Impact of Technology on Society - Research Paper Example

Full Paper Contents Contribution to Human Health and Welfare In mobile computing, micro sensors are utilized for capturing health data, as they are small size intelligent devices that use works on low power consumption. Secondly, wrist devices are also used for monitoring health data by integrating sensors, electronic circuits, display and a wireless carrier - all integrated in a small portable device that will be suitable for healthcare environments. Thirdly, the health care cloths are flexible and can be equipped with the body, as they are stitched from textile technologies, such as fibers equipped with electronic and optical components. Lastly, health smart homes are utilized instead of separate medical facilities, resulting in significant cost savings. All these technologies are equipped with wireless communication devices that will deliver value, convenience, quality health care and a better life for the patients. Hence mobile computing devices enable and facilitate caregivers and health care cooperative roles instant access to patient information on a common platform or knowledge base regardless of geographical location. Social Impact on Society via Technology Studies revealed that for improving the quality of health care, monitoring mechanisms must be efficient and effective. The effective monitoring mechanism will transfer information related to vital signs accurately and robustly, resulting in an instant transfer of medical information and response time from a caregiver or doctor. However, to make the monitoring mechanism effective, there is no solution so far except the integration of social networking sites empowered with mobile computing called as Mobile Health Monitoring (MHM) (Brahnam & Jain, ). After the integration, these systems have proven to be efficient and reliable, as they facilitate continuous connectivity of patient’s vital signs to the caregiver or doctors (Brahnam & Jain,). (Brahnam & Jain,) Magrabi along with other researchers has constructed a web based system that will be utilized for monitoring patients located at home and suffering from a disease called as cystic fibrosis. The system is fully equipped and works in a standard browser that becomes active whenever new data of a patient is transmitted. Moreover, the system also reviews patient medical history and sends reminders and suggestions via email to both the caregiver and the patient as well (Brahnam & Jain,). However, one problem is not addressed yet, i.e. absence of instant monitoring mechanism of the patient’s body, as it will be achievable by incorporating sensors attached to the body. In contrast, the mobile health monitoring system comprises of micro sensors, wrist devices, health smart clothes and health smart homes. All these devices are capable of capturing vital signs and transmitting them to the social networking sites via mobile communication (Brahnam & Jain,). Negative Impact and Consequences Negatives aspects include radiation from microwave signals that are used as a communication carries for these devices, sensors and digital circuits. Secondly, there is always a risk of personal medical information being exposed to unauthorized persons, such as hackers or cyber criminals. Hu, Jiang, & Xiao (2008) conducted a research on Low-cost wireless sensor networks for remote cardiac patient monitoring applications. The primary objective was to utilize the modern communication technology that will establish a tele-cardiology sensor network that will serve as a remote ECG monitoring mechanism. The system was equipped with two core components. As the model was established on wireless sensor networks, related mobile platforms were distributed to the patients (Hu, Jiang, & Xiao, 2008). These mobile platforms were programmed to collect vital signs of patients by utilizing a 3 lead ECG monitoring system. Moreover, the collected data were transmitted via wireless over radio medium to the receiver that was connected to a monitoring and data processing system (Hu, Jiang, & Xiao, 2008). Similarly, the second core component was the theory of wavelength analysis. This theory was activated on the patient data monitoring and processing system. Consequently, the gathered medical data facilitated caregivers and doctors the possibility of diagnosing cardiovascular diseases (Hu, Jiang, & Xiao, 2008). Furthermore, the model was also capable of recording ECG signals, as traditionally it is a time consuming process, where human mistakes are also probable (Hu, Jiang, & Xiao, 2008). Economical Contribution Cyber threats are becoming a dominant and challenging factor for organizations, as it leverages many risks that are constantly changing. Every now and then, there are new security breaches resulting in stolen credit card records, stolen personal information and losses in terms of customer confidence, as well as revenue. No matter how advanced the security controls are, still incidents and security breaches are on the rise. There are numerous cases where IT managers have failed to provide or define adequate security for enterprise wide infrastructure of an organization. Likewise, they emphasize more or external security threats rather than internal vulnerabilities. In this modern era, mobile devices are no more for just receiving and making calls, we are moving towards mobile computing. Likewise, mobile operating systems are under development with more features and bundled applications. Similarly, for handling these advanced operating systems that are rich in features, powerful hardware architecture with quad core and octa-core processors is in demand. Besides, there are significant vulnerabilities and hidden risks that are embedded within these rich featured smart phones and tablets. Employees are habitual of using these devices all the time and at the workplace as well. This may lead to significant risks, as these devices are connected to internal wireless local area network/access points that are connected to the organizations computer network. For instance, a malware installs itself within the smartphone or tablet and travels from the smart phone to the rogue access point and then to the targeted machines containing personal identification information. A very popular malware known as ‘flame’ was specially designed to perform surveillance, as it records voice, data, mobile contacts, emails, compromise Bluetooth application for fetching data from Bluetooth connectivity (Hatahet, Bouabdallah, & Challal, 2010). Internal attacks have the highest percentage of threat to the organizations assets rather that the hacker who makes