Management Information Systems

Title: Management Information Systems
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Analysis of Information Risks
With increasing severity and frequency, the business world is becoming a victim of high-profile data leaks that starts wit a simple click of SEND button or even an innocuous instant messaging conservation. The unintentional leaks are made more complex by the collusion between outsiders and insiders which is aimed at using such information for illicit purposes.
For many businesses, losing of customer lists or information is not only their risk. Merger, and acquisitions, intellectual property, distribution strategies, product launch dates and other confidential information that is essential in the day to day operation of the business must be safe so as to sustain their competitive advantage. Information leaks cause not only daunting monetary costs but also brand and reputation loss, regulatory penalties and major businesses setbacks. So as to mitigate this business need to have proper ILP (Information leak prevention) procedures in place.


*Based on publicly reported leaks
Instances
In 2002, Eli Lilly by mistake sent to users of its Prozac e-newsletters to about 670 email addresses without masking each email address from the rest; thus every recipient would see the identities of all other recipients. This resulted to alienation of customers and a fine of $160000 was imposed on the company. This affected the customers, the recipients, the company management and also the general public.
In the subsequent year (2003), the founder of Valve software made a confirmation that hackers had stolen the source code of Half-Life 2, the insiders of the game industry were counting on it to revive the dying PC gamming industry. The release delayed for half a year thus leading to unquantifiable economic losses. This had grave economic effects on the general business in the gamming industry, the users of the software and even those who were potential customers. The economic effects stretched far and wide and included the company itself. No lawsuits were filed in this case.
In the year 2005, a business statistician at the Health department of Palm Beach County inadvertently emailed a confidential list of 4500 HIV AIDS patients and 2000 HIV positive people to 800 county employees. It affected the management f the county, the statistician, the employees but more so the patients whose information was leaked. This led to exposure of confidential health data and many patients sued the county. The...