Security Measures and How Far They Should Go Coursework

Security Measures and How Far They Should Go - Coursework Example Like so many areas of IT, security would be invincible if it were not for letting people use the systems and applications, sadly this has to happen and so systems get corrupted, hacked and generally brought to their knees. Both by users and external attacks by hackers, etc. Security has been stepped up over many years as better understanding of where problems can come from and what must be done to stop them. But, now very often the very security is itself the biggest problem as it gets in the way of productive work and can cause major problems for IT personnel trying to control users and still give them sufficient mobility to do their job well. Problems come from areas such as giving someone permissions to do a task on a mission critical application, the person goes on holiday and gives another person in the department the passwords to get into the application, that person is not well trained and promptly crashes the system on Monday morning, what then? The holidayer and substitute person will be punished then they say â€Å"oh well its impossible to get permissions for something as short as a week off, but the reports have to be done† what should managers think, it has been done for the best of motives, but the outcome is a disaster for the company security systems and for productivity. Making staff aware there can be bad outcomes is all very well, but if they find they cannot work well then human nature says find a way around the problem system or process as it’s no good. The other way will be for staff to say well we cannot do it because of the system and then productivity takes a tumble. Managers are left swearing at the whole mess, which has an apparently impossible set of outcomes.