MANAGING RISK

CYBER CRIME The use of the internet and developments in IT bring with it a risk of cyber crime. Credit card details are stolen, hackers can break into bank accounts and steal money and move it to other accounts. Unlawful purchases can be made from undesirable sites and unscrupulous organisations can offer illegal wares to the general public and adult products to under age consumers. Diverting financial assets – megabyte money – criminals are able to transfer sums of money across the Internet easily and quickly. Sabotage of communications – Virus’s through attachments. Bugs are likely to occur where where software is introduced prematurely onto the market without sufficient testing. Wireless telecommunications area also subject to sabotage – mobile networks. Anti Virus – software to protect your system – firewalls – blocking device

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY THEFT Two main types of business: those that provide a service and those that make and /or sell products. Exclusive right s to a product – patent – cannot be copied – copyright. When a person or organisation copies or uses patented or copyright material without the owners permission this is called stealing intellectual property. This is a major problem with copyright material that is made available on the internet. Many people copy and paste information from the internet and pass it off as their own. This is an illegal activity and is known as plagiarism.

DENIAL OF SERVICE ATTACKS Interruption to the operation of a network. Denial of service can happen when a site is bombarded with requests fro a page and the site jams. Preventative technologies – these can aid the management of risks. They include systems that monitor compliance with data protection and firewall software that can prevent access to certain undesirable websites. Firewalls – hardware or software that limits access to and between networks. Firewalls use filters to block unauthorised material and potentially dangerous attacks such as viruses from entering the system Controlled access – password required to log in. Secure areas in a network requires password access and wireless networks need a secure enabled to limit unauthorised access.

Phishing – criminals send out fraudulent s that claim to be from a legitimate company with the aim of obtaining the recipients personal details and committing identify theft. Secure payment systems – paypal offer the VeriSign Identity Protection Network (VIP). Padlock for secure sites. Disaster recovery – organisations and individuals should have a plan for ensuring that information stored electronically is not only secure, but also backed up. Organisations should have a formal disaster recovery plan setting out clearly what they should do in the event of a range of disastrous scenarios. Specialist accounting software often have a simple process for restoring accounts if they become accidently over written or corrupt. Data protection act does not only apply to file servers but also PDA’s Risks become threats only when organisations choose not to move with the times.