Information system can be defined as the organized system for executing various operations of information (Willcocks, 2013). This is the significant study of complementary networks, which organizations or people solely utilize for collecting, filtering, creating, distributing and processing of data. It is the group of several components which interact for producing information and focuses on internal information and not on the external information. This type of information system can either be the combination of hardware, business processes, business functions, software and data that help in increasing management and efficiency of the organization (Peltier, 2013). The transmission or the dissemination of data or information is easily represented for client or user. The software that helps to run a completely computerized database is termed as the core part of information system.
The following report outlines a brief discussion on the information system of the leading telecommunications system of Australia, namely, Telstra Corporation Ltd. This report will be clearly outlining the most significant malwares and threats against the information system within this particular organization with proper justifications. The reliability and availability of the web services are also mentioned here. Moreover, the Microsoft Exchange Server that is utilized by Telstra is also provided here. Five types of network security devices for controlling security and mitigating threats will also be given in the report with audit log reports. Relevant details would also be provided here.
Malware is the basic type of malicious software or intrusive software. The most common and popular types of intrusive software are the Trojan horses, spyware, ransomware, viruses and many more (Stojmenovic & Wen, 2014). Malware is the most dangerous and threatening software that can be causing serious issues or problems for all the business operations in any specific organization. All types of malicious actions or activities could be taking the basic form of executable code or script. The malware comprises of malicious intents that can be eventually acting against several types of requirements or needs to use any computer system. The malware is absolutely vulnerable to any business or organization and thus Telstra Corporation Ltd. can easily face the situation (Ahmed & Hossain, 2014). There are several important and significant malware threats that are extremely dangerous for the information system of Telstra Corporation Ltd and hence affecting their business operations. They are as follows:
i) Adware: The very first kind of this malware is adware for Telstra Corporation Ltd. Adware can be defined as the advertising supported software and it is responsible for providing several advertisements automatically (Power, Sharda & Burstein, 2015). The several significant examples of the adware malware could be pop up advertisements that eventually come up on the various web sites and are displayed by adware. Hence all the business operations are highly affected by adware and the information systems become slower than usual in Telstra.
ii) Bots: The next type of threat is bots. Bots are typical software programs, made for the performance of several operations in any information system. Some of the bots are made for harmless causes such as video gaming and internet auctions (Hashizume et al., 2013). However, maximum bots are dangerous and are utilized to introduce vulnerabilities in the systems.
iii) Bugs: The third type of malware threat is bug. It is extremely common for any information system and helps in producing the undesired outcomes. The several flaws such as human errors are common for creating bugs and they mainly remain within the compiler code or source code (Gallagher & Sixsmith, 2014). The popular and important type of bugs is security bug and it is responsible for enabling the hackers to stop the authentication of users. Bugs can be dangerous for the Telstra Corporation Ltd. and should be mitigated on time.
iv) Ransomware: This is the most basic kind of malware threat and is responsible for holding any specific system captive for the purpose of demanding ransoms. The typical user’s access could be eventually blocked by ransomware by encryption of files.
Telstra is responsible for providing various services of information system for their users and employees. Exploitation of such services is extremely common with the help of various attacks (Stair & Reynolds, 2013). Three important types of network security devices are utilized within the business of Telstra Corporation Ltd. These three devices for network security are as follows:
i) Routers: The first device for network security within Telstra is router. This router is the specific device that helps to forward several data packets in the networks of computer. Router even performs the several traffic functions over the connectivity of Internet (Li, Hsie & Rai, 2013). All of these packets of data are eventually forwarded from any one router to the other and all the routers are subsequently linked with the several data lines from numerous networks. The networking operation is easily performed by the help of Telstra Corporation Ltd.
ii) Modems: The second device for network security in Telstra is modem. This modem helps to modulate all the carrier wave signals for the purpose of perfectly encoding the respective digital information and thus demodulating or transmitting this signal (Ahmed & Hossain, 2014). Hence, the previous information or data is easily decoded in the process.
iii) Ethernet Hubs: The third device for network security in Telstra is Ethernet hub. This hardware helps to connect the several devices of Ethernet and hence all of these devices work as one network segment.
All of these devices of network security are absolutely vulnerable to any type of destruction, threat or system quality issues. The major reason of these types of problems is the lack of firewalls or antivirus within the systems (Ifinedo, 2014). Absence of security measures is again another important reason for these.
Telstra has been eventually utilizing the specific Windows Server 2012 web service for perfectly hosting their website. Several requirements are to be met for all the web servers and within them, availability and reliability are considered as the most important of all. Reliability can be defined as the significant ability for computer aided hardware or computer aided software (Hashizume et al., 2013). Hence, this is helpful for performing perfectly as per the provided requirements. The factor of reliability of this web service is absolutely dependent over performance of the website. The most important points that help to resolve the reliability of web server in Telstra are given below:
a) Continuous Internet connection is the most significant factor for the determination of reliability of Windows Server 2012.
b) Respective hardware of the server should be maintained properly to maintain the stability and reliability of Windows Server 2012.
iii) The stability to the power or environment in hosting facility is also important for the determination of reliability of Windows Server 2012.
The second factor of availability of the web service of Windows Server 2012 is eventually determined by the few following factors:
a) Continuous availability of this web server would be the very first requirement (Arvidsson, Holmström & Lyytinen, 2014).
b) Maintenance of Windows Server 2012 on a monthly basis is the second factor for determining availability.
