Hacking is a common occurrence in many organizations with the intention of breaching confidential information which can also result in loss of vital financial information. In most societies, hackers do not have a good reputation due to the impacts of their activities on learning institutions, business organizations, workplace organizations and individual confidential information. This paper examines the impacts of hacking on the society and the measures that can be put in place to reduce hacking occurrences ( Cecil, 2016) .
Learning institutions such as schools, colleges, and technical training institutions play an important role in achieving educational and career needs of the people in the society. Learning institutions are organizations whose activities involve the use of Information Technology (IT) systems in the management of students and staff records for the purpose of facilitating learning activities ( Cecil, 2016) . When hackers access the IT system of a learning institution, they can compromise student academic records such as grades and affect the institution's ability to provide a reliable evidence of the students’ performances. There is also the possibility that learning institutions can incur high losses in terms of student’s financial records such as school fees payment history which can be altered for the benefit of the hackers while the institutional financial needs can result in deficits. If a hacker decides to breach the electronic information of a learning institution, the society is affected directly because they will not feel comfortable enrolling their children in an institution that does not have a protected IT system. Therefore, institutions of learning must put measures in place to ensure they protect their records from hackers ( Erickson, 2008) .
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Many business organizations keep records such as transactions and payments as well as the quantities of goods bought by customers for the purpose of reference in case there is the need to do so. Most businesses are subject to hacking when their confidential records are breached by hackers who make alterations on the goods sold or inserting unsold goods into the catalog of goods sold for their personal benefits ( Erickson, 2008) . There are a number of businesses that are involved in the use of the internet to make sales of their products. Hackers are able to access the online sales sites of a business and transact its products resulting into a loss in revenues. Since businesses play an important role in achieving the needs of the society in general, the act of hacking its systems can result in significant negative impacts on its services to customers. The society can be affected in terms of their inability to get the services of the business when its activities are stopped due to hacking acts.
In workplaces, there is an increase in incidences of breach of employee’s records such as their tasks and personal records such as social security number or bank details and extract information which can result in loss of the employees’ finances in banks or a breach of administrative information about the organization. A hacker has the ability to alter the electronic information about a business organization and its clients, resulting in a state of misunderstanding which can promote the tendency of the clients to seek services of other organizations, resulting in a total collapse of an organization’s activities. Since organizations are involved in the provision of services to the community in the forms of utilities and infrastructural development, hacking of their IT system can result in a halt in their attempt to perform their roles and the society will be directly affected due to inability to benefit from the services provided by such organizations ( Erickson, 2008) .
The best solution that has been suggested to address the problem of hacking is the acquisition of services of an IT specialist in hacking or an ethical hacker. The ethical hacker can perform a number of tests on the IT systems in learning institutions, business organizations, and agencies involved in the provision of services to the society ( Ko & Dorantes, 2006) . This can be followed by installation of protective mechanism which prevents alteration of important information which can be altered and affect the credibility of the activities of an organization to the public.
Different types of scanning can be done on networks of IT systems to determine whether they are vulnerable to the threats of breach of security. For instance, port scanning can be done by finding out vulnerabilities and points of weakness in the used port within a network. This involves locating the active host, the operating system used, firewalls, and systems for detection of intrusions ( Ko & Dorantes, 2006) .
Lastly, another option for preventing cyber hacking is network scanning which basically involves identification of active hosts which exist on a network. This function focuses on understanding the IP address of the individual host. All the network scanning tools are able to provide information about the active hosts and their IP addresses within a network ( Ko & Dorantes, 2006) .
References
Cecil, A. (2016). A summary of hacking organizations, conferences, publications, and effects on society. Retrieved from http://www.cse.wustl.edu/~jain/cse571-07/ftp/hacking_orgs/index.html
Erickson, J. (2008). Hacking: The Art of Exploitation (2nd ed.). No Starch Press Inc.,
Ko, M., & Dorantes, C. (2006). The impact of information security breaches on the financial performance of the breached firms: an empirical investigation. Journal of Information Technology Management , 17 (2), 13-22.
