Information System Security essays

Information System Security essays With growth, problems arise; and problems bring on solutions. As information system technologies become, now more than ever, a part of our survival, threats arise as well. The main focus of these threats is to invade our privacy and disrupt our function. Whether to steal our identity for criminal financial gain or just to play a prank to fill a wasted day, cyber crimes have affected peoples homes as well as corporate headquarters. Nevertheless, society has become more aware of the existence of such activity, and is taking steps towards fighting these technological transgressions. The threats on todays information systems include, but not limited to, the following: Spy ware, viruses and worms, spam, cookies, PHISH scams, and malicious acts. A spy ware is a program that is installed on a computer with out the users knowledge; in order to collect information on the user. [19] Spy ware uses the computers processing resources in order to run, and in many cases causes the computer to become extremely sluggish or even totally unusable. [19] There are several types of spy ware; among which are ad ware (installed by advertisers), Trojans (collects personal information and passwords), key loggers (stores every user key-stroke), and bundled installs (spy ware downloaded as part of a useful application). [19] Ad ware is commonly the least problematic out of the different types of spy ware due to the fact that it uses the least amount of processing resources and it helps advertisers collect useful marketing data on customers; however, it can prove cumbersome when it causes pop-up windows to appear. On the other side of the spectrum, Trojans and key loggers collect information for identity theft and fraud purposes. [19] Viruses and worms are programs that are intentionally created to disrupt the functionality of an information system. [22] There are two types of viruses, email viruses and viruses the result from u...