Essay Example on Data Security: A Growing Concern in Our Digital World

Introduction

The world we live in revolves around and is driven by information. This is data ranging from general social media data about people and companies to the sensitive and exclusive data on the same. With the rise and dominance of technology and the internet, information has proven to be a potential threat point to individuals, companies, and organizations. Over the years, hackers have stolen, manipulated, fabricated, and misused information and victimized individuals, groups, and organizations. Such threats are what has necessitated information security. There are many varying definitions of information security. Still, they all revolve around the central idea that information security involves the protection against unauthorized access, disruption, modification, recording, inspection, use, disclosure, or destruction of information. This is done through the management of tools, policies, and processes that can detect, document, prevent, and counter threats on information, therefore, protecting the owners of that information. This article looks into the history of information security, establishing a link with its present. It also explores the objectives and principles as well as the phases of the concept's development life cycle. Later, the article describes the various advantages, disadvantages, and applicability of information security to the business. Each of these areas is to help establish information security as a critical concept in today's world.

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History of Information security

The history of information security is rooted in computer security. It was the initial need to secure computers that gave birth to information security. During World War Two, war techniques had diversified, and different military camps were communicating in codes. To decode what was being delivered, Engineers developed mainframe computers that would help in computations for communication code-breaking. With these computers proving critical to the war exploits and efforts against enemies, they were often target points. This necessitated the need to secure the software, hardware, and physical locations of those computers from threats (Murphey, 2019). Several different approaches were taken to ensure the security of these invaluable devices. And with the springing of technology, multi-tier classification security systems were developed and adopted to protect the mainframe computers and to maintain the discretion and integrity of their data. Different bits of the information would be encrypted differently to maintain secrecy. Alan Mathison Turing, an English computer scientist, mathematician, logician, and cryptanalyst, was the first to successfully decrypt the Enigma Machine being used by the Germans to encrypt war (Garg, 2018). To safeguard information access, the Germans had restricted access to sensitive military locations, allowing only those that had the required keys and badges. They also included facial recognition authorization of personnel by the security guards.

After such restrictive security measures, advancements began being made focussing more on safeguarding the information as much as they had secured the computers. This came on different phases that can be identified as the milestones in the history of information security. The following are those milestones. The first was

Password protection

This phase of information security occurred in the 1960s. Since there was no internet, the best way to secure data was by restricting access to computers holding the information. At this time, companies wanted to secure and guard their data with a fear of it being altered or stolen. The only possible threat was anyone with knowledge on how to use a computer. Therefore, multiple security layers and passwords were used to secure the information.

CREEPER to Reaper

This phase began as a research project in the 1970s on the then ARPANET (The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network). Bob Thomas, a researcher, managed to create a computer program that could move ARPANET's network, leaving behind a minute trail of all the places it went through. The path was a consistent message that read, 'I'M THE CREEPER: CATCH ME IF YOU CAN' (Murphey, 2019). Bot ther5efore named the program the CREEPER. Ray Tomlin later made advancements to Bob's program enabling it to self-replicate. He also engineered a program called the Reaper. This could follow the CREEPER everywhere it went and delete it, forming the first example of an antivirus. The whole system was used to aid in the networking of different computers. Because the networking was done using cables, ill-minded people found a way to infiltrate the cables and steal the data.

Robert Morrison

In the 1980s, more and more computers had been connected, and this was matched with more advanced hacking. The stolen information was being misused more and more. In 1986, for example, Russian intelligence, KGB, had one of their agents hack into more than four hundred US military computers for intel. To curb this rise in hacking and infiltrations, Rober Morrison designed a worm that would propagate across networks, infiltrate terminals through a known bug, and copy itself (Lynett, 2015). It was broadly used because it could identify faults that allowed infiltrations. It would, however, soon cause havoc with its self-replication ability causing lag and enormous damage.

The Rise of Firewalls

By the early 1990s, the internet was available to the public, and more and more people were putting their information on the web. Hackers saw this as a source of revenue and infiltrated more networks stealing critical data. This necessitated the creation and mass production of firewalls and antivirus programs to secure the data from the reach of these notorious hackers.

