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Know Everything About Information Security

Information Security means to give protection to the confidential materials of any organization and to restrict the availability of all information, be it the electronic, print or other types.

Everyone will agree to the fact that information assets are critical to any business and paramount to the survival of any organization in today’s global market. As there has been a rise in the cyber crimes, such as hacking, data thefts, data losses and virus attacks in the networking and software related jobs, the need of information security is growing by leaps and bounds.

Components of Information Security

Typically information security comprises of five components, such as:

1. Confidentiality

Information security ensures that information is shared only among authorized persons, within or outside the organization. Breaches of confidentiality happen due to improper handling of data through printing, copying, e-mailing or making documents, etc.

2. Integrity

With proper information security, there is also the assurance of the information being authentic and complete. The term ‘integrity’ is regarded as the indicators of information security or lack of it. The integrity of data is not just restricted towards the correctness of data but it also verifies whether the data can be trusted and relied upon.

3. Availability

In information security, the person in charge of it makes sure that the systems can be accessed by authorized people whenever needed. It helps in delivering, storing and processing data in a responsible manner.

4. Accountability

Since there are different departments in an organization, confidential information needs to be protected and secured with utmost care. Most organizations build a culture of confidence in their employees, and all employees, particularly in senior and responsible positions know that internal information and data is not to be shared or divulged to unauthorized persons. Some organizations also have specific departments where the people are entrusted with the responsibility of protecting the assets and confidential data .

5. Audit-ability

This component of information security has got two parts. Firstly, any system must be able to backtrack as that one can determine the positioning of the system during any emergency. Secondly, with auditing it becomes sure that the systems have all the necessary documented requirements.

Role of Information Security in Indian IT market

Over the past few decades, the information technology industry has placed India amongst the fastest growing IT exporters IT-Enabled Services (ITES) providers in the world.

According to a survey conducted by the National Association of Software and Services Company (NASSCOM), the Indian IT software and services sector showed a growth of 31.4 percent during 2005-06, and by 2010, it is believed that the IT and ITES sector will touch US$ 60 billion in exports. Looking at the phenomenal growth in IT jobs, the need of information security and network security experts is growing everyday in India.

According to market estimates, the IT Security market is worth 0 billion today and India itself is facing a shortage of over 1,88,000 security professionals. Recognizing the growing need for information security management, reputed IT training institutions are providing regular and distance learning courses in information security training and network security training.

 

Types of Hard Drive Failure and Data Recovery

Hard drive is the most vital part of a computer system, which stores all your data, applications and operating system. Because it has moving internal parts, it may fail at any point of time and may result into critical data loss situations. Such situations can be taken care of by deploying Data Recovery procedures.

Hard drives can fail in four different ways:

è Hurt to firmware zone/ firmware corruption

è Mechanical failure

è Electrical failure

è Logical hurt

Whether the lost data and information on the drive is retrievable or not depends upon the extent of the hurt and exact cause of the data loss situation.

Firmware Corruption

Firmware means software embedded on hardware. It lies in physical hard disk hardware. It is a program which controls the hard drive. When firmware corruption occurs, operating system can not interact with the drive and thus cause data loss. After repairing the firmware, your data can be easily recovered.

Mechanical Failure

Mechanical hard drive failure occurs due to hurt to internal hard drive components such as read/write head, actuator arm, spindle motor, disk platters etc. When any internal component goes faulty, data from the hard drive can not be accessed. You can identify it by clicking and scrapping noise of hard drive internals.

Electrical Failure

Electrical failure generally relates to the issue with hard drive circuit board. Your computer system may face power failure that can hurt the logic board on the drive making it undetectable in BIOS. When it occurs, the drive may not spin up when it is powered on. So, it cannot get recognized by the operating system.

Logical Hurt

Logical hurt takes place due to errors with the logical hard drive components. It may range from simple ones like an invalid file allocation table entry to the more complex ones like file system corruption. It is really different from the above three hard drive failure types. It can be recognized by the inaccessibility of data, invisible hard drive partitions/volumes and error messages while accessing data.

