Risks Associated with the Internet as Part of a Business Solution - Essay Example

Risks Associated with the Internet as Part of a Business Solution In the past few years, the use of the Internet for carrying out business activities has raised to a massive extent. In fact, the Internet has turned out to be the most important tool that business organizations use to run and improve their businesses. Without a doubt, the substantial growth of the Internet and additional technology enhancements provide the business organizations with a variety of advantages and opportunities as well as allow them to perform their business transactions and processes without any limitations and restrictions of the borders. On the other hand, with frequently growing dependence on the Internet, this technology turns out to be the central infrastructure for the majority of necessary business tasks, as a result making them more susceptible to considerable Internet disturbances. Without a doubt, a variety of security threats and risks exist in all areas of the Internet, and the business processes that make use of the Internet. In this scenario, some of the probable risks and security challenges can comprise disruptions caused by coding error, malicious code, natural disasters that have significant impacts on fundamental Internet routers and hubs, and security attacks and threats posed by terrorists or other attackers. In case of ING business, their important accounting data would be transmitted through the Internet which can be hacked by a hacker and misused later on (Business RoundTable, 2007; Cisco, 2013). The World Economic Forum has estimated that in the coming few years, there would be a 10% to 20% probability of an interruption of the serious information infrastructure that is one of the probably risks it researched. In addition, the global economic cost that the World Economic forum has estimated goes beyond $250 billion, which is surely one of the biggest cost assessments of the risks examined. On the other hand, these financial flow impacts of an Internet problem or threat can cause a wide variety of challenges and problems for the business organizations. In this scenario, some of the problems can include lower incomes, decrease in efficiency, stock market crashes, reduced spending, a decline in consumer self-confidence and a possible liquidity disaster (Business RoundTable, 2007; Cisco, 2013). Analyze ING’s solution for providing security to determine if the solution is adequate or inadequate. Provide a rationale for your answer. Without a doubt, the business of ING Group heavily relies on the information technology and IT is being used in every region of ING Group. According to the case study, the ING Group takes the IT governance responsibility very seriously to make better use of the technology to support their stakeholders. These perspectives clearly appear in their strategies. For instance, the management is strongly committed with the implication of IT with respect to various important aspects such as providing balance sheets and income statement. Without a doubt, the ING Group is serious in securing the data and information of their clients. For this reason they spend more $2.5 billion every year to improve their IT capabilities. In order to run and manage its IT operations effectively, ING Group employs a staff of more than 15,000 staff members, as well as spends more than $1 billion on IT-enabled capital programmes. In addition, the process established by ING Group for the medium-term planning (MTP) consists of an IT unit in which both chief information officer and business owner work in cooperation and perform the role of a chief investment officer. In this scenario, chief information officer works as manager of the corporate investment fund who sensibly balances risk and arrival in the portfolio of IT-enabled business investments. It is clear from the case study that ING Group has successfully established and maintained an IT governance structure that provides an excellent support for active IT investment portfolio management. In order to deal with security challenges and risks, ING Group has implemented a The IT Leadership Council, which comprises a number of chief information officers from different business sectors as well as from the major geographies who offer their feedback and guidance to the IT and Procurement Policy Board on a variety of recent and expected security risks and challenges. Basically, this relationship between the policy board and leadership council is significant, for the reason that, it is the members of the leadership council who are primarily responsible for the execution and implementation of the IT policy accepted as well as guided by the policy board (ValIT, 2006). Critique the extranet solution and recommend one (1) change to the solution to provide better connectivity to brokers. The current solution is based on the extranet, which is basically a private network that makes use of the Internet technology and the public telecommunication system to securely distribute and receive business's information or operations with vendors, suppliers, partners, other businesses or customers. In this scenario, an extranet is believed to be a part of a business intranet that is extended to users outside the firm. However, extranets cannot always be useful for the communication of precious data and information for the reason that these networks use the Internet. In this scenario, the security of the extranets is critical when dealing with critical information. In addition, the company should control and check the system access to make sure that data and information are going into the correct hands. Hence, these networks require extensive security and privacy. In order to make sure the security of these networks, ING Group should implement a mixture of a variety of security techniques such as firewall server management, encryption of messages, the issuance and use of digital certificates or similar means of user authentication and the use of virtual private networks (VPNs) that tunnel through the public network (Rouse, 2007). References Business RoundTable. (2007). Growing Business Dependence on the Internet: New Risks Require CEO Action. Washington, DC: Business RoundTable. Cisco. (2013). Data Leakage Worldwide: Common Risks and Mistakes Employees Make. Retrieved from http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns170/ns896/ns895/white_paper_c11-499060.html Rouse, M. (2007, April). Extranet. Retrieved from TechTarget.com: http://searchenterprisewan.techtarget.com/definition/extranet ValIT. (2006). ENTERPRISEVALUE: GOVERNANCE OF IT INVESTMENTS: The ING Case Study. Rolling Meadows, IL: IT Governance Institute. Read More