Week 6 students discussions answers - Assignment Example

RESPONSE TO WEEK 6 DISCUSSIONS ANSWERS Response to Week 6 Discussions Answers Joshua Question I totally agree with Joshua, Security Zones is one of the components that can be configured in IE 8, at home or for business to control access, by restricting, denying and allowing access to certain websites. It allows one to configure or set security options that one deems fit for each zone and add remove websites depending or based on the level of security or trust in a website. For business purposes or at work, there are those sites that are trusted and there is a need for them to be added to the trusted sites zone, one of the security zones, so as to enable their access with ease.

However, administrators may allow wish to deny employs access to some sites, as such, they can add them to the restricted sites zone. At home, some websites can be added to restricted sites zone, to prevent kids from accessing them. Additionally, I concur with Joshua that often updating of IE is important wince it helps prevent security vulnerabilities. However, Joshua fails to explain what need to be considered before the decision to update is considered. Before deciding what needs to be updated that a CIO considers whether certain important add-ons, extensions, and plugins would be compatible with the new version.

Catherine Question 2I agree with Catherine that the SmartScreen filter is an important component of the IE responsible of monitoring traffic for any evidence of phishing activity, and as such, should not be disabled, especially in a business setting. I tend to disagree with Catherine’s notion that as long as an older version of IE is working correctly, there is no need for updating to a newer one. Updating to a newer version prevents any sort of security vulnerabilities that might arise. Joshua Question 3I agree with Joshua that restricting the applications run on a workstation helps prevent security vulnerabilities; and it is the responsibility of the system and network administrators to test applications for vulnerabilities and ensure that vulnerable applications are not run on computers.

I also agree with Joshua, that as an end user, I would be agitated with the policy of restricting application being run on a computer due to security reasons, since such restricted applications, may be important to me.I do not agree with Joshua that developer’s hard coding is responsible for the occurrence of application compatibility bugs. In my opinion, application compatibility bugs may occur as a result of updating to a newer operating system. I an organizational context, once the operating system has been updated, it is important that compatible applications are installed or updated accordingly.

Catherine Question 4I totally concur with Catherine that restriction of applications users use ensures consistent workstation environment and offers increased security. It improves resiliency against malware, and ensures system administrators have more control over what users may install, as such providing more management over users configurations, thereby reducing the cost of operation. As an end user, this is quite frustrating, especially when one wants to use a program that one thinks is better that what the organization has provided, and it is restricted.

I also concur with Catherine’s assertion that application compatibility bugs occur for simple reasons such as windows update retiring certain feature that an application depended on or developers hard-coded a windows component that an application were compatible with.