Disaster Recovery Journal
Volume 9, Issue 3
Summer 1996
The Internet Connection
Marketing and Security Issues
on the Internet
By Robert Arnold
The Internet has become an everyday part of many peoples lives including many companies. It almost seems if you or your organization is not on-line yet, you’re missing the boat. Marketing has become a big part of the Internet, due to the number of possible customers, and due to how inexpensive it is to have a presence on the web. It is feasible for an organization to have a presence on the web for as little as $100 month.
Looking at these numbers, how can an organization pass up the oppurtunity for marketing on the web. Currently it is estimated there are somewhere around 18-21 million world wide web surfers. It is also estimated that out of these web surfers almost 50% of them use the Internet for corporate use, such as researching and learning more about topics and techniques in their field.
This all goes to show that many companies are reaching an extremely large amount of clients via the web which would not be possible through other conventional means. Here at the DRJ, we receive daily between 15-25 new subscriptions a day via the Internet and roughly 40 E-mails.
However, once an organization has become accessible via the web, many problems can arise if they chose to connect their web server to their internal LAN/WAN. These problems have become such a threat that it has taken the information security industry by storm. These threats range from hackers breaking into a secured network to the ever popular viruses.
One such serious virus threat has to deal with Java applets. Viruses imbedded in a compressed applet can be transferred on a users machine without being detected even by the leading antivirus software packages until it is too late. Threats such as these are forcing organizations to implement very costly and time consuming security policies and measures.
Many organizations are finding it much easier and cheaper to implement internal Intranets. Intranets offer many benefits to a large organization. A few of these benefits are Security, Information Sharing, Communication among employees, Flexibility, and Bandwith.
By implementing an Intranet, an organization can allow their employees to have full access to the Internet through a secured means as well as access to all internal secured areas not accessible by anyone outside their network. An Intranet basically uses the information and technology of the WWW but quicker, easier and more cost effective.
As more and more organizations implement Intranets there will be fewer and fewer security issues facing organizations on the web, but by no means is even a Intranet 100% secure. There will always be individuals who can hack around any firewall or any other security measure.
This means the risks of doing business "On-line" will always be there. Keep in mind one hacker with criminal intent could be just as disastrous to your organization as any other type of disaster for which you plan. Therefore, your organization needs to weigh the benefits and risks of the Internet before you determine what type of presence you would like to have on the web.
Robert Arnold is a webmaster with Disaster Recovery Journal.
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Last Updated--Tuesday, July 16, 1996.