Intro to Mgt Syst Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Intro to Mgt Syst - Assignment Example By instituting privacy policies in information systems, organizations can safeguard personal information of their employees and customers from access and manipulation by ill-motivated individuals. There are several human and technological protective measures that can be used to safeguard and enforce privacy in information systems. Some of the most operative and widely used mechanisms include encryption, data masking, and authentication. Kim and Solomon (2012) define encryption as the process of encoding information and/or messages in such a manner that only the authorized parties can access or read it. The process involves encrypting plaintext with an encryption algorithm to generate the cipher text that is only readable if decrypted. Therefore, any interceptor of the message cannot access it unless they provide the encryption key which is provided by the originator of the information (Kim & Solomon, 2012). Data masking, on the other hand, refer to the process of hiding the original data with random characters to prevent classified personal data from access by unauthorized persons (Rainer & Cegielski, 2012). Data masking aims at protecting the actual data by having a function al substitute when the real data is not required. Authentication is another measure that can be taken by determining whether something or someone is what he or she declares to be. Authentication in information systems is attained through the use of logon passwords and pin numbers (Kim & Solomon, 2012). There are several problems related to management information systems that arise from privacy of information. One of the most common problems is security breaches, which emanate as a result of hackers and viruses. Today, most organizations store their data on remote cloud servers accessible with a username and the appropriate password (Kim & Solomon, 2012). However, there is a higher risk of losing the data through viruses, hijackers, and wrong-minded