Information Systems Security Survey Essay Example for Free

Information Systems Security Survey Essay The University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) is an institution that was built back in the 19th century. UNMC’s mission is to improve the health of Nebraska through premier educational programs, innovative research, the highest quality patient care, and outreach to underserved populations (UNMC, 2004). As an institution with key interest to privacy of its students, staff and subordinate staff, UNMC has adopted various policy guidelines to ensure information security system. The Information Security Management Plan (ISMP) describes its safeguards to protect confidential information. These safeguards are meant among another reason to: Ensure the confidentiality of data Ensure the integrity of data Ensure the availability of data Protect against anticipated threats or hazards to the security or integrity of the information UNMC has adopted information security industry best practices to implement its information security system (UNMC, 2014). They have become so effective that during 2011, a Hitrust Gap assessment was performed, and no significant gaps were found within its security program. The worksheet below outlines how these programs have been rolled out by different offices in the university. Worksheet: Information Security Program Survey Security Area Responsible Party / Office of Primary Responsibility Known Vulnerabilities / Risks Countermeasures / Risk Mitigation Strategy Acquisition (systems/services) Information Security Office Breach of the confidentiality clause All service providers must undergo an evaluation process to verify they are qualified. Contracts have a confidentiality clause whose breach terminates the contract. Asset management System Administrator Poor asset management Proper policies and procedure in place  to ensure effective asset management. Evaluation to ascertain the qualifications of asset managers. Audit and accountability Information Security Office Dishonest employees disclosing confidential information to third parties Every application contains a log that must be maintained to meet regulatory requirement. There is Information security Incident Response plan to handle any notable strange events. Authentication and authorization System Administrator Covered data may be transferred to third parties without authorization Employees are provided with user name and password to access the data. Employees are trained on developing a secure password. There are control policies in place governing access to this information. Business continuity Information Security Office Non-coordination and miscommunication between employees All employees are supposed to keep contact information of co-workers and supervisors to seek for help in case of any emergency. Compliance management Compliance Officer the Information Security Officer Employees failure to comply with the set guidelines, policies and procedure There is a compliance form that is filled before a major project is undertaken by the enterprise. The form is to ensure that no new risk is introduced to the enterprise. Configuration control System Administrator Compromised system security Every configuration must have a password. Each password must have at least ten characters. The password must be encrypted at all times. Data System Administrator Data may be intercepted during transmission Database with security keys is available to authorized employees only. Access to classified data is allowed to limited employees. Information security plan ensures security of covered data. Hardware System Administrator Destruction of hardware in disaster Only employees with technical know-how of operating hardware are allowed to use them. The hardware are encrypted for security purposes. Hardware backup system. Identity management Information Security Office Unauthorized covered data and information transfer through third parties Identity Management Program (IDM) outlines procedure for issuing credentials based on the NIST guidance. Checks are done on employees prior to their employment. Incident management Command Centre Incident Response Team Physical loss of data in a disaster An Incident Reporting and Response Plan is in place to report and respond to any  identified risk. Availability of a well-trained incident response team. Command Centre is established to manage emergency. Maintenance procedures Change Advisory Board (CAB) Existing patches within the security system A release process is in place to ensure that the changes do not affect non-primary system. Patching policies for workstations to ensure security. Media protection and destruction Information Security Office Unauthorized access covered data as well as information Data storage policies define how data stored in the media is to be protected. Data is only stored in a secured data centre or encrypted medium. Network System Administrator Unauthorized access to the network Network traffic is controlled by Cisco enterprise-class firewall where inbound connects are only allowed to DMZ. Internal trusted network is provided via an encrypted VPN tunnel. Technical perimeter is established to bar direct access from the internet to the Internal Trusted Area. Planning Information Security Office Poor planning that compromise management of the security system Contingency plan is in place to handle any eventuality. Employees are encouraged to store data on network file servers for backup. All backups are surely stored and marked for easy identification during emergencies. Personnel System Administrator Loss of data integrity Employees are only employed after exhibiting minimum security requirement. Information Security Addendum are to be signed for confidentiality purposes. An insider who ensures that all legal requirements are followed before access is granted must accompany outsiders accessing information. Physical environment System Administrator Physical safety of the environment may be compromised through attacks and burglary No unauthorized personal is allowed within the data centre premises. The data centers are controlled by keycard access. Policy Information Security Plan Coordinator Policies may be misinterpreted by the employee The University’s security policy is enshrined in the Privacy, Confidentiality and Security of Patient Proprietary Information Policy and the Computer Use and Electronic Information Security Policy. The two policies require that authorized people can only access this information. The policies are reviewed every two years to make them in tandem with the prevailing circumstances. Operations The Information Security Officer and the Infrastructure Team  Failure for operations to comply with the system security policy An operation must fill a compliance Checklist or a Security Risk Assessment form for review to verify that no new risk is introduced to the enterprise. Outsourcing System Administrator Unauthorized disclosure of security information by third parties Outsourced vendors must comply with UNMC Policy No. 8009, Contract Policy. Vendors accessing classified student information must sign the GLB Act contract addendum. Risk assessments Information Custodian Poor method of risk assessment that may downplay the actual impact of a risk Security assessment I conducted annually. All applications must meet the organizations security policies and procedure. Software System Administrator Software may be infected with a virus Software should not be installed unless the user trusts it. Vendor update and patches must be installed unless directed otherwise. Software license must be retained to get technical assistance. Training System Administrators and Information Custodians Misuse of security system Loss of data integrity Employees are trained on information security system before they are employed. System administrators and information custodians are annually trained on Specific Information Security Policy and Procedure. References UNMC. (March 2014) Strategic Plan 2010-2013. Retrieved from http://www.unmc.edu/wwwdocs/strategic-plan_06-10_v3-brochure1.pdf United States Government Accountability Office. (February 2010). ELECTRONIC PERSONAL HEALTH INFORMATION EXCHANGE: Health Care Entities Reported Disclosure Practices and Effects on Quality of Care. Retrieved from http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10361.pdf UNMC. (February 9, 2004). Information Security Plan. Retrieved from http://www.unmc.edu/its/docs/UNMCInformationSecurityPlan-Sept2010.pdf

