Computer Networking and Digital Rights - Essay Example

Empirical indicators that can be used to measure the ‘health’ of IT usage within the company can be achieved with the policy, as it can increase the company’s security; maintain consistent and reliable processes; as well as ensure less idle time and less waste of materials and staff efforts. Hence, the document improves market benefits for the company, as well as reduces costs. It is anticipated that periodic evaluations of the IT policy will reveal that the majority of staff will find IT systems supporting improved management, control, and/or organizational planning, which provide staff with a consistent work environment and encourage the company's culture of collaboration, inclusiveness, and continual improvement. Other benefits to be expected from the Policy are enhanced team spirit; consistency in work performance; staff confidence in the reliability and dependability of co-workers; increased employee satisfaction and decreased perceptions of stress; improved employee morale and training programs; as well as improved customer satisfaction.

Logging and accounting will serve important purposes within the Policy, in that they will aid in the management, tracking, accountability of use, and misuse detection. The logging will especially assist with user monitoring and debugging of the IT systems. Logs can also help to identify and track the intruder if one does get through and provide additional data for other research processes. The Policy will also state the regular frequency of log review and evaluation. The company will use a single firewall program on all its workstations as well as the same version of anti-virus software.

The firewall limits exposure to threats from the Internet and mitigates the client's risk as it inhibits network traffic that does not meet the security policy (e.g. hackers). The anti-virus software and the frequency of mandatory definition updates will be outlined in the Policy. Viruses can destroy critical client data and other company files. The system at Harder and Harder is currently compromised by a worm virus (warez) that has been giving the hackers access and privileges of an authorized network user.

The anti-virus software can attack future viruses and so minimize the risk. However, updated virus definitions are essential to ensure that the software is not rendered useless. And so the Policy addresses these issues. The Policy will aim to discourage employees to use the network in ad-hoc communications, such as with wireless networks. A hacker can attack this system due to the lack of authentication. Ad-hoc networks can allow a hacker to execute a man in middle attacks, denial of service, and/or compromise systems.

Further, the Policy will emphasize education, awareness, and continual improvement among staff. Perception surveys of employee satisfaction, as well as outcome evaluations, will be reviewed to determine the degree of IT security consciousness and knowledge, and compliance with IT policy. The Policy will stipulate ways that security awareness will be increased and maintained, for example through workshops, posters, or in newsletters. Studies show that staffs are more likely to comply with the Policy and to make more of an effort to secure or at least limit behaviors that will put the network at risk.

The Policy will introduce inclusive decision-making staff meetings to come up with IT security solutions.