Contemporary Computing As An Assemblage: An Analysis Of Cyber Security

Actor Network Theory (ANT)

• Describe the scales on which the actants in your stories “act” in the assemblage

• Discuss how these actions can enhance management functions

• Outline what issues/questions these actions raise. To achieve this, compare and contrast the viewpoints of a range of theorists and critics explored throughout the module.

• Conclude by summarising how your answers relate to the statement “Contemporary computing can be seen as an assemblage.”

This essay is on Contemporary computing can be seen as an assemblage. It means that the latest and new technologies can be assimilated with the existing technologies. This assimilation can be beneficial for the market. The new technologies can be helpful for the organizations and give them a market advantage. The internet is a fruit of the latest technology.  The internet is present in the world for a long time, yet the technology has boomed in the recent years.  The advancement in Internet, many downsides of using technology appeared in the market. The most important one of them is hacking. This essay is based on two stories on cyber security.

ANT or Actor network theory is a way to deal with the social hypothesis and examination, beginning in the field of science studies, which regards objects as a component of informal organizations. In spite of the fact that it is best known for its questionable emphasis on the limit of nonhumans to act or partake in frameworks or systems or both, ANT is likewise connected with powerful investigates of routine and discriminating human science. It is an approach to managing the examination, and social theory starts in the examination of science is known as performing artisan framework speculation. There are three fundamental principles in the process of ANT. They are generalized symmetry, free association, and agnosticism. The first principle obliges and forces that each understanding made are unprivileged. The second guideline says that by using a lone coherent edge when decoding nonhuman, actants, and human. Examiners must clutch the registers to take a gander at individuals and affiliations, bugs and gatherers, or PCs and their product engineers. The last guideline presumes that by leaving any refinement between social marvel and regular.

Banks are not reporting the digital extortion in light of the fact that they would prefer not to panic clients. A University of Cambridge scientist told a Treasury select board of trustees that the measure of cash being taken from individuals’ records through digital wrongdoing is twice as much as what is accounted for (Ukfast.co.uk, 2015). One senior security proficient in the managing an account area said banks are by always being assaulted by digital culprits, and that banks play down the level of digital wrongdoing.

Banks Play Down Cyber Attack Levels

human actant: customer; hackers; bankers

software actant: algorithms; computer languages (c, java, etc.)

hardware actant: computers; notepads; tablets; servers; networks

structural actant: bank

cultural actant: Hacking

How the actants are working with one another: The banks are not correctly reporting about the cyber attacks on the public or the government. The bank officials took this step so that they do not scare away their clients. The customers of the bank will not feel safe and secure if there are cyber attacks on the bank.  Most of the banks are digitized and have large sets of modern applications. Most of the banks operate in a digital environment to facilitate faster service to their customers. There is the group of hackers who hack into the system or network using computers. Hackers use a variety of computing languages, like C, C++, Java, etc. for performing decoding. The hackers retrieve the important information of the organizations and use them for distorting.

Cyber terrorism: Cyber terrorism is the demonstration of Internet terrorism in terrorist exercises, including demonstrations of planned, huge scale interruption of PC systems, particularly of PCs connected to the Internet. It is performed with the help of devices like PC (Bayuk, 2012). Cyber terrorism is a disputable term. A few creators pick an exceptionally contract definition, identifying with arrangements, by known terrorist associations, of interruption assaults against data frameworks for the main role of making alert and frenzy. By this slender definition, it is hard to recognize any cases of cyber terrorism. Cyber terrorism is the utilization of PC, systems, and the open web to bring about decimation and mischief for individual destinations (Jayaswal, 2010). Targets may be political or ideological since this can be seen as a type of terrorism. There are three types of cyber terrorism. They are simple, advanced and complex coordinated structure. There are many companies and public sector affected by this scenario. The cyber terrorists are trying to create an environment of chaos in the society. They disrupt the society for their selfish motives and goals. They create a social unrest as they completely shut down the system or partially shut down the system. This activity can be harmful to the public sector. The terrorist can hack into the system, retrieve important information of the company or government, and use it for his or her benefit.

Threats in Banking sector:

With the late terrorist assaults, numerous security specialists are worried about the risk to data resources in the United States. While data security has been a key concern subsequent to the expansion of PC systems, the expanded levels of concern has motivated to dedicate more assets to help battle this danger. The various threats that can take place are:

• It is a classic cyber threat that exploits human gullibility via the internet. It typically involves sending emails pretending to be from the user’s bank to named account holders (Jayaswal, 2010). The email is designed to leverage fear, uncertainty or greed to entice the recipient to visit a realistic but bogus bank website and part with personal information and banking details.
   
• It is a combination of SMS text messaging and phishing. It exploits human gullibility via mobile computing devices like smart phones. As people use these devices for activities such as mobile banking, they can again be fooled into parting with their personal and banking details.
   
