Question

Prepare a short Word document (2 pages) that describes your impressions about the importance of the security mechanisms you have reviewed thus far (authentication, encryption, firewalls, and so on) and how they might be useful in the Group Project

Answer 1

A computer system faces many threats ,the major threats are data loss,unuthorized acess and virus and other harmful programs which can lead to database breach ,any sensitive information can fall in wrong hand and also damage of software and hardware by virus.So the importance of security mechanism come into play for preventing such losses:-

• Firewalls:-it is good way to maintain a security level between a computer system and internet.Computer network manager set up some rules so that any unauthorised access and intrusions can be prevented.Firewalls are very important at the boundary of internet and enterprise network.You can use firewalls to set the rules for other network manager to access the your data according to your rules.
• Authentication:- It basically means to know who is requesting network services.It can be achieved by identifying one or more of these factors:something they know,something they have and something they are.The most common way of authentication now a days is userid and password.
• Encryption:-It can be the method to keep data safe.When data is transmitted ove internet or in CD or harddisk it can be easily misused or accessed if proper encryption and authentication is not done.In enryption the data is encoded when transmitted  so that only authorized person can access it by decrypting it.
• Auditing:-Proper accounting of all logs from any user on server ,his/her detail of network activity data should be done,it should record all activity of authentication and user which is attempting to change his access rights..

These security mechanism can be useful in follwing ways:-

the need of security mechanism over the computer network and outside it cannot be denied.All the files,data and personal information related to any project can be access by an unauthorized person if proper safety measures are not taken,hackers attack or virus attack can also be prevented by proper use of antivirus and authentication.The data stored in any hard disk or external storage device can be protected by proper use of password security and authentication so that ant project file or data would not fall in wrong hands. The database for an organistion should also be secure and safe from ay data breach using these security mechanism.