ING Life Case Study
Technology is rapidly evolving in the modern business world and thus the need for ING Life to embrace new and emerging technologies. New inventions and innovations are coming up and any serious business has to understand the changes that occur in its technological environment. This will ensure that they stay competitive and keep up with the market trends otherwise they will lose business to the competition. There are various risks and difficulties that businesses face in their day to day operations through interactions with their environment and to deal with them, they would have to understand and classify the risks.
The internet, which is widely used as a medium of communication in different geographical areas, is one of the public infrastructures which ING Life heavily depends on for normal business operations. Despite the multiple benefits associated with using the internet, it may come at a high cost to the business. The internet poses numerous risks and difficulties that majority of businesses must face. As such, businesses must keep on assessing their preparedness to face the risks. This should be done on a regular basis, since technology is fast evolving, and without overlooking anything because that may lead to serious damages to the business. Online security breaches has become so common that one would think that businesses would always stay alert for these yet so many are still caught unawares when some of these breaches unexpectedly occur. This is brought about by failure to take the necessary precautions (Joe 2010).
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ING Life challenges
ING Life continues to face an enormous challenges, just like other businesses that depend on the internet. This is mostly in the form of cybercrimes perpetrated by malicious hackers, crackers and attackers. A Hacker is one who is well conversant with computer technology, computer programming and hardware. Hackers utilize the set of these skills to gain access to sensitive business information which they use to commits acts fraud. The hackers’ main motive is to learn about programming and take over another business’s system. On the other hand, crackers get access to sensitive business information which they use to steal confidential client information or interfering with the programming of the hacked system network. Lastly, attackers cause chaos in order to make a name for themselves by targeting various sites where they utilize information that they have gotten from the internet and by doing this they create computer viruses or worms that will interfere with the normal systems functioning.
Security is a major concern for any business operation especially with increased technology; firms have to ensure that they safe guard their data from unauthorized access; they also have to ensure that their data is kept safe from theft, loss or mismanagement. Data theft is likely to happen when employees use their personal mobile gadgets to share data or access company information which significantly increases the risks for the business. Some of the security breaches that occur are caused by employees either maliciously or unintentionally. In order to ensure that their data is safeguarded, ING Life must put in place appropriate precautions such as installing the necessary security software. A good security software can be Cisco pix firewall, a web-to-host software which is used on secure socket layer (Joe, 2010).
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Cisco Pix firewall has the ability to reach and connect to a wider audience because it operates on 1.7 gigabytes per second (Behrens, Riley, & Khan, 2005). Since ING Life needs to reach a wider audience comprising of their increasing number of brokers, Cisco Pix firewall would be the best fit for this line of business. It can enhance the security of ING Life through its numerous features such as state full inspection firewall, IPSec and L2TP/PPTP which is based on virtual private network (VPN). Its content filtering capabilities ensures that it detects any unauthorized entries. The secure perimeters between the networks controlled by the firewall is maintained by Adaptive Security Algorithm (ASA). Incoming and outgoing data is managed by putting in place policies to every entry.
Web-to-host software is whereby a business ensures that it creates a website that enhances client interactions with the business. The website is supported by web hosting services through the use of secure socket layer (SSL) which uses keys and encryptions to secure information sharing between different computes. This is applied by a majority of web users (Stallings, 2009). This ensures to a great extent that information is secure because it operates in two protocols namely records protocol and handshake protocol. In these, authentication is required before an encrypted secure socket layer connection is established. By having a security consultant, ING Life will avoid one or two risks that might have been overlooked because the consultants understand most of these threats and are able to detect them on time and find ways to counter them.
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A business can never be fully secure while operating online. To be safe from these breaches, unauthorized access to company information, theft of information, loss or mismanagement as mentioned in paragraph four, it’s always better to keep track of the changes that take place in the technology front. As much as ING Life has put in place measures to ensure security in their servers, they need to know that innovations in terms of security software occur such that systems must be updated on a regular basis.
The extranet is an online database system that allows businesses to share important information with their clients and suppliers. It is whereby internet can be accessed by both members who are within the network systems but on the other hand it also allows for users who are outside of the network system to gain access to the servers.
The extranet is not secure as the intranet because it is internet based and thus prone to hackers, attackers and crackers meaning that confidential information’s can fall into the wrong hands and cause major damages to a business. The maintenance cost for the extranet server is usually very high which may increase business expenditure (Tan & Wiley InterScience, 2010). The employees of the business will have to be trained on how the system works which translates to additional costs to ensure that this is achieved. The software and hardware used in installation of the system are also very costly. Companies which opt to use the intranet to connect should ensure that they have proper procedures and guidelines on how the system operates.
References
Behrens, T., Riley, C., & Khan, U. (2005). Cisco PIX firewalls: Configure, manage, & troubleshoot. Rockland, Mass: Syngress Pub.
Joe, J. (2010). Internet Security and Your Business –Knowing the Risks. Retrieved from: http://www.symantec.com
Stallings, W. (2009). Business data communications. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.
Tan, H. C., & Wiley InterScience (Online service). (2010). Capture and reuse of project knowledge in construction. Chichester, U.K: Wiley-Blackwell.