All these data loss problems can be handled easily by using appropriate Hard Drive Recovery solution. In case of firmware corruption, electrical failure and mechanical failure, you are recommended to take service from recovery experts. On the other hand, logical data loss situations can easily be handled on your own using Data Recovery software.

Stellar Information Systems Limited is the foremost Hard Drive Recovery solution provider. Stellar provides best quality recovery software for Windows, Mac OS, Linux, UNIX and Novell Netware platforms. The Data Recovery service is delivered at Class 100 Clean Rooms by trained and experienced professionals.

Classic Operating Systems

I was discussing ancient operating systems with one of our tech guys recently. Apart from realising I was officially a geek it inspired me to write this article.

The trip down memory lane got me thinking that perhaps it would be nice to remind ourselves of the path we have walked to have become unfortunate enough to end up with Windows as the most well loved choice of Operating System.

CP/M – Made back in 1976, this command line based Operating System was developed to provide 8-bit computer users with an simpler way of managing the most basic of computer functions, as well as installing and programming applications. It would be honest to say that the younger MS-DOS was very closely based on CP/M and indeed many of the Operating System structures and commands were retained.

DOS – Of course, there were in fact several different flavours of DOS available from various vendors but MS-DOS was the one that was used by most. Released in 1981, Microsoft continued to develop this Operating System right up until the release of Windows 95, at which point it was phased out. DOS was a command based Operating System without any form of graphical interface which remained well loved even after the introduction of Windows due to the fact that not only was it quicker and less hardware intensive but also that it was really required as a base for Windows to run on top of. Up until Windows 95, your computer would load itself in to DOS by default and those that wanted to use Windows would really have to load it on top of MS-DOS as a secondary Operating System.

GEOS – This remarkably compact Graphical Operating System was originally designed for the Commodore 64; a machine with just 64k of RAM and a 1 MHz processor. Released in 1986 by a company called Berkeley Softworks, GEOS went on to become the third fastest selling Operating System in the world at one stage. Despite the ridiculously miniscule system requirements, GEOS was a nippy Operating System which looked very similar to MacOS which ran on a machine costing ten times the price.

OS/2 – Originally a joint venture between IBM and Microsoft in 1987, at one point Microsoft publically insisted that OS/2 was the future and technically speaking, it was superior. Microsoft but managed to bundle Windows 3.0 with many new PC’s (a tactic they have been able to continue up through the years) and as such OS/2 become considered an expensive alternative. Unsurprisingly, the marriage between the two companies hit the rocks and despite IBM soldering on until 2001, OS/2 never managed to delight in the success that Windows had.

AmigaOS ‘ To me the Amiga OS was one of the most revolutionary Operating Systems ever and I remember it fondly for the extraordinary advances Windows would not manage to emulate until many years later. The speedy, reliable and fully featured AmigaOS was introduced back in 1985 for the Commodore Amiga line of machines, it also included support for multitasking; which is honestly standard to us nowadays but was the pinnacle of computing back then. Commadores financial issues led to bankruptcy resulting in the Amiga platform being abandoned unfortunately.

Know Everything About Information Security

Information Security means to give protection to the confidential materials of any organization and to restrict the availability of all information, be it the electronic, print or other types.

Everyone will agree to the fact that information assets are critical to any business and paramount to the survival of any organization in today’s global market. As there has been a rise in the cyber crimes, such as hacking, data thefts, data losses and virus attacks in the networking and software related jobs, the need of information security is growing by leaps and bounds.

Components of Information Security

Typically information security comprises of five components, such as:

1. Confidentiality

Information security ensures that information is shared only among authorized persons, within or outside the organization. Breaches of confidentiality happen due to improper handling of data through printing, copying, e-mailing or making documents, etc.

2. Integrity

With proper information security, there is also the assurance of the information being authentic and complete. The term ‘integrity’ is regarded as the indicators of information security or lack of it. The integrity of data is not just restricted towards the correctness of data but it also verifies whether the data can be trusted and relied upon.

