INFORMATION SECURITY

Contemporary issues of Information Security and proposed solution to CA Technologies

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Contemporary issues of Information Security and proposed solution to CA Technologies

Background of the Company

CA Technologies is one of the largest independent software development companies of the world and listed in the list of fortune 500 companies. The company headquarters in USA, however, it has branches and franchises all over the world. The company employees more than 13,200 people and have generated nearly $4.35 Billion by the end of the fiscal year of 2010. The basic service CA technologies offers include software management and solution. The main aim of the company is to provide IT services to its different clients from all over the world. The company claims to provide efficient IT solutions with complete security in every manner, including security of information as well. The company was founded in 1976, by Russ Artzt, Charles B. Wang, and named the company as Computer Associates International, Inc. (CA Technologies, 2011)

What is Information Security?

The information security is the set of measures to prevent unauthorized use authorized, misuse, modification or denial of use of a set of knowledge, facts, data or resources. The term refers to information security so that company can take preventive measures to protect the information and means. The three attributes of information security are:

Confidentiality

Accuracy

Availability

In connection to information security, internationally a standard have been introduced, which is based on the experiences and intensive researches so that risks to information security could be minimized. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, in a joint effort with the Information Technology Sector Coordinating Council, has published a report of 114 pages with multiple attack scenarios meticulously prepared for key IT infrastructure, which could cause damage to a national level. The report also refers to the elasticity of the IT sector to minimize the occurrence of such faults. (NIST Special Publication 800-35, 2009)

Information Security: Potential risks and threats

Companies are now increasingly using information systems to optimize their operations and improve profitability. Information security has become an inescapable problem. Unauthorized access or malicious systems can leads a computer company within minutes to a huge financial loss. In order to minimize the effects of business companies are spending more money on keeping their information secure, but with increasing technological advancement risk of information security is also increasing. Here are two recent incidents that illustrate the kind of financial loss caused by the attack important computer systems. (NIST Special Publication 800-30, 2010)

On February 8, 2002, Amazon.com, Yahoo, eBay and E*Trade could not control the flow of data which flooded their servers for 90 minutes. At the height of the attack on Yahoo's server receiving a data stream with a throughput of 1 Giga bite/s. The electronic auction site eBay has estimated the cost of the attack to approximately $80,000 of security investments. According to the Yankee Group, analyst firm specialists Internet economy, time off of work from Amazon.com it will cost more than $240,000, also according to the same analyst firm, the attack on the servers ...