Internet
Security : The
Internet and its applications enhance people’s
ability to communicate; you can send messages with
e-mail, browse Web sites, download files from FTP
servers, and even purchase goods and services. Corporate
intranets derive many of the same benefits while applying
the technologies on a smaller scale. Developers have
traditionally focused more on enabling networking
communication than on protecting it, but as more
sensitive transactions are conducted over networks it
becomes more important to protect transmission from
interception and alteration. Most people communicating
over a network assume their data is secure, that
everything they send arrives intact and only at its
desired destination. This is usually true, but not
always.
Lack of security is a critical
problem when dealing with confidential information and
especially when conducting commerce. Is the Web site
really run by the merchant, or is it an illegal
look-alike that just collects credit card authorisations?
If the site is authentic, can a thief read your credit
card number as the data passes over a router? Even if the
number is safe, can the thief alter the delivery address
of the product you’re paying for?
To combat these and other dangers, IT Services focuses
on three main strategies:
- Encryption
– Scrambling
data so it is unusable if intercepted
- Integrity
Assurance – Assuring that received data has not been
altered in transit
- Authentication
– Verifying
a message’s origin and the sender’s
identify
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