Introduction
There have been numerous information technology advances which have revolutionized the management and running of organizations. It is important that these technologies and automated systems are protected from intrusion, interference, and manipulation by unauthorized parties. This is because it could be disastrous if sensitive data or access to the IT systems in an organization falls into the wrong hands especially if these parties/individuals have malicious intent.
Definition of IT Security
IT security is concerned with providing the necessary protections to prevent unauthorized access to confidential data and systems thus making them secure and highly reliable. This means protecting the systems and sensitive information therein
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Confidential information can include an individual 's personal information, classified materials with national security implications and commercial intellectual property (Kim & Solomon, 2016). In the US, there are laws that protect confidential information and IT systems. These legislations require businesses and organizations to have security control mechanisms that protect the confidentiality of sensitive information.
Safeguarding data confidentiality is not always easy as technological advances also provide means of easily accessing information from remote locations and making it accessible to many people (Dhillon & Backhouse, 2000). This is despite the numerous technologies that have been designed to protect sensitive data. However, the breach of data confidentiality is not limited to technological shortfalls. The human factor also contributes to data and systems breaches either intentionally or otherwise through carelessness. This threat to IT security has grown in recent years to become a major source of concern (Hu, Hart, & Cooke, 2007). IT security policies thus need to be amended to address this growing threat. This can be achieved through putting in place processes and mechanisms that limit the amount and kinds of sensitive data that is accessible to any employee. Additionally, the employees in every organization need to be
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In order to counter this, organizations and businesses can utilize firewalls, proxy servers, and any other useful security software. Another threat to availability may arise from bottlenecks due to inadequate communication bandwidth to handle increases in traffic. Natural disasters such as fires, floods or even earthquakes can cause interruptions or even loss of data. For the system to be reliable and dependable it should have redundancies, power and data backups, and frequent hardware maintenance to make sure that everything is working at optimal capacity (Marian, 2007). Moreover, the communication bandwidths should be expanded to accommodate reasonable surges in data