Organisations Having Internetworking Infrastructure Information Technology Essay

Organisations having internetworking infrastructure should provide a reliable and secure IT services to their users. A secure network can be provided by using good software and hardware devices. IP addresses should be secure and should not be released to anyone outside to the organisation. Reliable and secure services are required to protect data from hackers and other unauthorised authorities. Today there are great threats like siege of networks. Networks can be interrupted using denial of service attacks, thereby capturing the networks and preventing users from accessing their information.

A distributed system security is the main concern of an IS auditor in an organisation. There is one Common Criteria (CC) which is the standard requirement for securing critical systems.

Internetworking infrastructures in the organisation are setup to share information within the organisation. Organisations need secure distributed system to prevent information from being exposed to the outside world. To have secured network organisations must use good hardware devices and better software.

Internetworking is the facility provided by information technology to have access to other systems in one organisation. Before Information technology it was hard to save data in different locations which leads to high cost, it was also difficult to provide particular information at the moment. But with the help of IT nowadays it is very easy to share and transfer information from one PC to other PC connected in one network. The information stored in one place can be shared by any one on the network who has authority to access. The unauthorised authorities cannot retrieve the information of any organisation without the knowledge of the company. This become possible because IT providing a secure infrastructure to share resources and information within the

Distributed system can be constructed in different ways LAN (local area network), MAN (metropolitan area network), WAN (wide area network). These are three means of connecting information systems in one network, and it allows users to share and transfer data from one system to another. LAN is used for local networks like in one office and in one building. MAN is used for metropolitan cities or within two or more buildings and WAN for connecting worldwide e.g. internet.

Internetworking is very useful and the demand to have distributed system has increased day by day in organisations.

QUESTIONS:

Assess and critically explain the evolution of internetworking infrastructure.

Internetworking means connecting number of PC’s to share and transfer information within and outside the organisation connected in one network. This is the important feature given by information technology to the world to connect and share data with other systems. The evolution came in 1980 in internetworking when LAN was introduced to connect to one or more pc in one office or in lab. Before LAN, companies were using main frame computers and time sharing systems. To have shared environment distributed system needs some protocols. IT introduced protocols which are known as TCP/IP protocols in information technology.

“Development of the protocols for the internet started around 1974. The protocols had been in limited but the real use started in the early 80’s, but as of 1987, there was still no good introduction to how they worked or how to code them. The standards documents for TCP, IP and the other protocols existed, of course, but the true truth – the collection of knowledge and wisdom necessary to implement a protocol stack and actually expect to work – was a mystery.” [1]

In 1990 the TCP/IP was developed with proper functioning. This gave them an opportunity to interconnect number of LAN (Local Area Networks) in one network.

app47756_0505 Figure1- Simple LAN Source: Understanding Internetworking Infrastructure [2]

These protocols are required to have internetworking in the organisations. The “75% of all IT dollars go to infrastructure. So IT infrastructure is important to an organisations economy. Changes in IT lead to changes in business performance. Recent advances in IT have enabled business to establish networks that link operations inside and across organisational boundaries. IT infrastructure evolution brings many benefits. Older services can be delivered in new more customer- responsive ways.” [2]

After TCP/IP the Bandwidth evolution give faster growth to internetworking. It provided them with facilities to transfer data in much higher amount than using computer chips. From 1960 to 1990 only files were transferred. In 1990 emails system came in existence then, up to 2000 the audio-video data was transferred. This was made possible with higher bandwidth uses.

Today organisations are investing money to have secure and interconnected infrastructure. The most of the expenses of organisations are gone to create and maintain internetworking environment. Due to the organisations having distributed system they are prone to have threats of people stealing their personal information. To protect company from these threats organisations needs to continuously monitor the network they have and also to their employees, because employees can give secrets to other organisation for money.

There are many ways to have interconnectivity between systems, by using LAN that is local area network organisations can generate small networks for example connecting systems in one office or in one building, MAN is metropolitan area network which is used for establishing networks in cities or to connect two or more buildings and to have world wide access like companies having their offices in different locations of the world. So, to connect world wide the organisations are using WAN. So, these three plays a vital role to have internetworking infrastructure within the organisations. The internetworking also give facility to remote login, quick file access etc.

Identify and critically asses the components of internetworking, hardware and software infrastructures of the College.

COMPONENTS OF INTERNETWORKING

The internetworking comprise of hardware, software and network. The hardware devices used are like routers, cables, hubs, bridges, switches, fibre optic etc and software means the operating system used, fire wall, monitoring, identity and policy management and network is like LAN(Local Area Network), WAN(Wide Area Network) or MAN(Metropolitan Area Network). There are different topologies those are used to connect computer systems. These are like Ring topology, Bus topology, star topology, etc. Topology in sense is the way to connect PC’s in network. These topologies are almost used in every network system whether it is LAN, MAN or WAN.

HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE INFRASTRUCTURE OF THE COLLEGE

HARDWARE DEVICES USED IN COLLEGE LAB: The hardware devices used to establish distributed system in the lab of London College of Commerce are two Servers, four Switches, Wi-Fi-modem, and number of CAT 5E-cables to connect computer systems in one network.

The lab has 48 PC’s connected in one network. The Network used for interconnection in the lab of London College of Commerce is LAN (Local area network). The administrator made use of star topology for establishing internetwork connection. Following is the description of each hardware device used in the Lab.

Server: The server used in lab of London College of Commerce is manufactured by Rackable Systems. The hard drive of server is 250GB where as RPM is 7200. The connectors of server are SATA. This server provides centralized access to one network used by LCC. All computers connected with internet using HTTP server.

Switches: The switches used in Lab of LCC are made by NETGEAR. There are four switches used, from four two are carrying 24 ports and two are of 16 ports. The speed of these switches supports for transmission is up to 100MB per second. The Switches are replacing HUB’s today because the switches are intelligent device it only uses the required amount of bandwidth from allowed to use.

Modem: The modem used is “D-Link ADSL2/2+ Modem with Wireless Router (DSL-2640B) is a 3-in-1 device that combines the function of a high-speed DSL modem, wireless G access point, and 4-port Ethernet router. The DSL-2640B supports the latest ADSL2/2+ standards to provide higher performance (up to 24Mbps* downstream and 3.5Mbps* upstream) and longer reach from your Internet Service Provider’s (ISP) Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer (DSLAM).”[3]

Cables: The cables used for internetworking are of Category 5E with Rj45 connectors top connect Local Area Network in the Lab. Generally this cable is used to connect 100MBbits/sec Ethernet network which is same as London College of Commerce is using in their Lab. The cat5e consist of 8 wires in one plastic cover. The Rj45 connector also made of 8 pins for each wire in cat5e cable to establish network connection.

If the College wants to enhance their lab up to 100 or more computers then they should use repeaters or bridges to proper access to internet facility and by administrator.

SOFTWARE USED IN COLLEGE LAB: The software’s installed in the computers of London College of Commerce those are essential for students. The software’s are like Operating systems they use, Microsoft office, Adobe reader, Graphics, Antivirus.

Operating system: The operating system is like WINDOWS, UNIX, LINEX in computers used to operate. In computers of London College of Commerce the College is using windows-XP operating system. This operating system is compatible with all software used in computer. Students can install any software as they need.

Microsoft office: The Microsoft office is the basic need for every student. This software required to make assignments, presentations, project works etc.

Adobe reader: The adobe reader software is used for PDF files to create or to modify.

Antivirus: The antivirus used in lab of LCC is Mac-café. The software is updated regularly.

Graphics: The graphics are properly installed in every computer. The proper graphics gives a clear view to users.

The London College of commerce deploy these components to provide best facilities to their students.

Critically evaluate the business implications of internetworking discriminating availability, reliability and redundancy in terms of effective information security management.

BUSINESS IMPLICATIONS OF INTERNETWORKING

Implications in business from internetworking arise during the installation and facilitating internetwork connection. The implications for internetworking in business are related to availability, reliability and redundancy to get an effective information security management system.

By internetworking, some important effects made on business are as follows:

Communication becomes easy within the organisation or to the outside world.

Decision making leads to better results by gathering more data from different sources.

Processes are transparent to higher authorities. The result from processes is more efficient and accurate as expected.

Employees interact with management to give their ideas related to business.

There are three main aspects of internetworking that are required for Information security management:

Availability: The availability in terms of internetworking means the information should be provided to authorised user in a secured environment. The internetworking makes this possible to access information within seconds to their desktop.

Reliability: The reliability of information in internetworking is to insure that information the organisation is using is the correct one and it is free from unauthorised access. The network which provides this information should be secure. The reliability is concerned with the effectiveness and efficiency of information. The reliable and protected internetworking helps to built good information security management.

Redundancy: The information used in internetworking should be redundant. Redundancy in terms of information means information should be available and reliable to improve the quality of information.

The redundancy is the amount of wasted space used while transferring information. To reduce redundancy in information organisations can use Data compression techniques to save from unwanted usage.

Critically appraise the role of an IS auditor in auditing internetworking infrastructures.

