It Security Review of Security

It Security

Review of Security Issues in Implementing Emerging Technologies

The rapid growth of social networking applications and networks (Bernoff, Li, 2008) driven by Web 2.0 technologies (O'Reilly, 2006) is creating an unparalleled level of access to information, people and in companies, processes and enterprise systems. Never before has there been more collaboration potential in information systems and emerging technologies than there is now (Cunningham, 2009). Yet with this new potential for collaboration and sharing of data there is a corresponding escalation of risks and threats to not only personal information and identity but also to an organizations' information assets (Provos, Rajab, Mavrommatis, 2009).

Threat Assessment in Social Networks

The egalitarian, open and trusted foundations that social networking sites are created on (Bernoff, Li, 2008) are fertile grounds for an amazingly wide and varied series of crimes focused on impersonating others and also misrepresenting who one is or their organizations are (Provos, Rajab, Mavrommatis, 2009). This threat takes many forms, from phishing through e-mail to the development of intricate fraud schemes based on taking a small percentage of a transaction intercepted daily. The risks of the lack of authenticity and honesty are paradoxically the greatest threats to social networks' growth and permanence, as they must have trust to operate (Bernoff, Li, 2008). Appendix a, Web 2.0 Meme Map and Appendix B, Web 2.0 Applications illustrate these foundational concepts of social networks and also illustrate how critical it is for companies adopting these merging technologies to realize that security is a moving target; it is never an entirely completely contained. Social networks are redefining the most basic of crimes that rely on people and entire crime syndicates deliberately misrepresenting themselves to steal from individuals and companies (Orr, 2008). This common thread of using the Internet as a means to create the appearance of being trustworthy when in fact a person, group or syndicate is not is going to eventually end up with the governments of the world stepping in to regulate the Web or having privacy technology escalate over time (Short, 2008). In either case the costs of using the Internet and its applications, including emerging applications to create higher levels of collaboration will go up as a direct result of these crimes being easier to accomplish online.

Implementing Emerging technologies