Data Networks, IP, and the Internet - Essay Example

Together with that, I was hired as an independent contractor thus restricted to certain information concerning the confidentiality of the business. The reason that leads to restriction of certain information is merely because such contracts are short lived. The firm may, therefore, fear providing all the essential information that may affect if revealed.  Under the IT contracts that the contract was based upon, contractors lack the technical and/or the operational history in examining the contracts.                                                                                                                     A contractor takes up a project without any knowledge of whatever might happen during the implementation of the strategy. The firm provided no information concerning the background history of the project and thus it becomes difficult to retrieve any information. In this case, in order to avoid future complication, the IT contracts should be reviewed and amended since this is a problem that is in existence. There is a need for the contractors to read the contractual agreement, understand it, and, agree to it after being convinced that it adheres to the required principles (Clark, 2003).     

Q62.

 What is the difference between Encryption, Virus, VPN and Firewall Securities?

The moment a computer is interlinked to other computers on a network, its content is vulnerable to risk. Thus, there is the urgent need to secure the computer from emerging threats such as viruses and hackers. Within the computing environment, it is very important to offer detection, prevention, and remedial actions for virus attacks. For this reason, there is the need of making a comprehensive analysis based on the vulnerability of computers to the security threats (Clark, 2003).

Difference between the firewall and encryption

Traffic to and from a computer is filtered by a Firewall while Encryption makes the traffic incomprehensible.

Difference between firewall and Anti-Virus

A firewall can either be hardware or software which prevents connections from malicious users while Anti-Virus finds executable programs such as Trojans which would rather damage files in the computer.

Difference between Firewall and Virus

A firewall prevents the computer from network attacks and limits exposure while a computer Virus is referred as a software program that can cause immense harm to the computer because of its ability of reproducing itself.

1. a) Encryption is mostly used in electronic commerce in order to offer to protect customers’ private financial data. There have been instances where hackers steal credit card numbers and hence the need to use data encryption programs.

Viruses that are harmless may just cause a cryptic message to emerge when the computer is turned on since it is engineered to copy itself into other programs. A virus can be used in copying viral code into several numbers of files and other programs stored in the computer.

VPN is used in creating a wide area networks in a vast geographical area. This technology has been adopted by mobile users and companies that have branch offices because it can configure itself within a public network as a private network.

Firewall keeps the computer secure from intruders because they give secure access to the internet. Also, it separates the company’s public webserver from its internal network thereby making filtering unwanted packets.

1. b) Prevention and resistance is the most effective means of dealing with external threats. With this in mind, the use of preventive measures such as Firewalls will keep intruders at bay.
2. c) A diagram illustrating intranet and extranet.

Source: Clark, M. (2003).Data networks, IP, and the Internet: protocols, design, and operation, Chicago: John Wiley and Sons.

1. d) The security diagram is fail safe because there is a Firewall which will filter unwanted packets. While the Company has a secured VPN and this will mean that its branches are secure. It is cost effective in the sense that it will save time and money. Given that, when a computer is affected by a virus it means that the company will have to shut its operations (Clark, 2003).