of the

information. No user be able to modify information in an unauthorized way to ensure that information is

maintained in the correct state that is expected by the users.

Availability:

Availability of information makes information available for use to authorized users by preventing system failures,

natural disaster and denial-of-service attacks, which forces the system to shut down.

Non-repudiation:

Users cannot deny to send or receive the message or any information. In cryptography, a message matches

the digital signature signed with the sender’s private key. Sender sent a message that nobody else has reformed

it because only the receiver has a key to encrypt the information and this secures the information from the

attackers who might attack.

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR INFORMATION SECURITY?

It’s not difficult to answer this question as the one who is utterly accountable to information security is

“everyone”. Everyone is responsible for securing the data within a business. This can refer from the CEO of

the company to any other employee. Data security is a huge strand for customer satisfaction

and hence acquired by organization worldwide. Adopting security means can mean trouble for anyone.

NEED OF INFORMATION SECURITY

With the enhancing use of technology data is obtaining larger day by day thus the data security has become

necessary to secure valuable data that is considered as an assets for each organization, from being compromised.

It prevents from several software system attacks like virus, worms, Trojan horses etc, stealing of the data

and information extortion as threat reaches the information through the vulnerability.

HOW TO KEEP INFORMATION SECURED?

It’s important to be conscious when it comes about the privacy of your data. With the enhanced usage of

internet technologies, it has become a need for everyone to keep their data preserved. Keeping passwords,

financial, digital and non-digital information safe from unauthorized ones has always been a priority for

businesses, but it is also critical for individuals to let their personal information be secured. And certain policies

are thus planned for the same.

A number of steps are there which can be taken by one to protect their data, most of which are inexpensive and easy to implement.

  • Encryption is one of the most popular security method where data is encoded at the sending end and can only be decrypted by the user who is intended to receive.
  • This technique is applicable to all kind of data protection ranging from government intel to personal credit card transactions.
  • Protected password is the first step of defense against unauthorized users and other threats.
  • There should be a creativity while using password. Make sure your computers, servers, wi-fi connections all are having password protections.
  • Keep the access to your data within the bounds. It’s not so good when you free the access to your data. Unknowingly you open gates for the hackers. It is better to keep your data secured and give access to only recognized and intended user.
  • Hold your delicate data out of cloud. The number of cloud user increases day by day, and it’s not going to slow down.
  • Today not only for exchanging information but we also use cloud to store data permanently. Defining who and under which conditions can access the data on cloud, is one of the major issues.
  • Second issue is that the place where we store data, has actually no rules or we can say its own rules. Therefore, if one day you have to give up your data, it will be not a big deal.

ADVANTAGES OF INFORMATION SECURITY

As thousands of data exchanged daily which might simply be theft by attackers, to form your data secure and defend it

from unauthorized access or provide them access to the licensed folks so nobody can modify it or destroy the

precious information because it is that the most respected plus of any organization and its protection is furthermore a

crucial half. It shouldn’t be compromised and not restricted to the natural disasters or amiss of the system.

DISADVANTAGES OF INFORMATION SECURITY

Now a days there’s an out sized range of data which kept within the kind of bits and bytes and processed in

digital type and hence use of cryptography is vital in use to make the information secured in encrypted form and

solely licensed user can rewrite the information with the actual decoding key however the cryptography for

the information is pricey, long , it should result in delay and needs additional budget on the upkeep of the personal

key and originated the entire state of affairs in needed system. As technology is dynamical a day so users

should purchase upgraded data security.

CONCLUSION

Information security plays a vital role while providing security to the end user and gives access to do any kind of modification like delete or edit it.

Although, there are some major steps that needs to be taken like maintenance of data that should be correct and the privacy of data.

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Written by 

VIkas Vashisth is a Software Consultant and having experience in DevOps. He loves to know about new technology.