1. Informational Safety Дилбарян Г. Л.

2. Protecting data from electronic invaders is one thing - but how to protect your data in the organization? The usual control is to limit access. Personnel, who works with computers, must be carefully protected. As auditors inspect a company's financial records, also they can inspect a computer to determine who has had access to what and when. Were there any data corrections? Do the same people who wrote the programs run them? An old data security rule was never to let the programmer operate the computer. And be ware of some computer operators who refused to take vacation or sick leave.

3. Password is an old means that still work for limiting access. If you share a computer with somebody else or get used to leave it while you go for lunch, passwords can foil trespasser's plans entering the program or file. True, passwords can be guessed or worked out by experienced spies, but changing them often makes it more difficult. Other cautions are not to post your password on the computer or note on your desk calendar and not to use such easily guessed combinations as your birth date or your mother's maiden name.

4. Used print ribbons should be always shredded or otherwise disposed. If it isn't done permanently, the day you forget to do it will be the day of getting your secrets into the wrong hands.

5. As computers become more popular, so a number of computer crime is growing. Now laptops are decreased in size. It has become even easier to steal a computer. Laptops were stolen from such famous people as the Chairman of Compaq Computer Corporation, Ben Rosen, and even from the General Norman Schwarzkopf! The real danger for many corporations is not to lose the equipment, as to lose valuable, perhaps, irreplaceable information. Thieves can earn $10,000 per a laptop.

6. Of course, companies do have ways of protecting themselves from such crime. Methods vary from locking a computer as a bicycle with a chain up to elaboration procedures to ensure that a stolen laptop cannot be connected to the corporate database.

7. Although today's microcomputer is sturdy, it does not mean that it is indestructible. For example, dropping ashes or liquid into it, using magnets to transfer messages to it, disks with magnetized paper clips or placing the disk you've just spilled coffee on in front of an electric heater. Surge protectors - usually multiple outlet extension cords with built-in circuit breakers -are wise investments. They prevent either the computer or you data from harmful electrical spikes. Some also protect your telephone modem line. Uninterrupted power sources provide backup power that will keep the computer working at least long enough to save your data, some let you keep working even longer.

8. Fire is another danger. Large computer centers are generally protected by smoke detectors and fire extinguishers; they often use commercial off-side storage for backup records -especially copies of sensitive data and customized software. In general, smoke detectors and fire extinguishers are a good idea. Placing them close to your own computer can make it possible for you to extinguish a small fire quickly with no danger for yourself. Off-side storage of your backup records also can help you during grief hours of trying to reconstruct lost files.