Cyber War – threat to world security.

There are millions of computer servers, computers, tablet pc smart phones and internet device are connected to the worldwide net community. Peoples world wide continuously developing computer software and hardware for the good of human life, to be more efficient and enjoyable life. Computers and communication tools connected to the internet are always facing the cyber security threat issue such as cyber attack, hacking, cracking and virus infection. The cyber attack includes website defacement, denial or diversion of connection, spying and destruction of website.

The cyber attack is considered as “war without physical casualty” but could cause huge destruction or full loss of control on computers or equipment connected to the net.  Hackers or crackers may attack targeted sites individually or in group. A loose group called Anonymous once brought down Malaysian government website and a few other country military websites. The USA military sites as reported in IT Security and Network Security news has been on constant attack. The e-Week Security Watch reported that NASA is repeatedly attacked and jet propulsion lab compromised in the March 4^th. 2012 news release.  http://securitywatch.eweek.com/data_breach/nasa_repeatedly_attacked_jet_propulsion_lab_compromised.html

Firewall is set up to protect the computers and its stored contents. Unfortunately the number of hackers is more than firewall builder resulting many websites are compromised. This cyber attack threats are big concern to the organizations, business, governments and military sites. Huge amount of fund is allocated to fight the cyber attack and are changing to cyber war in the internet. Hence IT security is a vital aspect for any organization, business, government or individual to take care when connected to the internet.

CYBER SECURITY CHALLANGE

My experience making a blog.

Some time in end of December 2009. I was looking at my son’s blog which contains many interesting current youngster issues posted in it. Many people and friends around the globe could read it. I told myself that it is timely to set up my own blog to share experience to others and getting readers to feedback. Unfortunately I don’t know how to set up the blog. As a short cut, I requested my son to set up the blog and upload my simple write up with a few photos from my team building session held somewhere in December 2009. After the blog was up, no update was done until AP Dr. Norzaidi requested us to make a blog and upload five entries as our assignment.

I knew that my dormant blog with forgotten password is somewhere in the internet. Scratching my head to remember back the password but nothing seems to match the password set last time. It is just a waste of time to remember it back. In actual fact there is one key for blog owner to reset back the password using the registered e mail in the blog. It is fortunate that my email account still survived and the new password able to be reset easily. Accessing the old forgotten blog with Building Team as key word and buildingexcellent.blogspot.com as the URL, new entries are able to be posted with some difficulty. This time it has to be done all by my own because my blog teacher is away in Egypt. Trial and error pave the way for me to post new entries in my blog. Sometimes, it is a joke when no stress is coming to our way, motivation to get things done is low. A little stress is good but continuous stress will make people breakdown. I would like to express my sincere thanks to AP Dr Norzaidi to motivate myself to post entries in my old forgotten blog. Happy blogging.

Cloud Computing – Good for business ?

Basic definition of cloud computing is the use of the Internet for the tasks performed by the computers and communication gadgets such as desktop, lap tops, tablet pc and the smart phones. It is an Internet-based network model that enables on-demand access to a shared pool of computing resources such as networks, servers, storage, applications and services provided by a third party. Cloud Computing is a Service by using the network.The cloud computing service can be public, private or virtual private. The public service refers to service open to all users subscribing to the service provider, private refers to dedicated to one subscriber and virtual private means usage of public service but dedicated to one particular subscriber or certain groups of subscriber for their own organization purpose only.

The simplest thing that a computer does is allow the storage and retrieval of information. Computer user may store photos, videos, spread sheet and power point presentation materials. Software for spread sheet, AutoCAD, business related software such as ERP, SAP and MIS is kept in the computer or the server computer memory space. Maintenance and updating of the software and hardware for the computer system usually demands skilled computer personnel for computer maintenance and substantial amount of money to purchase the hardware and software replacement or upgrading. There is company who kept a huge amount of data and always need to expand their memory space as time pass by. Huge size and high quality data storage is expensive. Software vendors periodically upgrade their software and no more supporting the older version after some period of time. Software user left with no choice, they have to follow the software version up and pay the price. The above are some of the issues faced by IT user and owner.

Looking into cloud computing which is offering computing needs such as storing of information, photos, videos and software by using the network or internet. Computer user can get at the same information and perform the same tasks whether they are at workplace, at home or anywhere with internet connection. This method of software and hardware systems operation provides several advantages including potential cost savings for many businesses. This will frees us up the storage size at the computer and no software upgrade need to be purchased. This is  due to accessing  the cloud network is pay per use base and not need to own the hardware and software.

There are a list of challenges faced using the cloud computing such as data privacy security, reliability of the cloud system and the software offered by the service provider. As example one provider such as Google will provide software of their own interest and do not offer their competitor’s software. Similarly cloud provider offering Adobe Acrobat will not work with Microsoft Word causing interoperability of application issues. This will limit the user flexibility to use whatever software at their own liberty for achieving their best efficiency.  The incident faced by Amazon cloud outage causing the offline of website such as Qurora, and Foursquare prove the reliability issue is a challenge and could stops a business operation.

The decision to embrace cloud computing requires further analysis to evaluate the risk base on the organization or the business needs. The organization or business must have mitigation strategy to face the known or potential problems due to the cloud computing to continue in business.

SMART eco-Home concept.