3. Availability

In information security, the person in charge of it makes sure that the systems can be accessed by authorized people whenever needed. It helps in delivering, storing and processing data in a responsible manner.

4. Accountability

Since there are different departments in an organization, confidential information needs to be protected and secured with utmost care. Most organizations build a culture of confidence in their employees, and all employees, particularly in senior and responsible positions know that internal information and data is not to be shared or divulged to unauthorized persons. Some organizations also have specific departments where the people are entrusted with the responsibility of protecting the assets and confidential data .

5. Audit-ability

This component of information security has got two parts. Firstly, any system must be able to backtrack as that one can determine the positioning of the system during any emergency. Secondly, with auditing it becomes sure that the systems have all the necessary documented requirements.

Role of Information Security in Indian IT market

Over the past few decades, the information technology industry has placed India amongst the fastest growing IT exporters IT-Enabled Services (ITES) providers in the world.

According to a survey conducted by the National Association of Software and Services Company (NASSCOM), the Indian IT software and services sector showed a growth of 31.4 percent during 2005-06, and by 2010, it is believed that the IT and ITES sector will touch US$ 60 billion in exports. Looking at the phenomenal growth in IT jobs, the need of information security and network security experts is growing everyday in India.

According to market estimates, the IT Security market is worth 0 billion today and India itself is facing a shortage of over 1,88,000 security professionals. Recognizing the growing need for information security management, reputed IT training institutions are providing regular and distance learning courses in information security training and network security training.

 

How to Recover Lost or Deleted Data Files: Data Recovery Software Information

Have you heard of data/file recovery? The definition of the term Data Recovery is “..Making previously lost or hurt data available again..” A data recovery software or method can help us recover ruined data e.g. an accidentally deleted file. It happens all the time. You delete an vital file on your PC and send it to your recycle bin by mistake. You realize what you’ve done only after you’ve cleaned the contents of the recycle bin.

What do you do now?

That file you deleted was so vital. Fortunately there are lots of methods (Data Recovery Methods) and software (Data Recovery Software) available to help you get your lost files back.

Let’s start by mentioning some possible reasons for the loss of data:

* You accidentally delete an vital file. Then you immediately shred the contents of your recycle bin

* During today’s system crash some files just disappeared and cannot be located or accessed

* You format your hard drive but then you remember those vital .zip files previously stored in the newly formatted empty medium.

* A power outage prevented some files from being written to the hard disk.

* Data loss can also occur due to physical hurt of the storage media. For example the surface of your CD-ROM may be scratched off or your hard disk may suffer from all kinds of possible mechanical failures.

..and the list goes on.

Is Data Recovery Vital?

Data recovery is a very misunderstood concept. A lot of people may not even be aware of the existence and the importance of data recovery. Maybe they reckon of it on a personal level. The truth is, lost data causes financial disasters to companies all over the world. The cost associated with computer downtime and lost data is enormous (several million dollars) for businesses.

How to deal with data loss?

Losing files is simple but recovering them can be hard. If the loss was due to physical hurt then you need someone with experience, a hardware technician or something. It wouldn’t be wise to try to overcome hardware failures alone unless you are a professional.

Now, if the loss of data was due to logical failure or human error then the solution is data recovery software. The data recovery software should be able to:

- Undelete files even after you’ve shred the contents of your recycle bin

- Recover files after you’ve been infected from a malicious threat (trojan, worm or other virus)

- Recover files from reformatted hard disks or after your system crashes or your hard disk fails

- Recover all types of files (all kinds of documents, images, music, videos, email messages, zipped files etc)

- Recover data from all types of storage mediums (hard disks, external drives, CD-ROM, usb drives, floppy disks etc)

- Recover files easily and successfully. Should be user-friendly allowing someone with no data recovery skills to use it

- Take/make backups of critical system files or files you choose

The best way to avoid data loss is to start taking backups of your vital storage mediums. Either make backups of data on CD-ROMS or use an external drive or zip drive to back up your critical files. If you want to go further look for software that automates the process of backing up and storing your data. These programs are kind of “set and forget”. You set it up to take backups every hour or every day or month etc. and let the software do the rest.