FREE ESSAY ON I.T FAILURE AND DEPENDANCE

I.T FAILURE AND DEPENDANCE

In Today's Society we are so Dependent on I.T that the Consequences of its Failure May be
Catastrophic. Discuss the Threats and Causes of Failure, and Steps Taken to Minimise it.
In today's world it is impossible to run a large organisation without the aid of
computers. Businesses hold massive amounts of important data, hospitals hold large
amounts of confidential patient information and large scientific research projects hold
important codes, formulae, and equations. The bottom line is that loss or corruption of
this information is sure to result in bankruptcy, a substantial loss of customers, and
even world-wide financial meltdown. 
A dependency on technology is impossible to avoid - even with its fatal consequences.
Companies face the worry of information lost through hacking, virus corruption, and even
physical threats such as fire and flood. Viruses are the most common threat to companies
they can corrupt large amounts of files and data both kinds of virus, biological and
electronic, take over the host cell/program and clone their carrier genetic codes by
instructing the hosts to make replicas of the viruses. Neither kind of virus, however,
can replicate themselves independently; they are pieces of code that attach themselves to
other cells/programs,
Just as biological viruses need a host cell, computer viruses require a host program to
activate them. Once such example of the damage done by viruses occurred in 1988. A
Cornell University hacker named Robert Morris used the national network system Internet,
which include the Pentagon's ARPAnet data exchange network. The nation's high-tech
ideologues and spin doctors have been locked in debate since, trying to make ethical and
economic sense of the event. The virus rapidly infected an estimated six thousand
computers around the USA This created a scare that crowned an open season of viral
hysteria in the media, in the course of which, according to the Computer Virus Industry
Association in Santa Clara, the number of known viruses jumped from seven to thirty
during 1988, and from three thousand infections in the first two months of that year to
thirty thousand in the last two months. While it caused little in the way of data damage
(some richly inflated initial estimates reckoned up to $100m in down time), the
ramifications of the Internet virus have helped to generate a moral panic that has all
but transformed everyday computer culture.
Other worrying viruses include "Pathogen" which was created by Christopher Pile. This
fatal virus wiped data from a computers hard drive, in 1995 he was convicted under the
Computer misuse attack. Stephen Fleming a BT employee gained access to a database that
contained hundreds of top secret phone numbers and addresses of government installations.
Police managed to catch him, and he was threatened to prosecution under the first
category of the computer misuse act. Meanwhile BT tightened their security.
One major bug that threatened to destroy all of our data was the Millennium bug. It
pursued the media for months; it was difficult not to have heard of it. The problem was
that many electrical items - not just computers held a chip that kept track of the date,
it was feared that after 1999 the date would switch to 0000 or 1900 and stop working all
together. Millions of pounds were spent trying to outsmart the bug; no computers were
sold in the years running up to 2000 without being "millennium compliant". Fortunately
the bug did not strike, and now many anti-virus companies are being accused of conning
industries into buying new software to tackle a non-existent bug. 
Anti-virus packages are now one of the best selling types of software. Many companies
offer bigger and better packages each year. "Norton" anti-virus software is one of the
best selling packages along with "Dr Solomon's" anti-virus toolkits. It is very sensible
for every computer owner to have an anti-virus package. And it is vital for any company
to have an advanced anti-virus package. 
Data is also secured using a backup system. When processing information banks and
businesses produce huge amounts of backup. Looking at the amount of backup created you
may think that it is absurd. But for the business it secures information, any master data
that is lost can just be brought up from backup files. 
The problem is that backup files need room to be stored, and protection. Fire and flood
produce an increasing threat to large backup files. To avoid these problems most
companies store there backup files in a different building to their master files. This
means that damage to one building forces the company to recall their backup files from
the other building which will not have sustained damage (unless the company has very bad
luck!)
Companies taking these precautions spend a huge amount of money on them. Updating
anti-virus software, changing passwords and changing the location of tons of information
can prove severely expensive. That is not to say that the companies are foolish, for the
amount spent on prevention is only a fraction of that which would be forfeited from loss.

It is rather scary to think that we risk so much money and even lives over the loss of
simple data. Space travel, vital medical care, stock markets, air traffic control, and
transport all rely heavily on I.T to keep them going. It is fearful to think of the price
we might pay if the I.T that we count on, failed. 
Bibliography
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