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Monday, May 21, 2012

The Risks Implicit in Complex Systems

By Daniel Turbin


In such a lot of ways, computers have made our lives easier and more profitable. The benefit of having a Fortune 500 firm's inventory information shown on one screen, rather than having to go digging thru twelve ( or even more ) different ledgers and sending secretaries scrambling to chase down errant pieces of information is both hugely labour saving and enables better real time decision-making.

Corporations can spend more time acting, rather than reacting. Plans are better, more vibrant, and candidly, likelier to succeed, thanks to better info, and better information management, but this comes at a price, and I am not simply talking about the cost of the technology itself.

True, the price of the apparatus and software that makes such data collection possible perform a part, but there's much more to it than simply that. Mainly, there is this : The indisputable fact that as systems become more complicated, they also become more frail. Increasingly susceptible to breakdowns, or worse, to outside interference. Enter, the hacker and the hacking community.

A single weak spot in your company's network safety system can allow a hacker to gain entry and cause infinite damage to your company by easy changing, swiping and selling, or simply outright removing your info. When everything is working as it should, the data you get from the comfort of your office chair, thanks to your computers, can be a big strategic advantage, but if that info is corrupted, or meddled with from the outside, it can literally bring a company to its knees overnight.

Much more crucial then, than the cost of the physical machines which make the system possible and far more significant than the software that is used to gather then show the data in a variety of helpful formats, is the system you implemented to guard that investment. To ensure that you have the best system security in place that you can have, supplying protection to your web portal, your customer database, inventory info, accounting information, and suchlike.

Great care must be taken here, because if you fall down on the job where network security is concerned, you'll find that the PC you've come to rely on in making those real time strategic business choices to be of little more value than a paperweight on the corner of your desk.

In the age of PCs, a successful hacking attempt can bring a company to its knees. Guard against that. It may be the gravest danger your company will ever need to confront.



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