Cybercrime Becomes a Crime

In early 2000, the government acknowledged the dangers and extents of hacking. It began viewing hacking as a crime and switched from the previous light punishment methods to decades of jail terms for those found guilty of the crime. This was, however, after much damage and loss of information and money had been caused by hackers.

Having realized that firewalls and antiviruses cannot hold cyber-attacks and hacks, more and more advancements have and are being made to bolster information security. Today, data is encrypted at many different levels to ensure its entirely unreadable for unau5thorized persons.

Principles of Information Security

Information security systems and programs are built around the objectives of the CIA triad. These are Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability.

Confidentiality

This objective ensures that information is only disclosed to authorized individuals, processes, and entities. This makes sure that any unauthorized person, program, or entity cannot access the information. This makes the first critical principle of information security. What would the security be about if anyone could access the information anyway? Confidentiality is maintained through the use of encryption keys that allow access only to those authorized.

Integrity

Here, integrity means maintaining the accuracy and completeness of data. Data that is secured ought to be free from any unauthorized modifications like those that occur when a system is hacked (Rouse, 2017). When reading back, it should be exactly as it was written. At times hackers could alter and modify information to suit their exploits. Information security, therefore, is dedicated to preventing any such unauthorized modifications, making sure that the data remains complete and accurate.

Availability

This means that the information is available whenever needed. It is the duty of the information security systems employed to avail of any data when requested by authorized personnel or programs. This objective seeks to ensure that new information can be used promptly, and backed up data can be restored in short recovery time (Rouse, 2017). Not meeting the objective would have data taking unnecessarily long to be restored.

There are additional principles that help ensure information security systems are effective. These include non-repudiation, authenticity, and accountability. Non-repudiation means that the sender cannot deny sending a message, and the recipient cannot deny having received a message. This is maintained through the use of cryptography key signatures unique to every computer or program. Authenticity means the verification of users to make sure they are who they say they are and that each input getting to a given destination is from a trusted source (Garg, 2018). An example of this re the google accounts verification techniques that one has to pass in case they log in to the accounts on a different device. Accountability means that an action can be traced back to its particulate entity.

Advantages of Information Security

Information security and information security systems have an array of benefits to different fields. The first advantage is that information security keeps vital private information away from the wrong hands. Out there, there are hackers, criminals, and terrorists that try very hard to get their hands on crucial private information to use on criminal activities such as blackmail and extortion. Information security makes sure that these people don't get their hands on that data.

Second is that it safeguards government secrets from terrorists and enemy states. There is a rich history of data infiltrations that saw many valuable secrets of different countries being sold to terrorists and enemy countries. Such information is easily used to plan attacks against the victim country and government. Information security makes sure that that does not happen.

A third advantage is that the systems make it easy to use, store, and retrieve data (Millar, 2009). One of the objective principles of information systems is availability. This seeks to ensure that data can be used, stored, and restored at acceptable recovery speeds. Information security, therefore, provides reduced lad and delays in the processing of information, making it easy and possible to peruse through current and backed up data.

Another advantage is that it helps combat cybercrime. With the use of user signatures and accountability measures, it is easy to backtrack an infiltration and pick-point the exact entity responsible in a much easier way than in the '90s. This ensures a continued guard against technology crimes, even with more and more advancements.

Disadvantages of Information Security

Just like any other system, information security has its problems. These include its continued demand for upgrades. Technology keeps changing as new advancements and innovations are made. This forces information security systems to keep demanding updates to match the technology advancements. A good example is the yearly windows operating system upgrades. When these are installed, information systems, firewalls, and antiviruses require updates to ensure compatibility with the windows advancements. These have to be purchased, and they are more often than not, expensive.

The fact that technology is ever-changing is another disadvantage. When the Morrison worm was invented, it looked super secure. Technological advancements, however, rendered it prone to attack and self-destruction. This means that as long as there are continual technological advancements, nothing will ever be entirely secure. Even banks with sophisticated security systems still get robbed. The complexity and sophistication of the systems can also be considered as a disadvantage.

In organizations, information security can be applied to ensure the safe operation of applications and software. This is because the security system will ensure no unauthorized persons have ac...