Team Assignment 2: The Cyber Effect of Human Factors

The Cyber Effect of Human Factors
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The Cyber Effect of Human Factors
Introduction
Urquhart (2006) defines metadata as any context in which information is put into existence in digital communications such as social media platforms, e-mails, website visits and application login details. Metadata in electronic format is equated with DNA due to their application as in providing forensic evidence and aid in authenticating digitalized information (Urquhart, (2006). Metadata is available in large quantities due to enhanced data storage innovations such as cloud computing. The present-day innovations and technologies have metadata to be susceptible to cyber crime due to accessibility by all users. Cybercrime is one of the more expensive activities to combat in the modern society, and the issue costs organizations millions of money every year (Laminin Solutions, 2013). Another cybercrime issue is network stripping in service networks that affect embedded metadata. There is a significant difference in the ways in which public and private sectors handle their metadata (Mayer-Schönberger & Cukier, 2013).
One of the ways in which metadata has been protected against exploitation is through policy controls aimed at limiting the amount of data being collected and the individuals accessing them. It can be inferred from the California’s 1986 Electronic Communication Privacy Act to ensure warrantied access to metadata by investigation agencies. The law has a weakness that it only safeguards public data leaving private data to be vulnerable to attacks. Access control such as the metadata-driven access policies in conjunction with event log and audit trail to increase information management and limiting access within stipulated standards (Parsons, 2010). The key data protection strategy entails policy control which is defined as the basis of effective security systems. Self-continuing and quantifiable security systems should have security policies which regulate the entire information network and assist in combating susceptibilities that may develop over time.
The effectiveness of control policies is affected by human factors represented by the abilities to design and support the access policies and security procedures. Human errors contribute to the vulnerabilities of cyber security vulnerabilities. The extent to which human error affect cyber security is evident in the missing ...