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Business Administrator security

There is no such thing as a secure system. The whole point of databases is that they provide easy access to mass information, making security of data even more difficult. Business Administrator makes no attempt to secure data in the network sense: it will consider security only through its own systems.

You are responsible for securing your data, and the systems that Business Administrator uses to execute its functions. The security of data should apply to all data on your computers – not just that contained within Business Administrator.

Data, generally, is vulnerable from three main fronts...

  • Intellectual theft: whereby a member of staff gives information to an unauthorised body by voice, e-mail, letter or otherwise (often inadvertently)

  • Data theft: whereby a member of staff acquires and distributes the data electronically via floppy, CD or over the Internet

  • Hacking: this comes in two forms – internally and externally. With the internal sense, a member of staff hacks into data with the intention of changing it (this often involves fraud or shedding of responsibility). With the external sense, an unauthorised person gains access to your computer systems with the intention of acquiring data to redistribute (often for a price). Possibly they are changing information, or even committing fraud. In either case, they may re-programme the systems to effect a different function, or set a worm (this device is usually hidden in some computer and is expected to crawl drives and networks until it comes across the relevant data and then reprogrammes the systems that run that data).

Whilst Business Administrator has systems that attempt to thwart the abuse of data (casual or otherwise) these systems are very limited in their powers. The real security must come from the implementation of strong policy on computer security.

Banks are probably the businesses most concerned with computer security. Their policies on the issue are under 24-hour review, and the lengths they go to, and the investments they make, to computer security are quite astounding.

Consider the worth of your information to someone else, or worse, what damage it would do to your business if it were abused (abuse of data in the public domain has been known to destroy very powerful companies).

Having considered these issues, make necessary policy changes, invest in the right protection systems and react formidably when they've been breached.

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