Information Security in Military

Information Security in Military

Introduction

Significant increases in computer interconnectivity , especially in the use of internet are revolutionizing the way our government , our nation and much of the world communicate and conduct business . The benefit of IT revolution is enormous and vast amounts of information is now available at the click of a mouse , which facilitates research on virtually every imaginable within a short time , sometimes less than a day . However apart from the benefits , this widespread interconnectivity poses significant risks to the computer systems , and more importantly the critical

operations and infrastructures they support , such as telecommunications , national defense including the military war fighting capabilities , government services and emergency services . The same factors which benefit operations , speed and accessibility , if not properly controlled make it possible for individuals and organizations to inexpensively interfere with these operations from remote areas for purpose of fraud or sabotage , or for other malicious , or mischievous purposes . Apart from virus threat natural disasters and inadvertent errors by authorized computer users can have devastating consequences if information security is poorly protected . On the backdrop of this network security has become one of the major concerns of our modern society . As cyber attack gets more and more sophisticated , the problem of detecting them becomes a real challenge (GAO , 2000 ,

.3

Since the late 1990s , most work organizations have come to depend on information technology for internal operations such as record-keeping external transactions such as financial transfers , and mediated communications of all types (e .g , email . As connectivity among devices has increased , so has the likelihood of intrusion , theft , defacement and other forms of loss . Surprisingly , although organizations tend to be more concerned about vulnerability to external threats , recent industry research suggests that a substantial proportion of security incidents originate from inside the organization . Security breaches in organization have spurred increased spending on information security specialists and technology . With an increase in installation of information security measure in most organizations , a substantial IT sub-industry designs , develops , and markets of security devices such as firewalls . One organizational constraint that impacts the effectiveness of these technologies , however , lies in the behaviors of the human agents who access , use , administer , and maintain information resources Appropriate and constructive behavior by end users , system administrators , and others can enhance the effectiveness of information security while inappropriate and destructive behaviors can substantially inhibit its effectiveness (Stanton et al , 2005

Information security alone cannot guarantee protection . One can build the biggest fortress in the world and someone could come up with a bigger battering ram . Information security is the preventive steps one can take to guard information and capabilities . Information is guarded from the exploitation of any vulnerability and against impending threats

What is information security

Most organizations , whether they are government , commercial or military are now highly dependent upon their computer systems and networks in to function . Large amounts of digital data are stored and processed in large computer systems and transmitted between computers linked together in complex communication networks...