Research and assess, in 2-3 brief paragraphs, the impact that "Big Data" can have on cyber security and cybersecurity policy
Everything in the world seems to be on a fast pace nowadays or moving towards irregular
directions. Weather, for example, is changing, hence the need for advanced computing together
with big data in order to fully forecast. On the other hand, humans are not easily predictable, so
organizations are taking advantage of big data to stay in business or keep pace with competition
Tesco, Target and Amazon, for example, have used Big Data to gain competitive
advantages in retail. The Billion Prices Project from MIT has shown how monitoring the
billions of posts on the Internet can be turned into hard data about prices for products
around the world. Perhaps the strongest case for Big Data is the way that Google has used
it to sell and target advertising[ CITATION Ray13 \l 1033 ]
An organization can use real time big data to resolve a potential company loss before it’s
discovered by its competitors or consumer. If a car company collects real time big data about it
cars, it would be able to notice which repair alerts pop up most of the time. Frequent pop ups
might give them a hint on a technical problem with their product which need an internal decision
to recall than external pressure which might cost the company a lot in court settlements.
It’s awesome to think or look at the way big, data is making our lives comfortable. Big data
collected by state and non-state actors do create a lot of cybersecurity issues and policy concerns.
Right to online privacy is a major concern when we talk about the big data collection. No matter
how much assurance an organization gives on its fine print or EUA, an average person with a
reasonable thought will definitely change what he or she will say while using a site which state it
third parties, but just the fact that an average man is aware that his browsing habit is being
collected to be analyzed, stored and possibly pass over to another organization or individual
makes them to change or be cautious of what they say. That is a huge challenge to privacy which
brings about the need for good cybersecurity by the company collecting big data, proper and
detail explanation of why, what and when users data’s are collected.
Security wise, companies that store big data needs to have robust information security systems
since they too are constantly targeted by hackers. The big data collector needs to be regulated
and audit as to what the collects and what efforts they have in place to secure data storedinn their
databases. That means, collectors will be encouraged through incentive policies to stay proactive
by constantly looking for threats to their system. Big data in itself can help do this task.
The more information you have, the better your chance of preventing a security problem
from hurting you. Job one is to aggregate all the information from every device –
firewall, server, even endpoint – into one place. Whether its cloud, virtual and real
appliances, network devices, apps, databases, desktops and security devices, every log
that you can imagine should be collected as well as information from human resources
and customer transactions.[ CITATION hp14 \l 1033 ].
All in all, those who collects big data need to clearly communicate what data is collected, how it
will use it and under what circumstance it will pass it over to another party. Policy makers need
to fully mandate and audits the activities of giant data collectors.Policy makers need to work to
hard to come up with laws that fully govern big data and privacy laws on a wider scale.
“The financial and health sector has -the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability
The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (also known as the Financial Services Modernization Act)
includes a privacy rule that requires financial institutions to explain their privacy
practices to customers and give customers an opportunity to decline to have their data
shared with other institutions”[ CITATION EdB \l 1033 ].
References
Burns, E. (n.d.). The state of big data privacy law. Retrieved from TechTarget.:
http://searchbusinessanalytics.techtarget.com/feature/Laws-leave-gray-area-between-big-data-and-privacy
hp. (2014, January). 10 Ways to Build a Better Big Data Security Strategy. Retrieved from hp: http://www8.hp.com/h20195/V2/GetPDF.aspx/4AA5-0863ENW.pdf
