Conference Week 5

Reflections of Week 5

Week 5 was about Security. The session was on time considering the time we are in when laptops are turning up missing and data systems are compromised. Most of these events have turned out to be internal to the agency or program. Doing my weekly research and reading the comments from my classmates, I have learned a few things that I can do as a system administrator to protect the data and the systems I am responsible for. Since I work for the Federal Government, we are the first to examine our business processes to ensure that we are doing all that we can to protect confidential information. The efforts are tedious and sometimes repetative, but worth it all. I didn't read all of the posts from my classmates, but what I did read my classmates seem to understand that we all have a role in security. For the mini project, I was not sure if I was giving too much information, so I asked my instructor, who I trust will let me know if anything I wanted to post was compromising to my system. I really did not feel comfortable discussing a breach at home. However, I felt that we have more safeguards on the systems at work.

During this week the group did a lot of collaboration about the project. We discussed what parts we will be willing to take on. I decided to investigate question number 1. I had to really think about what Information Technology really means. My first task was identifying IT. I spent minimal time looking it up. The next thing was to visit the FedEx website. I'm not sure how I am going to approach question 1, but I will gather as much information as possible.

I was also suppose to visit our Target center to collect information for my final project this week. I missed out on that opportunity because the Target center is located downtown DC and my office is in Beltsville, MD. I will continue efforts to visit the Target center in the near future.