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Information Technology Assignment Question
Your task is to locate the Edith Cowan University (ECU) Information Technology policy and critique / comment on the following:
- Ease of location and access of the policy: What effect does this have on the availability, enforceability and accessibility of the policy?
- How the policy is written: Is it accessible to the general person? Is it easy to understand or does it use obscure jargon? Is it reasonable behaviour to expect from a normal person?
- How is the policy constructed: Is the policy a good one? What makes it a good policy or a bad policy? Does it state what is and is not permitted and why? Is this policy an intelligent one or not? If yes, or not explain why?
- Recommendations.
Information Technology Assignment Answer
Introduction
IT security is gaining centre-stage globally as academic institutions and organisations are fully dependent on computer systems and networks for storing information and knowledge related to their operations (Kraemer, Carayon & Clem, 2009). The report offers a critique and discusses the Information Security Policy available with Edith Cowan University (ECU) (ECU, 2014). IT security management policy defines requirements for information security and protection of all data/information available (Zafar & Clark, 2009) with ECU. The policy is developed to ensure IT security management policies for information processed and/or transmitted in electronic form (Cherdantseva & Hilton, 2013) at the university.
Scope: The IT security management policy must be adhered by all ECU staff, students, council members, contractors and other relevant individuals engaged with ECU along with external visitors seeking information.
IT security is a crucial area for all types of academic institutions and also organisations as they offer to protect intellectual information from misuse, damage or leakage (Baskerville, Spagnoletti & Kim, 2014). The report examines the following aspects of the policy in its current form. The analysis includes,
- Ease of location and access to the policy by users. The effects related to availability, enforceability and accessibility of the policy are discussed.
- The policy is reviewed for its level of understanding. Discussions are provided to highlight whether it is accessible to the general person, easy to understand or whether it uses technical jargon. User behaviour is also explored, and suggestions for improvements in policy are provided.
- The construction of the policy is discussed for its usefulness, whether it is good or bad and reasons provided.
- Recommendations are provided for further improvements and effectiveness.
In addition to the above, the analysis provided in the report will explore on how the information systems policy is formulated for its effectiveness, user controls and permissions in accessing (Felt, Greenwood & Wagner, 2011) ECU information and what constitutes an intelligent policy or not.
Discussions on IT Security Management Policies at ECU
In this section, analysis and discussions related to ECU’s IT security management policies are provided. IT security management is a challenging area, especially for academic institutions, because their IT infrastructure and network make use of different types of connectivity and provide services through the internet. Information security is crucial since academic institutions generate huge amounts of knowledge related to various faculties, and most of their information assets refer to new research findings, and their related knowledge base to result in intellectual rights for the institution.
The information assets are available to users as appropriate based on their functional role and engagement within the institution, and hence, these data must be protected and secured by enforcing a robust security management framework. The security management system must ensure the data available on their computers and servers on their IT network must be protected from misuse, abuse or theft. Some of the common security challenges (Subashini & Kavitha, 2011) faced includes,
- Attacks from the internet, hackers, or vandalism
- Data theft for personal gains (this data includes intellectual property information, passwords, etc.)
- Security breaches in transactions and accounting systems, databases and other assets
- Security threats in the form of unauthorised access, malicious activity, or insider threat, fraud, denial-of-service (DoS) attacks, and so on
- Attacks from viruses, worms, Trojans, malware, etc.