An Emerging Information Security Threat - 1283 Words

An emerging information security threat is the use of â€Å"Ransomware† by hackers. A recent example occurred in 2012 when Russian hackers held the Miami Family Medical Centre in Queensland to ransom after accessing their server remotely and running encryption software on it, encrypting thousands of patient health records. The hackers encrypted the whole SQL database, about 6500 files, by going through and searching for every doc, xls, txt, pdf, mdb, mdf i.e. all of the standard data files. The hackers accessed the data through a Remote Desk Protocol (RDP) port that was open and part of the standard Windows 2003 Small Business Server Premium package. The hackers cracked the user and password restricted access.†¦show more content†¦The owners of the Medical Practice thought they had a good system in place, they had antivirus but this was not a virus. The hackers were very strategic in their attack. Quite apart from deliberately exploiting a vulnerable flaw in the medical practice’s IT security, they made sure the ransom they demanded was not ridiculously high to maximise the chances of the victim’s likelihood to pay. They chose a medical practice probably because they thought doctors had money and a compelling motive to pay the ransom. Fortunately the owners had a partial back up of the data and while they didn’t recover completely they were eventually able to get back to business but only after a very long time. In this case bringing the hackers to justice was impossible. IT security expert Nigel Phair, the director of the Centre for Internet Safety and a former investigator with the Australian High-Tech Crime Centre, says â€Å"the hackers are not easy to trace and international police investigations are difficult. In a lot of those places law enforcement isn t that strong and so it s difficult to get cooperation with local police. (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-12-10/hackers-target-gold-coast-medical-centre/4418676, Accessed 7 October 2014) Mr Phair says this attack is a wake-up call with businesses around Australia hacked five to ten times a week. Cyber criminals based mainly throughout Eastern Europe look for rich targets with identifying information

Explanatory Synthesis Essay on Karen Armstrongs Homo...

Explanatory Synthesis Essay on Karen Armstrong Homo Religiosus and Robert Thurman Wisdom Karen Armstrongs first chapter in The Case of God, Homo Religiosus, provides readers with the opportunity to gain a better understanding of the idea of religion as being a dominant concept in human nature. Armstrong apparently wants to emphasize that humans were designed so as for them to be religious and thus concentrate on taking on a series of attitudes meant to provide them with the chance to develop religious ideologies. It is practically as if the need to connect with a higher force is in peoples DNA, taking into account that most communities throughout history have concentrated on reaching a higher state of mind by trying to develop a relationship with the divine. Robert Thurmans essay Wisdom attempts to create a context motivating why people across time have struggled to discover their personal identities. His essay is meant to highlight that even though individuals focus on finding more about their inner selves, most have trouble doing so and only manage to become even more confused as a consequence. Thurman wants his readers to understand that it is perfectly normal for people to take on superficial attitudes with regard to their personal identities and to feel that it is pointless for them to try and rediscover themselves because they already know all there is to know about who they are. Armstrongs Homo Religiosus can work hand in hand with Thurmans

Deviance, Psychiatry and Cultural Relativism Free Essays

The paper â€Å"Borderlands: Deviance, Psychiatry and Cultural Relativism† by Robert Bartholomew discusses cultural differences i. e. what is considered normal and rational in one culture may be considered abnormal in others. We will write a custom essay sample on Deviance, Psychiatry and Cultural Relativism or any similar topic only for you Order Now Therefore, the author analyzes different attitudes towards human actions (e. g. suicide), and provides overview of cultural relativism and psychiatry. The author’s thesis is that people interpret the world depending on their social and cultural context. He argues that science can’t be applied to identifying and treating abnormality. Bartholomew says that normality is â€Å"not an objective given from which simple assessments of behaviour can be rendered independent of historical era, culture, or group†. (P. 36-37) Normality is defined by cultural background and cultures have their own interpretations what to consider rational or irrational. For example, suicide is not acceptable in Western countries, whereas it is considered normal in Japan. Further, Bartholomew defines cultural relativism as theory of knowledge which is responsible for working out criteria how to judge behaviour of other culture. It is not static and depends on circumstances. There are few standards of universal conduct to evaluate this or that society. The author claims that the problem of cultural relativism results in serious dilemmas for mental health professionals. Actually, psychiatric diagnoses don’t involve assessment of cultural development and influence. However, psychiatry is more interested in religious, social and cultural background than other medical fields. Bartholomew assumes that psychiatry is the most contentious medical branch. In psychiatry ‘illness’ is defined as experiencing living problems, rather than discernible cerebral disease that affects human behaviour. The negative moment is that Western medicine is still transmitting social and professional stereotypes constituting its own values and norms. Summing up, the author recommends – when to judge whether the person is normal, it is necessary to get acquainted with his social world and cultural background. Works Cited Bartholomew, Robert. â€Å"Borderlands: Deviance, Psychiatry and Cultural Relativism†. Skeptic, 8, 3 (2000): 36-40. How to cite Deviance, Psychiatry and Cultural Relativism, Papers

DVD player Essay Example For Students

DVD player Essay As a marketing department team#4 our primary goal is to make bestestimate the price for our new product DVD player that will produce themaximum profit and how many of the DVD players that we can expect to sell,and how much profit we might hope to realize from the sales. In order to price DVD player, we need to estimate; The demand for a new DVD player on the national market. The cost of production of a new DVD player. The revenue in relation to quantity sold. The price that is likely to maximize profit. How profit changes in response to changes in quantity of DVD players. The level of production that will maximize our profit. Here, we have presented our analysis by using mathematical tools tocompute required information. Cost data:To produce new DVD player, the first 400,000 units will have productioncost of $41.00 per unit. The next 200,000 units will cost $31.00 per unitto produce. After the first 600,000 units can be produced for 23.00 furtherup to 1,300,000. Also there are fixed overhead costs of $40,800,000 beforeproducing any players. Given the information, we set up the cost function which tells us thetotal costs at any level or production q units. First, let q be the number of units be specified by the variable and C(q)be the total cost function. The Cost function is set up by formula; C(q)=Variable Costs + Fixed Costs. Given the data, up to 400,000 units are produced, our first piece of thecost function is picif q pic400,000. Second part of the function wasset up by plugging the number where pic and variable cost $31.00 to theequation and found out y-axis of the second piecewise function and then itcame out31q +44,800,000 if 400,000 q pic 600,000. The last piece ofthe function is I basically did same thing as the second one by pluggingthe number where picand variable cost $23.00 to get y-axis of thefunction and came out 23q+49,600,000 if 600,000