it way from the outside network. As per Gartner, 70% of security incident occur internally i.e. from the organization premises (Dickerson, 2004). Similarly, these devices are used internally within the organization and may result in system compromise if not monitored and controlled properly. Checkpoint conducted a survey of around 800 Information Technology professionals from Germany, United States, Japan, Canada and United Kingdom. The results of the report revealed that almost 90% of IT professionals have mobile devices and almost 65% of them grants access to mobile computing devices to be connected to the organization’s network. Likewise, some of them have more than one mobile computing device running on two different mobile operating systems. As these devices have more than 50% personal data, the impact can be tagged as ‘High’. An administrative control for controlling and monitoring ‘Bring Your Own Device’ BYOD is to create BYOD policy and initiate information security awareness programming to crease awareness in organization’s employees. Negative Impact and Consequences However, for minimize risks and vulnerabilities; certification is a key aspect that addresses design, deployment and operational processes. Certification process takes a lot of time and addresses systems that are considered as high availability systems. Likewise, it also addresses patch management issues that frequently updates security patches on systems. There is no way of completely securing a network, system and applications. However, periodic penetration testing and code reviews are conducted by professional security professionals and consultants for exploiting vulnerabilities and security flaws within an application. It is now considered as a fundamental fact that if any application is connected and operates on the network, it can be exploited and compromised. Organizations are keen to build a layered defense of protection to counter cyber threats from internal and external entities. Likewise, there is a requirement of constantly monitor live traffic from and to the World Wide Web, remote connections, real time interaction of users to applications, Internet gateways and client interactions with the applications. Code reviews are essential, as patches from vendors must be tested first before implementation into the live environment. However, for effective implementation of patches, patch management practices must be documented and standardized. As far as security is concerned, patient privacy is essential, as medical information such as ECG monitoring, vital signs etc. is continuously transmitted wirelessly to the carrier networks. In order to safeguard this information, access control methods must be implemented for assuring the access to only the relevant staff i.e. doctors, caregivers, patients etc. A system was introduced by (Le, Khalid, Sankar, & Lee, 2011) called as Mutual Authentication and Access Control based on Elliptic Curve Cryptography (MAACE). (Hu, Jiang, & Xiao, 2008) MAACE enforces a mutual authentication mechanism i.e. a health care professional will be authenticated to a medical sensor, smart phone or PDA along with ensuring only permitted data to be accessed. Moreover, by deploying cryptography, the MAACE system provides symmetric key encryption methods ensuring feasibility on sensor based architectures (Hu, Jiang, & Xiao, 2008). Tools for Mitigating Risks Likewise, there are efficient tools available for performing effective patch management. Secondly, configuration management also plays an essential role for ensuring security for mission critical aviation applications. For instance, if a faulty hardware component is replaced with the new one, it is important to address issues with hardware compatibility, as any mal functioned device may introduce vulnerability. Thirdly, change management procedures must also be document and approved from the respective application owners prior any changes to the application. For instance, change request form requiring any changes within the application can be approved and documented for ensuring no vulnerable spots in the architecture and infrastructure. All the identified attack interfaces must be addressed by taking following factors into consideration (Mitigating security threats by minimizing software attack surfaces.2008): Uninstall and prevent unnecessary features Default utilities and programs that are installed within the operating systems must be utilized (If required) Strong access management by user authentication Remove all default passwords on the application server Configure only required protocols on the application server Limiting the unnecessary codes from the application Applying metrics to measure the attack surface on periodic basis Disabling unwanted protocols on the application server Conclusion The cellular technology is a blessing, as anyone can communicate easily regardless of location, distance, weather conditions etc. The contributing of this technology to the society is massive in terms of advantages it portrays to the community. Likewise, its contribution to healthcare out weights any other benefits; however, there are some negative aspects as well such as microwave signals that may impact health. Moreover, there are numerous cyber hacking techniques introduced by this technology. Malware are now designed to penetrate in the system as well as in the cell phone. Flame is a good example, as it penetrates from one system to another and one mobile phone to another. Furthermore, is the cell phone is stolen, all the personal data, images, videos will be in the hand of a criminal, who can use it to blackmail the victim. References Dickerson, C. (2004). The top 20 IT mistakes. InfoWorld, 26(47), 34. Hatahet, S., Bouabdallah, A., & Challal, Y. (2010). A new worm propagation threat in BitTorrent: Modeling and analysis. Telecommunication Systems, 45(2), 95-109. doi:10.1007/s11235-009-9241-2 Mitigating security threats by minimizing software attack surfaces.(2008). Computer Economics Report, 30(5), 15-19. Brahnam, S., & Jain, L. C.Advanced computational intelligence paradigms in healthcare 5: Intelligent decision support systems (studies in computational intelligence) Springer. Hu, F., Jiang, M., & Xiao, Y. (2008). Low-cost wireless sensor networks for remote cardiac patients monitoring applications. Wireless Communications & Mobile Computing, 8(4), 513-529. doi:10.1002/wcm.488 Le, X. H., Khalid, M., Sankar, R., & Lee, S. (2011). An efficient mutual authentication and access control scheme for wireless sensor networks in healthcare. Journal of Networks, 6(3), 355-364. doi:10.4304/jnw.6.3.355-364 Read More