Homeland Security and International Relations - Essay Example

? Topic: Homeland Information Security Incentives Overview Information and communication technology has advanced and become a tool that gives the security apparatus an edge in information gathering on intelligence. Companies and federal agencies depend on it as it has become a main factor in all their operations as it helps store, process, transmit and report essential information easily and in the shortest time possible for efficiency purposes. With the advancement of information and communication technology, internet has become an essential tool as nearly everything relies on it. People as well use it in the everyday undertakings of life events. Despite its usefulness, it is considered a threat if not used in the right way as it is prone to abuse by the very same people who find it useful. With the internet, you can obtain data and information in the easiest way, but others may use it to harm others in different ways. The growing numbers of incidences and attacks online have revealed that the cyberspace is no longer secure anymore. Hence, securing information has become a critical factor of every organisation and federal agencies whether public or private. Attackers can gain unauthorised information from the organisational information systems and use it to harm the organisation. Hackers can change, steal or even harm the information systems through the internet. To prevent this will call for protection of the internet space by implementing proper cyber security. This will involve protecting information by preventing, detecting and responding to attacks from unauthorised personnel via the internet space. Government agencies are most prone when it comes to cyberspace attacks as they are undertaking an electronic government initiative. More and more agencies are making a move to be connected into the global internet as more cyber-terrorism activities grow very fast becoming a more serious and complicated issue. Discussion areas Questions are being raised as to whether homeland information security is improving over the years. For this to take place, there need to be massive investment in terms of budgetary resources dealing with internal and/or external threat incentives for it to have an effect on the performance of security agencies. The federal government agencies of the United States have a role in improving the situation using security agencies such as homeland security. A background check on the US homeland security status shows that the numbers of cyber-terrorism to government information systems are growing fact. A number of efforts have been made to improve on this and it still remains an issue whether such efforts have been paying off in the improvement of cyberspace security. Government officials and big players in various US industries agree that cyber-crime and cyber-terrorism are threatening national security as well as the economy of the US. Data loss, computer intrusions and privacy breaches have been common security threats as this puts sensitive information at risk. Identifying information about Americans has been stolen, lost or improperly disclosed and hence posing threats to those individuals in terms of privacy loss, identity theft and financial crimes. It is therefore important that agencies as well as industry players protect their information systems in a consistent and sufficient way, otherwise cyber-terrorists will always be able to find a weak spot and take advantage. Commentary According to Koong, Merhi and Sun (2013), the US government needs to increase the incentives that are in place to positively influence the improvement of security. In the 2010 budget, president Obama proposed that the 2010 budget should include $42.7 for the department of homeland security as an effort to reduce the vulnerability of federal agencies. This shows the importance of the budget, to both private and public organisations, as an incentive to improve homeland information security in an attempt to increase defence against internet threat attacks. An investment of this nature in either the public or private industry will help adopt and implement new technologies as well as new strategies which will lead to better information security. It is also important that the budgetary allocation to this effort be adequate and constant throughout the years for the organisations to achieve the needed results, the higher the budget, the higher are the resources allocated to IT and information security in particular. In the event that agencies and organisations invest more in the information and technology aspects, such as information security, their security performances increase. Time is needed to feel the effect of the increased investment in information security as corresponding performances in security cannot be directly felt. Time lag has been one of the causes attributed to IT productivity inconsistencies, which includes information security productivity. Threats to homeland information security come from many sources, either intentional or unintentional and hence scholars agree that the end users in the organisations are the weakest link in ensuring security if the information they have. When there is an increase in the budget allocation for incentives towards information security, the organisation or agency should invest in providing employees with the necessary IT training needed to secure its data and prevent attacks. Investment in the new and emerging technologies is an essential aspect of keeping the safety of records. Out-dated technologies will be easily overridden during cyber-attacks and hence an increase in the vulnerability of exposure. Conclusion One cannot argue that external threats in form of cyber-attacks are targeting mainly important federal agencies, but as well hackers are targeting even private and public institutions. The basic assumption is that external threat incentives have impacted on information security performance but there still needs to be an analysis of the effects these threats have on different critical and non-critical agencies. Different organisations have different levels of external threat attacks depending on the importance of the agency, its size and role it plays in the industry at large and the perception the general public has on the image portrayed by the individual organisation. Agencies hold different categories of information and this also determines the level of information security it should adhere to. For example, the Department of Defence has top secret information directly relate to the safety of the nation and hence it becomes one of the primary targets of attackers or hackers. Such an agency needs to possess advanced technologies to help them protect their data from attackers. Based on the way in which security performance will normally respond to the inflow of security incentives, most organisations and agencies will have a push and pull effect over time from both internal and external incentives. An increase in the incentives would mean a heightened security performance and a decrease in the incentives will have a reversed effect. Thus over time, an observed effect of positive correlation between the trend of incentives and the trend of information security performance will be evident. No matter the results, the human resources in an organisation and the technology levels are the key determinants of the vulnerability levels to cyber-attacks. The investments in terms of the incentives need to give these two the highest priority when it comes to the informational safety of both the public and private organisations. Reference Koong S. K, Merhi I. M, & Sun, J,. (2013). Push and pull effects of homeland information security incentives: information management and computer security journal. University of Texas Pan American, Edinburg, Texas, USA. Read More