The five pillars of today’s security techniques

With increased incidents of security intrusions more emphases is being put in Information Systems Security. Corporate data needs to be protected at all cost. A compromise on system security could cost an organization millions in data loss and strategic information spilling. Thus, a formidable security system is an investment any organization running data traffic on corporate and public networks should implement. Information system security can be enhanced through the following:Protection:Firewalls employ selective rules to grant or deny access to data traffic in to the intranet. To limit access to a website, you might decide to block the associated FTP port.   Firewalls may also be configured to block all traffic apart from a few, listed. For example to limited access to common World Wide Web traffic, you may just block port 80 or 8080.Intrusion prevention:Intrusion prevention systems combine the strengths of firewall and IPS. It examines network traffic like IDS and determines whe ther to pass any given traffic like firewalls.The IPS assesses traffic patterns to evaluate the type of network access and to determine whether it should be permitted. While IDS can only note an ongoing attack and pass the alert to an analyst, the IPS will stop the attack by blocking traffic between the attacker and its victim.Intrusion Detection:Intrusion detection systems (IDS) actively look for intrusions in process such as forbidden websites access or Trojan horse attempting to control a workstation activity. They record dangerous patterns and alert the network security personnel. They have to be configured carefully for purposes of sending the correct information to the security personnel.Reaction:In the event of a security compromise in your organization, there is always an expected reaction.   You may react by sealing the loops e.g. in a web based information system, a poorly coded script code that skips password encryption may be corrected on an in-house programming exerci se. An off shelf application whose security has been compromised may be reported to the vendor for future provision of security updates.Documentation:All security attacks, their impact on the information system and possible sources and causes should be documented. This gives an audit trail for future consideration. Adaptive development, also takes into consideration such incidences for purposes of fixing the bugs.