Security Mechanisms required
Use of strong passwords
State employees and users should use passwords that include numbers, letters and symbols in order to eliminate chances of unauthorized access. The company’s employees should avoid using ordinary passwords such as the company’s name. The passwords should also be changed at least in every sixty to ninety days. Each state employee and user should also be accessed their own username and password to login the website for easy accountability in case of a security breach. Passwords also should not be passed over on plain texts ( Kahate, 2013).
Implementing Firewalls
Firewalls monitor how information moves between the untrusted and the trusted network. With the establishment of firewalls in the internet connection, DMS can setup online rules for users through packet filtering, proxy services and stateful inspection. The recent networks employ the Open Systems Interface (OSI) model. This model offers easy regulation of protocols by virtue of its flexibility. The protocols are arranged in a stack of layers that can are developed sequentially in a way that allows adjustments at each individual level. This therefore limits the interference of other layers when a correction occurs at a different step. A formularized methodology that is applicable in solving the issues regarding security complexities that such a network layout requires does not exist ( Kahate, 2013).
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Network security not only addresses issues related to the integrity of the computers but also focuses on the maintenance on the safety of the data transfer. Attackers can target the communication channels of data and interfere with its encryption to change its meaning or insert malware. This occurs whenever there is a breech in the streaming of data from a sender to a recipient in various ways. It is crucial therefore to secure the transfer channels such as networks as it is important to keep the computer hardware safe from intrusion. Developers of network security have to put into consideration various attributes in order to formulate a workable software. These include accessibility, confidentiality, authenticity and non-repudiation. The network should remain a sole property of the owner with the use of appropriate technical mechanisms that constitute privacy.
Using Antiviruses
Installation of antiviruses protects against Trojan horses, spyware, adware and key loggers. Some of the users might be hackers who might want to access DMS crucial assets. Anti-malware therefore safeguards against chances of denial of service to the users and possible loss of information from the website. The antiviruses should also be updated regularly and system scans done often ( Kahate, 2013).
Backups
The organization’s data and vital information assets should be backed up either on high carrying capacity external hard disks or on the cloud. This ensures that if there is a successful attack by users on the system, the organization can still be able to retrieve their data. The servers should also have an automatic back up plan.
Unknown email attachments
Employees should not open unsolicited email attachments as they could be carrying worms. They can contact the recipient to verify their identity and or just simply ignore them.
Training Employees
Most attack on the system usually occur due to carelessness or ignorance from those operating a system. Educating employees on how tom effectively use software and hardware helps immensely in reducing vulnerabilities in the system. Some threats such as identity theft can be avoided where hackers use their skills of social engineering to obtain vital information from unsuspecting employees over the network.
Cryptography
This modern security technology converts ordinary plain text into cipher text using complex mathematical and algebraic operations. It is used to protect valuable information resources on the internet, intranet and extranet. It is always difficult for hackers to access and decrypt encrypted information ( Kahate, 2013).
Evaluation of the Transition Process
TCP/IP Capability
The implementation of the TCP/IP was a good move despite the fact that SNA is more scalable with transaction intergrators. This is because TCP/IP is faster for relatively smaller transactions (100 transaction/second) and it enables easier interoperability to the internet. Thus, cost effective compared to SNA. TCP/IP also has supported implementations for most hardware and operating systems. Despite these advantages, SNA however offered better security and more advanced error checking and recovery capabilities absent in TCP/IP ( Nurre & Sharkey, 2014).
The IP Infrastructure
The SNA had to be transformed into a router network since it would not be used along with the TCP/IP. When the two are used alongside, performance is usually degraded as response time drops unlike with SNA operating alone.
Adoption of the Cisco 7000 router as its backbone router was relatively good as it has enhanced features such as virtual route forwarding (VRF) and overlay transport virtualization (OTV) that offer high performance. The router solves problems faster and reduces chances of downtime ( Popovic et al, 2015) . DMS can now think of purchasing the latest router Cisco Nexus 9000 series for efficient throughput as it has more advanced features than the existing backbone router.
Services on the Site
Business Operations- Vendors
The operations managed by DMS include state purchasing, telecommunications, private prison monitoring, real estate development and management, fleet management, federal property assistance and correctional privatization. Vendors access a platform to register themselves, state their purchasing process, contact the vendor ombudsman, attend training and given a diversity of purchasing opportunities.
Workforce operations
DMS manages state personal system including insurance benefits, Florida retirement system, human resource management and people first. Employees are also able to estimate their retirement benefits, change their health plans and view other careers offered by DMS.
Agency Administration
DMS provides centralized administrative support to the agency and its employees, including planning and budget, purchasing, finance and accounting services.
Retired/Former Employees
It is a medical service that is presented to retired employees of Florida. It offers options such as: health plan eligibility, changing one’s health plan, tracking one’s retirement benefits, retirement payment schedule and a retirement FAQs pdf for retirees.
Commission on Human Relations
This commission investigates allegations of discrimination based on sex, age, race, nation origin, religion, disability, color and certain private club memberships. This service ensures that no human being is demeaned by another and if incase discrimination occurs, appropriate measures are taken.
Division of Administrative Hearings
This provides a uniform and impartial forum for the trial and resolution of disputes between private citizens and organization agencies of the state. All therefore enjoy justice if not most of Florida’s residents.
Other Services
Some other services include submitting a “request for space”, dispose of mobile equipment, reserve capitol/ Event space, building construction, agency renovation requests, place SUNCOM order and track agency fleet activity.
Recommendable Additional Services and Improvements
Online Chat Customer Support Service
This is extremely important in the event of any technical or problem related to the website. Users should be able to contact the service providers at any time of the day with ease. An email address ought also to be included on the site (Conaldi & Lomi, 2013).
Web hosting
Since DMS includes business services that involves a number of vendors, they can consider owning a powerful server and renting out web space for their customers at affordable prices and offering quality services such as quality uptime and bandwidth ( Conaldi & Lomi, 2013) .
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Cloud Storage
DMS can start maintaining, managing and backing up data remotely, and making it available to users over the internet. Business clients in Florida that require ample space for their e-commerce sites will take this option.
An improvement that can be made to the website is probably adding photos of success stories of members that have benefited from the organization, pictorial illustrations of how one can monitor his/her retirement scheme and possibly implementation of live photos.
References
Conaldi, G., & Lomi, A. (2013). The dual network structure of organizational problem solving: A case study on open source software development. Social Networks , 35 (2), 237-250.
Kahate, A. (2013). Cryptography and network security . Tata McGraw-Hill Education.
Nurre, S. G., & Sharkey, T. C. (2014). Integrated network design and scheduling problems with parallel identical machines: Complexity results and dispatching rules. Networks , 63 (4), 306-326.
Popovic, M., Mohiuddin, M., Tomozei, D. C., & Le Boudec, J. Y. (2015, May). iprp: Parallel redundancy protocol for ip networks. In Factory Communication Systems (WFCS), 2015 IEEE World Conference on (pp. 1-4). IEEE.