Animal Imagery in Timothy Findley’s The Wars Essay -- Timothy Findley

Animal Imagery in Timothy Findley’s The Wars Sigmund Freud once argued that "our species has a volcanic potential to erupt in aggression . . . [and] that we harbour not only positive survival instincts but also a self-destructive 'death instinct', which we usually displace towards others in aggression" (Myers 666). Timothy Findley, born in 1930 in Toronto, Canada, explores our human predilection towards violence in his third novel, The Wars. It is human brutality that initiates the horrors of World War I, the war that takes place in this narrative. Findley dedicated this novel to the memory of his uncle, Thomas Irving Findley, who 'died at home of injuries inflicted in the First World War" (Cude 75) and may have propelled him to feel so strongly about "what people really do to one another" (Inside Memory 19). Findley feels a great fondness for animals, and this affection surfaces faithfully in many of his literary works. The Wars is a novel wrought with imagery, and the most often recurring pattern is that of animals. Throughou t the novel, young Robert Ross' strong connection with animals is continually depicted in his encounters with the creatures. Findley uses Robert to reveal the many similarities between humans and animals. The only quality, which we humans do not appear to share with our animal counterparts, is our inexplicable predisposition to needless savagery. In his video documentary, The Anatomy of a Writer, Findley describes his affinity for animals when he says that he has "always been in awe of . . . animals. [He has] never understood where [humankind] picked up the idea that [animals] are less than [people] are-that man is everything". In The Wars, Findley stresses his belief that humans are "no better and... ...s of humankind and the hostile environment we create. Although a common assumption is that animals are vicious and wild, there is no evidence of this in the novel. Malice appears to be solely attributable to humankind. This is the truism that Findley depicts in his telling of the tragic story of Robert Ross. Works Cited Cude, Wilf "Truth Slips In: Timothy Findley's Doors of Fiction" The Antigonish Review, Spring 1996, vol 27 pp75. Findley, Timothy. Inside Memory: Pages From a Writer's Notebook. Harper Collins, Toronto: 1990. Findley, Timothy. The Wars. Penguin Books, Toronto: 1996. Macartney-Filgate, Terence. Timothy Findley: Anatomy of a Writer. National Film Board of Canada, Toronto: 1992. Myers, David G. Psychology 6th ed. Worth Publishers, New York: 2001. Roberts, Carol. Timothy Findley: Stories from a Life. ECW Press, Toronto: 1994.