IS auditor plays vital roles to establish internetworking infrastructure in an organisation. The IS auditor is responsible for audit plan, audit program, audit report, risk management. The infrastructure depends upon what type of network methodology is used. For example the infrastructure is different for LAN (Local Area Network), and it is different for MAN (Metropolitan Area Network) and WAN (Wide Area Network) as well. It depends on IS auditor which network he/she use for particular organisation.

There are following key points which need attention while installing internetwork infrastructure:

IS auditor should know the nature and requirements of the organisation. To select which network will provide connective and secure environment to the organisation.

IS auditor should find out the risk factors of organisation.

Documentation should be done before auditing.

Audit plan should consult with the management of the organisation to define security policies.

Quality of components should be checked before installing.

Role of IS auditor is to access the objectives, controls and information assets of an organisations infrastructure. This helps to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of internetworking in organisation.

Documentation: auditing requires a proper documentation before establishing internetwork infrastructure. The documentation include written plan of auditing, figures, components to be used, scope for future, efficiency etc related to an organisation.

Audit Planning: “Before starting the audit, the auditor needs to understand the strategy that the organisation is following and where the organisation is along its roadmap. Planning the audit of a de-parameterized environment is just as important as conducting the audit itself. Because of its de-centralized nature, auditors choosing inappropriate systems and controls may miss core foundation systems or waste time with inappropriate systems.”[4]

Planning is necessary for auditing internetworking, because a small mistake can lead to lose of information and organisation will survive for this. Planning will help to direct staff in audit process.

Audit design: Auditor should review the old designs, documents, reports of internetworking infrastructure. Auditor should recognize the highlighted risk factors.

IT security policy: The security strategies should be defined to protect common threats from attackers e.g. information hacking, lost or stolen data etc.

Software management: The auditor requires attention towards access controls, configuration of components.

Scope of auditing: Once the plan for internetworking infrastructure accepted by management, the auditor should go through the scope of internetwork applied in organisation before it actually implemented. The scope means the capability of network to perform effectively in future. For example if organisation wants to expand their infrastructure, the network architecture should be flexible which can be easily expanded without affecting information security management.

Evaluate and describe the process used to secure the organisations infrastructure against malicious threats.

In internetworking the threats to organisations are rapidly increased. The organisations are using different processes to control malicious threats. The threats can be from internal or external environment. The threats are like un-updated antivirus, loop holes in network, UN locked doors, access to systems, not protected with passwords etc. The London College of Commerce applies many strategies to control these threats.

EXPECTED CONTROLS:

The lab in London College of Commerce should have updated antivirus, firewalls, CC-TV cameras, login-logout entries, dongles, swap cards, fire alarm, sprinkles, etc to protect their assets from threats. These are the basic requirements of any organisation to apply for protection.

THE ACTUAL CONTROLS LCC HAVE IN THEIR LAB:

Password protection: All pc in the lab of London College of Commerce are protected with user names and passwords. Each computer assigned different user name and password.

Antivirus: The pc’s have MacAfee antivirus installed in computer. The antivirus is updated regularly.

Door locks: The doors of main computing labs are locked. Only the authorised persons have authority to one these locks.

Lab attendant: There is one lab attendant who controls access on every computer.

Firewalls: For protection from internet access firewalls are installed on pc.

Administrative control: To protect vandalism in lab, computers are controlled or continuously monitored by administrator.

Fire alarm: There is a fire alarm in lab which indicates if there is a fire.

Fire exists: The fire exits symbols are pasted on walls to move out of the building in case of fire.

Air Conditioners: There is an AC installed in lab to control the temperature according to computers.

All these controls provide effective and safe environment to work and study in the main computing lab of London College of Commerce.

CONCLUSION:

To conclude my points I would like to say that the internetworking provide a great benefit to organisations. The organisations can share or transfer their information within or outside to other organisation with ease and effective way. This internetworking is the secure mean of information transfer. The internetworking was start with the evolution of LAN and now a day’s MAN and WAN are introduced with the help of these people can contact with world in single click. The internetworking technology provides security to information by applying encryption methods. This will help to protect organisations data from being copied by other companies.

RECOMMENDATION:

In my research work I found some risks and threats in the lab of London College of Commerce. So, I would like to recommend London College of Commerce to give attention towards following aspects:

Wires should be properly covered under plastic pipes.

Ac should be on to maintain temperature.

Password should not be written on computers.

Wi-Fi should be protected with security key.

Login-logout register is required to maintain log record.

Cc-TV camera should be placed in lab.

Lab attended should always be available in lab to monitor students.

The London College of Commerce has given privileges to every student to access and use the computers in the lab, but it become easy to vandalize the College property. So, all pc should be protected by user name and passwords which should be assigned to students individually.