Assessment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Assessment - Essay Example 75% of participants in the study indicated they had experienced financial losses as a result of information security incidents (Richardson, 2003). Healthcare organizations are in an especially vulnerable position because of the sensitivity of the information stored on their systems. Accordingly, it is imperative that Healthcare Oganization A adopt and implement an intrusion detection system (IDS). Following a definition of IDS, this essay will argue the imperatives of our organization are adopting such a system. IDSs are similar to home burglar alarm systems, alerting neighbors, homeowners, and law enforcement that someone or something has broken through the security measures. ID techniques attempt to identify and isolate computer and network attacks by observing traffic logs or audit data. IDSs are based on the idea that an intruder can be detected through the examination of various elements. Such as, network traffic, packet elements, central processing unit use, input/output use, and file activities (Proctor, 2001). IDSs are powerful tools used to reduce and monitor computer attacks. The goal of ID is to positively identify all true attacks and negatively identify all non-attacks (Proctor, 2001). ... To fully protect an organization, it is necessary to audit the network on a regular basis for intrusion attempts. An intrusion is any set of actions that attempts to compromise the availability, integrity, or confidentiality of the system. To make an audit easier, a new category of software has emerged: the IDS (Proctor). ID is needed because firewalls cannot provide complete protection against intrusion. Experience teaches us never to rely on a single defensive line or technique. A firewall serves as an effective noise filter, stopping many attacks before they can enter an organization's networks. However, firewalls are vulnerable to errors in configuration and ambiguous or undefined security policies. They are also generally unable to protect against malicious mobile code, insider attacks, and unsecured modems. Firewalls rely on the existence of a central point through which traffic flows. With a growing trend toward geographically distributed networks with internal and external users, there is a greater chance for compromise. Therefore, the absence of central points for firewall monitoring purposes is a relevant concern. A computer system should provide confidentiality, integrity, availability, and assurance against DoS. However, due to increased connectivity (especially on the Internet) and the vast spectrum of financial possibilities that are opening up, more and more systems are subject to attack by intruders. These subversion attempts try to exploit flaws in the operating system as well as in application programs and have resulted in spectacular incidents like the Internet Worm incident of 1988 (Bandy, Money, Worstell, & Saita,