• It poses a significant cyber threat. It can not only infect customer systems, but it can also infiltrate the banking systems themselves. As we have seen, there are many easy routes into users’ computers or smart mobile devices associated with phishing and smishing. When the victim is lured to malicious websites, scripts can exploit vulnerabilities in their devices to infect them with malware.
   
• Sear Phishing: It is a method by which malware infiltrates banking systems. It involves using social networking sites to gather information on bank employees, especially those who may have privileged access to banking systems. These individuals are then phished or smished using messages supposedly from their corporate HR or Security Managers.

Cyber Terrorism

In the year 2014, UK government took an initiative and implemented the essential CES.  This strategy was implemented in the public sector. It was implemented with a sole purpose of controlling the attacks of the system. There are various benefits and downsides of implementing cyber security in the public sector.

human actant: information technology suppliers; government officials

software actant: algorithms; computer language (c, c++, java)

hardware actant: server; network;

structural actant: public sector

cultural actant: Hacking

How the actants are working with one another: The government officials and the industrial sector are prone to cyber attacks. There are many initiatives taken by these organizations to get a grip on these situations. Many organizations are implementing and using security enhancement in their system. Many organizations hire ethical hackers to combat this situation. The ethical hackers use the organizations computers and server to get into the organizations network and check gaps in the system. It is their job to find loopholes in the system and fix the problems. There are many ways to tighten the security of the organization. The computers or machines are prone to malware, virus or Trojans attack. It can be combated by the use of good antivirus. The virus that affect computes are sets of code that are programmed to enter a computer system and disrupt the system. Antivirus are a set of programs that are designed to catch these virus and remove it from the computer system.

Cyber security: Cyber security is a very important topic these days they are used to invent the new modules of computing in the industry (Mitra, 2010). The most important modules that need to be taken care of are the security measures of information technology.

How can it be helpful for public sector: Cyber security is very essential for the public sectors. They contain a lot of information about the citizens (Carpenter, 2010). The more information technology is used to improve the business of government, the greater the public demand that personal data and critical infrastructure be managed safely and securely (US public-private partnership for cyber-security, 2010). From initial risk assessment to emergency backup and recovery, cyber security is a huge job that is only getting bigger. Agencies have a large and constantly expanding set of information assets and operations, each representing different levels of risk and vulnerability. These resources may be susceptible to internal threats, such as disgruntled employees, and external threats, such as malware, identity theft, hackers and more.

Threats in Banking Sector

Conclusion

This report is on the impact of the modern technologies in the organization. There are two stories present in the essay. The two stories are based on the cyber terrorism and cyber security. The first story is on various banks that do not disclose the cyber attacks and the other is on cyber security implementation in the public sector. Hackers are present in the society for a long time. With the advancement in the technology, the activities of some hackers are disrupting the society.

References

Bailey, L. and Hills, M. (2014). Journal of Law & Cyber Warfare, Volume 3, Issue 1, Spring 2014.

Barnett, D., Sell, T., Lord, R., Jenkins, C., Terbush, J. and Burke, T. (2013). Cyber Security Threats to Public Health. World Medical & Health Policy, 5(1), pp.37-46.

Bayuk, J. (2012). Cyber Attacks. Computers & Security, 31(2), p.251.

Carpenter, S. (2010). Battling Cyber Threats. Science.

Carr, J. and Shepherd, L. (2010). Inside cyber warfare. Sebastopol, Calif.: O’Reilly Media, Inc.

Jayaswal, V. (2010). Cyber crime and cyber terrorism. New Delhi: RVS Books.

Karake-Shalhoub, Z. and Al Qasimi, L. (2010). Cyber law and cyber security in developing and emerging economies. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.

Mitra, A. (2010). Digital security. New York: Chelsea House.

Pilling, R. (2013). Global threats, cyber-security nightmares and how to protect against them.Computer Fraud & Security, 2013(9), pp.14-18.

Probst, C. (2010). Insider threats in cyber security. New York: Springer.

Ukfast.co.uk, (2015). Banks Play Down Cyber Attack Levels. [online] Available at: https://www.ukfast.co.uk/internet-news/banks-play-down-cyber-attack-levels.html [Accessed 7 Aug. 2015].

The UK government will require IT suppliers to comply with the five security controls laid out in its Cyber Essentials Scheme (CES) from 1 October 2014, but what benefits will this bring and is there a downside?

The most obvious benefit is it will raise the overall level of protection by putting security in the procurement process, thereby creating a commercial reason for improving security.

Adrian Davis, managing director for Europe at (ISC)² believes this is a more positive approach than mandating security standards through legislation and regulation.

“It levels the playing field. If accreditation is carried out rigorously, all suppliers can be compared in terms of their cyber security efforts and it provides a baseline from which organisations can build,” he said.

Davis also believes this approach will make it easier and relatively low cost for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to improve their security posture.

“This is important because about 90% of our economy is based on SMEs which typically do not have the resources, the time or the skills to perform information security,” he said.