Essential Components of the Internet - Essay Example

An intranet hosts several private websites and constitutes a crucial focal point and a component of internal collaboration and communication. All the essential components and protocols of the internet such as SMTP, FTP, and HTTP are found in intranets. Setting up web-style company information for employees to access presents several security risks that need to be addressed (Oppliger, 2012).

Since information is shared on the intranet from various serves within the location, the administrator of the company network needs to ensure proper security permissions for various folders so that only authorized persons to get access to it. Depending on the nature and sensitivity of the information in the intranet, there can be security measures that enable copying information from server hard drives and not vice versa. There is a need to hide shared folders to reduce the temptation for users to scan through the folders. There is also a security concern to investigate the confidentiality of information posted to the intranet before the actual posting. Special passwords need to be imposed upon some confidential company information.

If CGI scripting forms a component of the intranet, the intranet administrator has to ascertain proper security. The server hosting the web pages for intranet information needs to have the latest security packs installed. This is especially essential where IIS is concerned. To reduce the risks of intranet security and ensure the protection of intranet information, our institution has adopted the model of the Canadian Mounted Police. The security model is based on eight security levels. For our intranet needs, the most essential of the eight levels are communications, data, and software and operations security.

Communication security ensures that our institution’s intranet is protected from external networks. It ascertains that the intranet is safe from external hacking and other threats to information security by the use of firewall hardware. Firewalls control the traffic in communication networks by examining the information that passes through these networks and restricting information flow selectively. Our company’s intranet employs three basic technologies to ensure security; server-based communication transmission for every application software, server-based communications filtering, and router-and server-based packet filtering. Other than communication security, software protection takes the highest precaution in the organization. As in the internet, intranet software protections are based on application programs in browsers. Ensuring security in our organization’s intranet involves the establishment of the trustworthiness of CGI Scripts and Intranet Applications (Oppliger, 2012). The intranet application software of our company always checks the correctness of user inputs before allowing the inputs to operate.

In addition to communication and software protection of our intranet, the company also ensured data protection to decrease the likelihood of internal information security threats. The workforce has all the necessary guidelines relating to all materials published on the company’s intranet. Furthermore, operations protection is the other essential aspect of our intranet protection. It ensures that the technical security precaution measures described before are implemented without compromising the efficiency of the network as the users perceive it.