Infrastructure and Security
Relationship Between Infrastructure and Security
Data is the most valuable asset for a data collection and analysis company. Therefore, the security of this data should of utmost importance to the company. The context of data determines its overall value. Information Technology for any company is valued based on its ability to present, store, analyze, manage, and protect the data in order to support the operations of the company. Data might have different value based on the type of data, but all data should be kept safe at all times. The value of data is placed depending on the usability of the said data. While any data can be said to be valuable, corrupted or incomplete data would not be valuable to any company (Chou & Sengupta, 2008). Therefore, there is need to ensure and guarantee the safety of data. The infrastructure that is put in place should be aimed at capturing, storing, and securing the data in its entirety. This means that the data should be verified to determine its correctness and when stored there should be systems in place to ensure that its storage is not interfered with in any way. Storage systems should also have backups to ensure that data is always secure and available even if one of the storages fails. Data transmission should be secure to ensure that transmitted data is secure and there is no possibility of the data being accessed when in transmission. The infrastructure that is used for the transmission of the data is what will determine how secure that data is during transmission. There should be strong controls in place to guarantee the safety of data at all time. The nodes that are being used to transmit the data should also be securely set up. This means that the nodes should have adequate security measures in place to safeguard the data before transmission. Nodes should also be setup up properly to ensure that they are secure.
Rationale for The Logical and of The Planned Network
A logical layout shows the logical aspects of the network. This will , the for various hosts and devices, routing tables and other items. In the logical diagrams details regarding actual interfaces and physical cables are not required and they are mostly excluded. A physical layout shows the physical location of devices and the connections between the devices participating on the network. These diagrams depict workstations with small computer icons, servers with full tower cases, rectangular boxes are used to depict switches and other similar devices. The diagrams or layouts are vital for security, troubleshooting, and management reasons. when troubleshooting it is easy to look at the physical layout and determine where the fault might be (Huy & Ahn, 2015). This also makes it easy to establish a problem area as the network is well laid out and presented diagrammatically. Problem resolution is also faster as devices can be easily identified and replaced to resolve a problem.
Security is also beefed up since the visual representation of the network allows one to quickly point out where there is likely to be a security concern. It is easy to understand a visual representation of the network than to have to physically attempt to picture the layout by visiting the different locations. With a better understanding of the network, one can see where there might be security loopholes. It is easier to vision out the possible areas of an issue when it comes to security. This then makes it easy to seal those loopholes and to secure the network.
Management of the network is also easy as through illustration one can identify the possible placement of servers, paths to the internet and firewalls. This illustration allows one to create the most feasible method for placing the servers and other devices on the network. New network administrators will be able to identify devices and their placement on the network. A physical illustration is also beneficial to the upper management as one can demonstrate to them
how devices have been set up and they can easily understand the layout in place. Managing the network is improved in terms of fixing issues and identifying problem areas.
Protect the company infrastructure and assets by applying the principals of confidentiality, integrity, and availability
Confidentiality is roughly similar to privacy. Measures should be taken to ensure that sensitive information is only available to those who are authorized to access such information. Therefore, there will be security levels defined that determine the access privileges of each individual. Data will also be categorized based on the type and amount of damage that can be caused should the data fall in the wrong hands. The policy will determine the severity of data based on the laid-out data policies and this will restrict access to data (Ibrahim, Hamlyn-Harris, & Grundy, 2016). Training can also be implemented for certain individuals to ensure that they understand the complexity and nature of the data that they handle and have access to. The training will include security risks that they should look out for and the different attempts that can be employed in order for people to access the data. There are different methods that can be applied to gain access to the data and training employees on how to detect such methods will guarantee the safety of the organization’s data. Training will be an ongoing thing and different topics should be covered. Security should also be in place to safeguard the data and access to it should only be through a username and password. each user will have their own unique identifier. Servers will only be accessed physically through the use of biometric security.
Integrity is concerned with maintaining accuracy, consistency, and trustworthiness of data at all times. Once data has been entered into the system it should be verified first to confirm its validity. Once this is done, access to the data should only be through the server and network and no user should be allowed to make modifications. All modification requests have to undergo a process of verification before data is modified. Authorized users should also be limited to how much information they can modify. This could be done through the use of version control. Our security policy will ensure that data is not modified while in transit. This is vital because any modifications would be difficult to identify and this might result in data corruption. While securing data in transit is vital there should also be systems in place to detect any changes in data that might have been as a result of human error. There will be backups for all the data that are updated on a daily basis. Redundancies should also be in place for restoring affected data to its original state.
Availability of data is guaranteed by maintaining all hardware. There should be routine hardware check and any hardware issues detected should be acted upon immediately. There should be a clean operating systems environment to . The organization should be current with all system upgrades required in order to seal any vulnerabilities. Availability is also guaranteed by ensuring that there is adequate bandwidth. This will ensure that there are no bottlenecks when employees are trying to access files on the server. Bandwidth will also ensure that traffic is properly routed and there are no delays experienced.
Ethical aspects related to employee behavior, contractors, password usage, and access to networked resources and information
Employees and contractors should at all times be trained to do what is right with the information they have access to. There should be no sharing of passwords, and access to information should not be given to unauthorized persons or co-workers. The policy will layout the undesired things for the employees and those for the contractors. Contractors will be required to present their credentials before they can be allowed to access the organization’s offices. They are also required to only undertake their work and they should not share any information that they come across in the performance of their duty with any other person.
References
Chou, D., & Sengupta, S. (2008). Infrastructure and security Practical guide to clinical computing systems (pp. 37-78). Amsterdam, Netherlands: Elsevier.
Huy, H., & Ahn, G.-J. (2015). Virtualizing and Utilizing Network Security Functions for Securing Software Defined Infrastructure. Paper presented at the Looking Beyond the Internet Workshops.
Ibrahim, A. S., Hamlyn-Harris, J., & Grundy, J. (2016). Emerging security challenges of cloud virtual infrastructure. arXiv preprint arXiv:1612.09059.