Policy Recommendation Essay

The difficulty with any definition of poverty involves the meaning of minimum needs and the amount of money required to satisfy these needs. (Ansel M. Sharp, 2010) Those in poverty sometimes face an additional obstacle to earning an adequate income. Discrimination as we use it means that equals are treated unequally or that the ‘unequal’s are treated equally. Discrimination exists in the labor market when people with equal productivity are paid different wages or people with differences in productivity are paid equal wages. Discrimination can also exist in the product market when consumers pay different prices for the same product. (Ansel M. Sharp, Evidence of Discrimination in Our Economy, 2010) Discuss the major impact to society of the problem. In 2001, some six-point-eight million families, or nine-point-two percent of all families, lived in poverty. This translates into more than thirty-two-point-nine million individuals, a staggering number to many Americans who have never been personally touched by poverty. Indeed, some have characterized those who live in poverty as the hidden poor. Studies have shown that there is a significant turnover in the poverty population: Families and single individuals move into and out of poverty several times throughout the years in response to significant life events. Although no reliable estimate exists for the number of hardcore poverty cases, the incidence of poverty can be easily seen to vary dramatically across a number of demographic characteristics. (Ansel M. Sharp, What is Poverty? , 2010) Just imagine searching through heaping piles of refuse at landfills, looking for anything that could seem partly edible, to satisfy an unending hunger. Many people around the world face this situation every day of their lives. What could have caused a situation like this to occur? The education and skill level, health or handicap status, and discrimination play a vital role in poverty. A major factor determining whether someone will end up living in poverty, education or skill level can make or break an income. Education plays a vital role in acquiring jobs, learning new skills, and bringing home necessities and comforts of life. A person who doesn’t receive an education has a very small chance of making much money and acquiring skills that would bring home a desirable income. Many who do not have an education bring their family into a cycle of poverty, where their posterity doesn’t necessarily have the income to go to college or even don’t have a desire to acquire a high school diploma. Poverty rates are higher among families with only one parent or head of household present. Poverty is also related to age, those very young and those very old have higher rates of poverty than those in their prime and middle-age years. The economic cause of poverty is family incomes depend on the quantities of resources that families can place in employment and the prices received for those resources. To understand poverty, then, it is important to understand what determines the prices paid for human and capital resources and what determines the quantities that can be employed. Under competitive market conditions, the basic principle of wage rate determination is that units of any kind of labor tend to be paid a price equal to any one worker’s contribution to an employer’s total receipts. In other words, workers are paid about what they are worth to employers. What a worker is worth to an employer is referred to by economists as the marginal revenue product of labor. (Ansel M. Sharp, The Economic Causes of Poverty, 2010) Market discrimination may be traced to two primary sources. These are the power to discriminate in the market and the desire to discriminate. In our complex market economy, the wages of workers vary widely. Even workers hired by the same employer to perform similar jobs are often paid different wage rates. The meaning of wage discrimination is clear enough: unequal pay for equal contributions. But proving discrimination depends on being able to distinguish among individuals on the basis of individual efforts and productivity. Generally, humans are paid pproximately what they are worth in a competitive economy. (Ansel M. Sharp, Evidence of Discrimination in Our Economy, 2010) Employment discrimination means that some people are not hired because of non-economic characteristics such as race or gender. Two individuals with the same training, education, and experience apply for a job, however one is black and one is white. If both do not have the same chance of getting the job, discrimination has entered into the decision-making process. There is a growing belief that discriminatory differences in pay, especially gender differences in pay, occur largely because of occupational segregation. In general, men work in occupations that employ very few women, and women work in occupations that employ very few men. The economic results of occupational segregation for women are low wages. Women are often relegated to occupations where productivity and experience have little to do with their status and where opportunities for overtime and premium pay are limited. Price discrimination occurs when people of different races or genders are forced to pay different prices for the same good or service, provided the differences are not due to differences in cost of serving the consumer. (Ansel M.

Does Espérer Need the Subjunctive

The French verb espà ©rer  means to hope, and espà ©rer may require the subjunctive, depending on whether it is used affirmatively, negatively or interrogatively. If youre using espà ©rer affirmatively, it does not require the subjunctive. Example Jespà ¨re quil viendra.I hope he comes. (Note: When espà ©rer is used affirmatively, it is normally followed by the future tense, rather than the present tense.)   But if youre using espà ©rer negatively or interrogatively, the verb requires the subjunctive. Examples Je nespà ¨re pas quil vienne.  I dont hope that hes coming. (Note: I dont hope hes coming is not the same as I hope hes not coming. The latter would be an affirmative use of the term and therefore would not require the subjunctive.) Espà ¨res-tu quil vienne ?Do you hope that hes coming?