Undoubtedly, Information technology has become increasingly important. It has become a part of the day-to-day operations of businesses, companies, government and non-government organizations. Daily living of an average individual involves computer and technology: communication, e-commerce, online banking transactions and other financial and work-related activities. Companies, entrepreneurs and small and medium enterprises have become more reliant on information systems to support and deliver diverse and complicated business processes which include accounting, inventory, marketing, payroll, research, sales tracking and even remote business operations that involve real-time surveillance.
There have been fair, satisfactory and even excellent results brought by information technology. The general public has been clinging to what one might consider as the perfect solution to an ever-increasing demand of complex processes of problem solving that delivers fast and reliant results. Indeed. But the jubilation is not absolute. As information technology has become prominent in its importance, so does the threat that comes with it. Despite the advancement of information technology, security and privacy have become an increasing pain in the ass. While superior information technology system has been built by the experts, maintaining its security has become harder for administrators and end-users. Today's users have become increasingly wider- ranging from vast majority of employees in many companies and organizations and a huge fraction of households all of which are exposed to security and privacy threats.
Majority of the security features are a hassle and awkward to use and can present a great obstacle to use in getting work done in such a desired pace. As a result, internet security measures have been bypassed, disabled or ignored too often. Subsequently, when security gets in the way of functionality, end-users tend to disable the very security features that protect them from cyber threats. The result is that they often engage in actions, consciously or unconsciously, that expose them to these cyber threats while compromising system security and exposing sensitive and confidential or personal information.
Privacy tools and software have become increasingly difficult to use. Over the course of time, as cyber threats have become increasingly vast and complex in operation, the very core of the tools that are designed to protect end-users have become user-unfriendly, difficult to understand by an average user and a bit expensive to avail. These factors have contributed greatly in the end-users decision of ignoring protection tools that puts them at risk to cyber threats.
Computer technology must be geared towards protecting its users. Privacy and security software developers must come up with a protection model and features that do not interfere with system usability. They must come up with tools that are efficient and cost-effective. Web designers and developers for banking and e-commerce must triple their standard in making these websites secure and infallible of threats.
It is of utmost importance that creators of information technology and end-users work hand in hand to protect the system that we depend on for our day-to-day cyber activities.
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