Articles in the Information Systems category

  1. Building Security Awareness

    Posted on in Information Systems

    Company X has decided to implement a new security plan. This plan includes changes to the information systems architecture and will impact the day-to-day work activities of many employees. Additionally, many operational procedures will be changed to reflect a more defensive security stance. It is not uncommon for organizations undergoing …

  2. The Benefits of Contingency Planning

    Posted on in Information Systems

    Organizations use contingency planning to ensure the quickest return of information services in the event of a service disruption. A service disruption can be any event that affects the continuity of information services and may range from a human orchestrated denial of service attack to a major earthquake. From a …

  3. Security Breakdowns

    Posted on in Information Systems

    Even a network maintained by the most diligent security professionals will occasionally suffer from a security breakdown. A security breakdown is an incident that results in the opportunity for an information system to be compromised. The breakdown does not have to result in an actual compromise; the opportunity for compromise …

  4. BIP / BTOP Application Mapping Data Was Available

    Posted on in Information Systems

    American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) LogoAlthough it is no longer working at the time of this writing, the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) had made a searchable database of applicant project proposals for the Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP) and the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) available on the USDA site. Unlike the database that is currently …

  5. Proxies and IDS

    Posted on in Information Systems

    Proxy servers have become increasingly popular security devices in corporate networks. It is becoming a standard practice to use a dedicated proxy server to relay Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) requests to web servers protected by a firewall. In addition to relaying HTTP requests, proxy servers can also be used to …

  6. BIP / BTOP Application Database Now Available

    Posted on in Information Systems

    American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) LogoThe National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and Rural Utilities Service (RUS) have made a searchable database of Broadband Initiatives Program (BIP) and Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP) applications available online. The database is meant to give the public an opportunity to research projects that affect them directly. Unfortunately, although …

  7. Additional Complexities in Networked Systems

    Posted on in Information Systems

    Managing isolated systems is already a complicated task. Network connectivity from outside the Local Area Network (LAN) introduces new complexities that must be taken into account when designing an information security plan. The most significant concern when connecting a LAN to the Internet is protecting internal information from external attackers …

  8. Concepts in Cryptography

    Posted on in Information Systems

    Initially, information security was tightly bound to physical security. The introduction of networked systems created a need for a new kind of security system. Not only must information be protected from improper physical access, it must also be protected from outside attackers using the very tools that make distributed computing …

  9. Email and Encryption

    Posted on in Information Systems

    Email communication has become so common, users often forget that there is no inherent security in the common implementation. For general correspondence it might be acceptable to forsake security in the interest of ease of use. After all, the sharing of recipes between old friends is not always a matter …

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