Telstra is utilizing Microsoft Exchange Server or MES for the purpose of providing email service to all of the employees or staffs (Singhal et al., 2013). This specific server is absolutely important and effective for any organization. The operating system of this particular server is known as Windows Server and various versions are also present for them. Telstra Corporation Ltd ensures confidentiality as well as integrity for staff emails by some of the major factors. Confidentiality is solely ensured by the various factors and within them, the most significant factor to ensure confidentiality of Microsoft Exchange Server is for being sure that only authenticated users are reading the emails (Ifinedo, 2014). Encryption is the basic method to maintain authentication. Integrity could be ensured by the most basic factor that various attackers as well as hackers cannot alter this confidential data and then the integrity of data is maintained properly.
The employees of the department of information technology of this particular organization reported that several issues are present in the web mail and web server. The various vital malware, security issues or threats are absolutely present for being vulnerable to the web mail and web server (Ifinedo, 2014). As per priority, all these malware types, issues of security and threats are given below:
i) Computer Virus: The important threat or danger to this web server is the computer virus. This could be defined as the typical type of malicious software or malware or program, which when executed, substantially replicates itself and thus the main code is being inserted (Kadam, & Onkar, 2015).
ii) Phishing: Email phishing is the next kind of threat and this the major attempt to obtain the confidential data or information like usernames, email details and passwords after being disguised as the trustworthy entity.
iii) Spoofing of Emails: Telstra Corporation Ltd even faces spoofing of emails, they are created by the fake sending address, and hence the respective authenticity could be lost.
The specific business continuity of the department of information technology could be ensured by providing redundancy and fault tolerances. Email servers and web servers are available for Telstra Corporation Ltd (Rong, Nguyen & Jaatun, 2013). The help of two significant approaches could improve email servers and web servers. These approaches are as follows:
i) Implementing SPF: The very first approach in this particular case is the perfect implementation of the sender policy framework. SIDF or simply Sender ID framework is present for the maintenance of authenticity of their email server or web server. The availabilities of email server and web server are improvised in this method.
Figure 1: Implementing SPF
(Source: Ifinedo, 2014)
ii) Application Security: The second idea within this particular case study is the security of the applications (Lee, 2014). Email server and web server is improvised by this specific application and the security is eventually maintained from the several threats or malware.
Figure 2: Application Security
(Source: Laudon & Laudon, 2016)
Several organizational issues or problems, which comprise of the strong impact over the information security and risk management, are as follows:
i) High Security Procurement of Information Technology
ii) The proper connectivity within the IT operations or security
iii) Improvement in the business efficiencies
iv) Improvement in the security of software (Crossler et al., 2013).
Some of the several human related factors are present, which have a stronger impact on security and risk management. These are given below:
i) Provide appropriate training
ii) Influencing security culture
iii) Awareness
iv) Identifying strengths or weaknesses of Telstra.
Several log records are eventually present within Telstra organization, which are used for monitoring and analyzing web server and email server. All these records of log include security, event and access. The most important functionalities of log record are CreateLogFile, DeleteLogFile, AlignReservedLog, and AllocReservedLog (Laudon & Laudon, 2016). The security, access and event are eventually utilized to help for monitoring or analyzing several problems of the web servers and email server.
Telstra uses all types of audit log records for the sole purpose of obtaining better performance from the analysis of the audit and therefore support to the several internal investigations in this company or log term issues is done effectively. The operational trends are also indented in this phenomenon (Cheminod, Durante & Valenzano, 2013). Several issues of web server and email server are resolved by records of audit log. The accounts or systems of employees of Telstra can be maintained and hence tracing of transactions is much easier.
The devices of the security of network are extremely effectual and efficient for controlling privacy and security of Telstra. The five distinct devices of network security are as follows:
i) Bridges: The first device of network security is bridge. A router is responsible for linking two distinct network types and hence a specific bridge is used for the connection of two typical sub networks (Bajdor & Grabara, 2014). Hence, security could be controlled by bridge.
ii) Network Routers: Network router security device is responsible for routing traffic from one network to the next network.
iii) Modems: the next device of network security is modem. This is the perfect amalgamation of modulator as well as demodulator. Any typical signal is either modulated or demodulated in this network device.
iv) Network Switches: A network switch subsequently works within LAN for packet filter and lastly sending these packets to all the interfaces (Klukas, Chen & Pape, 2014).
v) Repeaters: A repeater amplifies the specific signal, when received. These network devices are extremely effective.
Conclusions and Recommendations
Therefore, conclusion could be drawn that the information system is one of the foremost software, which is extremely helpful for any company to analyze or organize data or information. The main purpose of this information system is turning raw data to useful and relevant information, which is solely utilized to take decisions within the organization. The major components of information systems are extremely important and necessary for making the information system a complete one. It is the most organized system that is used to collect, process, to filter, distribute and also to create information. Internal information is easily produced by information system and external information is avoided. The automated system that helps in the description of the information is termed as information system. Data transmission and dissemination is extremely easier with this particular system. The above provided report has mentioned about the significant information system of an Australian organization, known as Telstra Corporation Ltd. The most significant and popular threats or malware are solely discussed here with the probable security issues within the mail server and web server of Telstra organization are also given in this report. Two approaches for improvising the availability of email servers and web servers are proposed here for the betterment of this organization. The procedure of log records like access, security or events is provided here. Network security devices are also given here that are used for controlling security and mitigating threats for web servers and email servers.
It is recommended for Telstra Corporation Ltd. to implement and incorporate an information system as well as the several strategies for mitigation. The next recommendation for this organization is upgrading the systems on a monthly basis for the purpose of avoiding any major damage.
References
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