SMART eco-Home® may not yet be a term that is commonly heard presently, it refers to houses with centralized control of energy for heating, ventilation, air conditioning, lighting, access control, power supply generation and storage, water supply, communication networking, security system and so on via a network. As networking demands increase, eco-friendly networking, wired connectivity products become more important and similarly IT supporting software and hardware.
The SMART eco-Home® concept have some similarity to the Enterprise Information System where within the house itself there are many sub system controlling within the house for comfort, security and communication. Externally the house are connected to other house to communicate and transfer of power supply when there is excess of energy and importing of energy when power shortage happens.
For the future when petroleum resources are scares for power generation and nuclear energy generation are limited, it will become essential to strive for implementation of SMART eco-Home® capabilities into homes as an aspect of smart grid. This will bring about a variety of advantages, resource saving due to more eco-friendly and greener homes and more rationalized management through a more efficient energy control system via centralise control and networked community.
Looking at Japan presently after the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami incident, 54 nuclear generators was shut down leaving a few Gegawatts of power supply shortage. The Japanese citizens have to face power supply outages at certain times to conserve the energy. By implementing SMART eco-Home® in Fukushima area, homes could generate their own power supply, they can continue to use air conditioner during summer and heater during winter without depending into the power supply from the utility company.
Realization of SMART eco-Home® starts from the concept, design drawing board, regulation, promotion of ideas, investment, management of system, maintenance, security and for sure the demand for IT products and trained expertise. The realization of SMART eco-Home® through a variety of solutions, smart community will be a dream come through.

The written views expressed in this article are those of the author future concept and thinking, it may have similarity with other source or concepts.

EIS advantages to business ?

Enterprise information systems (EIS) are the integration of the functional information systems (IS) in the company to help business to improve their performance. The usual compositions of the EIS are the Operation, HRM, Finance, Marketing, Warehousing and Customer support systems. The EIS enable data sharing among departments and also with external business partners. The system could allow workers according to their job requirements to access and analyse real-time information and transaction processes across the entire organization for fast action or decision.

Implementing EIS is a necessity for companies with data management problems. The greater the number of applications and databases, the greater the complexity of data management means the higher the EIS implementation necessity. Due to the several ISs in the company and security rules need to be adopted , numerous interfaces are needed to implement data exchange and filtering of data especially to external parties such as vendors and customers.

Companies migrate to EIS due to their existing legacy systems limitations to cope with the business requirements, especially the product sort life cycle, customer order pattern changes, delivery lead time, manufacturing line efficiency and product costing beside several other reasons linked to the IS itself. The Legacy system maintenance cost and upgrading cost are high due to the difficulty and lack of staff to work on application written language which is not used in the newer or more modern technologies. Furthermore, due to the difference in the architectures, the Integration of the Legacy system and sharing of data with newer systems are difficult or almost impossible for more older versions which use predefined and rigid process flows.

The advantages of EIS implementation is to make the company sustain or perform better, increase customer satisfaction, extend the market share and ability to process and synchronise huge amount of data to simple indices by easy to interprets Graphic User Interface (GUI).

The wastage of time and resources are able to be reduced. As an example double data inputs are eliminated which increase the process efficiency, excess or lack of raw material orderings are eliminated which reduce overall material wastage or process down time. Processes will be transformed to fully automated or partial automation with the implementation of EIS. Example of companies implementing automated online customer order such as Asustek, Dell and MSI online order system for computer which are delivered to customer’s premises within days. Company business to business (B2B) transaction can be implemented electronically with the shortest time and reduce of papers printing, emails, phone calls and fax transmission which are comparatively slow and much time are needed to process the information.

Companies need to identify their business objective, needs and problems to be solved before deciding what EIS to be selected and the composition of the ISs to be integrated to ensure the expectations are met. Huge budget are required for complex EIS and lower for less complex ones. The company need to invest prudently in the EIS to maximise the value for money invested while meeting the business expectation and requirement. EIS security is one of the vital part for the company to take special care due to the confidential information or company competitive edge may be known by others when the EIS is hacked or cracked. Hence strong firewall, expert staff and IS rules implementation are some of the vital items for the EIS operation.

My simple IT Dream for HALAL Logo

HALAL Logo has been one of the hot issue recently in Malaysia. JAKIM top personnel urge especially restaurateur, food outlets, all companies in the food and food processing business to get the genuine HALAL certificate from JAKIM or JAKIM recognised certification bodies. There is many logos published in the media, at the food outlets and at the packaging itself. How could consumer understand that the logos are genuine, the products and the food outlets are in the recognised HALAL list?


How could IT assist on this specific issue.
Presently hand-phones are becoming household items and almost every family members carry it. My dream is the hand-phones should be able to confirm the food outlets or the products by using the HALAL certified number and SMS it to a number provided by JAKIM. The simple information sent back to the hand-phone should be able to clear the doubt of the consumer side.


Secondly, smart phones are now becoming popular, websites browsing and streaming is every day routine for most of Malaysian nowadays. QR codes attached to the certificate and the HALAL logo will make the consumer easily scan the QR code and within seconds will get the information of the outlets or the food stuff HALAL status.

Small Group Activity

Small Group Activity is a method to enhance positive team within employees or group of people. Most of the experience gathered by them will be kept in their mind for very long time. The prerequesit is the mentor of the program is very well experience and involvement of their respected superior.

The test to the human thinking limit is a must in the team building program. This is to make sure that every participant self confidence and provide them that the habit of trying out of the box will in return reward them with extra ordinary satisfaction.