Transactions worth billions and trillions of dollars are carried out on networks every day. Think of the impact if the networks experience downtime for even a few minutes. It may create serious harm to business reputation of the organization.
If a business doesn‘t adequately protect its systems for any other reason, it should just to avoid expensive and time-consuming legal action. The national retailer T.J. Maxx was forced to spend about $200 million in court case and damage costs after it experienced a serious security breach in 2008.
Legal and Regulatory Requirements for Electronic Records Management
Because so much of our personal and financial information is now maintained electronically, the government needs to pass laws mandating how the data will be protected from unauthorized or illegal misuse. Govt. of Nepal has already passed a cyber law outlining the requirements for electronic records management and is in process of modifying the law and creating new laws.
All of these laws are in response to computer crimes and abuses that businesses or individuals have committed or experienced.
Electronic Evidence and Computer Forensics
Several things are happening in the corporate worlds that are changing the requirements for how companies handle their electronic documents:
- Companies are communicating more and more with email and other forms of electronic transmissions, and
- Courts are allowing all forms of communication to be held as evidence. Therefore businesses must develop methods of capturing, storing, and presenting any and all electronic communications including email, instant messaging, and e-commerce
Computer forensics is the application of investigation and analysis techniques to gather and preserve evidence from a particular computing device in a way that is suitable for presentation in a court of law. It can be used in the detection and prevention of crime and in any dispute where evidence is stored digitally. Computer forensics is a growing field because of the increasing digitization of documents and communications. Many people believe that just because they delete a file from a computer file directory that it‘s no longer available or recoverable. That‘s a false belief. Data remains on hard drives in magnetic form long after it‘s apparently been deleted. People trained in computer forensics are able to uncover ambient data and other forms of electronic evidence that can be used in courts of law. Businesses and employees must increase their awareness of the necessity for keeping good records.