The Internet & the Web in Organizations-Free-Samples for Students

Question: You are required to engage in reflective and academic discussions on the forums in ITC596s interact site and curate your responses for submission. Answer: The Internet and the Web in Organizations Internet and the web occupy a larger part of the peoples life in todays world as it is completely unimaginable to lead a business without the involvement of the internet or the web. The involvement of the internet in daily operations considerably helps in business enhancement by automating the processes and complex business operations that can be seen within an organization. The use of internet is more prevalent in nowadays as it not only helps in proper management of the business operations running inside an organization, but also helps in reaching a wider audience. This is particularly because the internet and the web is an important tool of marketing. A company website can considerably help an organization in reaching a wider audience. It can further help a business in achieving a perfect image. The web and internet helps in reaching the customers of all age but more prominently helps in targeting the younger audiences (Baker, 2012). Ensuring a proper communication with the custom er is important for any business, which can be more conveniently achieved with the help of the internet. Many organizations are able to communicate with the customers via email or other similar medium, which might not have been possible without internet. Furthermore, the use of internet and the web have considerably simplified the way of collecting data and records that might be useful for setting up a business goal. A proper and an extensive research can be carried out by searching on the websites and the other available databases. This concept is called data mining. Its helps in retrieving many vital information that might be very useful for a particular business. This information includes, the latest market trends, stock exchange rate and so on. Furthermore, the internet and the web help the business in reaching a wider audience in terms of global audience. E-commerce website further helps in growth of business globally. Apart from this, the internet helps in managing the communication with the people in an organization that is based on different locations. Transactions can be carried out more conveniently with the online tools and therefore it can conveniently be said that the internet and the web plays a major role in organizations. However, the use of internet and web in the organization is subjected to certain risks or threats that may hamper the performance of the organization. Denial of the service attack is one such threat that can freeze all the operations of a particular network for some time. Apart from this, the storage and retrieval of data online is subjected to a number of risks that includes loss or modification of the private and confidential information due to a malware (Kessler, 2014). This might cause a huge loss to the company. Other threats include the botnet attack that is generally initiated by an intruder in order to gain access or control all the systems connected in a particular network. Phishing is another such threat that in prevalent in the organizations where the intruder trying to interpret a communication by hacking a communication channel (Dillman, Smyth Christian, 2014). Therefore, an organization needs a proper information system in order to mitigate the risks that a company mig ht face while making use internet and the web. WannaCry ransomware attack of 2017 WannaCry ransomware attack is one of the most sophisticated attacks of the recent time. More than 200,000 victims all over the world have been infected by this malware, out of which the NHS was one of the worst affected victims. This attack was launched on May 12 this year that infected more than 230000 computers. The malware locked all the files present in a computer system and demanded a ransom from the owner in form of bitcoins. If not paid within a stipulated time, all the files from the computer are deleted permanently. The attack was dangerous as the malware was able to transfer to the different systems connected over a single network without human intervention (Mohurle Patil, 2017). The WannaCry malware mainly targeted a large organizations as it could spread through the organizations internal network. A malware can spread through a number of ways. The WannaCry ransomware targeted the vulnerability of systems that were running on and older and un-patched version of the Micros oft windows. This global attack could have been prevented if proper measures were taken. The steps that are needed to be taken in order to prevent this type of attack in future are as follows- A proper information security system can be implemented in the organizations in order to mitigate the risk of entry of any malware into the system. Every system should have a proper antivirus installed in order to identify any malware invading the system. The antivirus should undergo regular updates in order to mitigate the risk of viruses or malware infecting the system. WannaCry ransomware targeted the systems that were not patched. Microsoft had released the patch earlier and has asked its users to update to a newer version of the operating system. Therefore, it is essential to keep the patches of the operating system up to date. Apart from this, the windows firewall should never be turned off as it plays a vital role in detecting an intruder into the system. Phishing or spam emails is one of the major sources of malware propagation. Therefore, the emails received from the unknown sender should be handled cautiously. The unknown link or attachments should not be opened. The email spam setting should be personalized in order to mitigate the risk of information theft. Use of a proper security suite may help in detecting and eliminating a malware present in the system and can further help in browsing through a public network or WIFI (O'dowd, 2017). The WannaCry ransomware would not have taken such a dangerous form if the ransom were not paid. Therefore, it is always a good idea to keep a regular backup of the files, which can be restored in emergency situation like this attack (Gordon, Fairhall Landman, 2017). References Baker, J. (2012). The technologyorganizationenvironment framework. InInformation systems theory(pp. 231-245). Springer New York. Dillman, D. A., Smyth, J. D., Christian, L. M. (2014).Internet, phone, mail, and mixed-mode surveys: the tailored design method. John Wiley Sons. Gordon, W. J., Fairhall, A., Landman, A. (2017). Threats to Information SecurityPublic Health Implications.New England Journal of Medicine,377(8), 707-709. Kessler, G. C. (2014). Denial?of?Service Attacks.Computer Security Handbook, Sixth Edition, 18-1. Mohurle, S., Patil, M. (2017). A brief study of wannacry threat: Ransomware attack 2017.International Journal,8(5). O'dowd, A. (2017). Major global cyber-attack hits NHS and delays treatment.BMJ: British Medical Journal (Online),357.