Information Policy and Governance

Running Head: INFORMATION POLICY AND GOVERNANCE
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Information Policy and Governance
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INFORMATION POLICY AND GOVERNANCE
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Information Policy and Governance
In 2014, Apple was hacked causing leakage of nude photos of various celebrities because
of an attack on its iCloud system. Apple knew about the security vulnerability in its iCloud
service for a while and did not make any steps to protect its users (Auerbach, 2014). The fact that
the vulnerability was patched immediately after the leak proves that it is highly probable that it
had something to do with the leak. Apple denied the allegations that the vulnerabilities caused
the leakage and blamed the users instead. They claimed that the users should have used a strong
password with a two-step verification to protect them from the breach of privacy (Kovach,
2014).
Apple has a couple of problems with its policy. The company’s terms and conditions for
anything a user uploads on the iCloud state that the user permits Apple a worldwide, royalty-
free, non-exclusive license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate,
publicly perform and publicly display the data uploaded. The problem with this policy is that it
allows Apple to have unlimited access to individuals’ confidential data for its personal use at any
given time. It violates the users’ privacy since a person’s stored data is confidential.
Apple also states that the users are solely responsible for the content that they download,
post, upload, store, and transmit by using their iCloud service. The company claims ownership of
individuals data, but when they are quick to defend themselves during a crisis. They claim that
the user is responsible for what happens to their data. The company blamed the users that were
hacked and refused to acknowledge the role they played in failing to defend their system against
the hack (“Who is to blame,” n.d.).
After the hacking incident, Apple changed its system governance. The company
strengthened its security measures. It sent all users push notifications, messages that appear in

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iPads and iPhones when someone tries to change their passwords to log in to their accounts from
an unknown device. The company added a security measure that alerted the user when someone
tried to upload their backed-up data to a new device (Chen, 2014). The measure was to prevent
future incidents of hacking and stealing data from occurring.
Following the investigation of nude photos of celebrities including, Kate Upton spreading
like wildfire, Apple reported that hackers specifically targeted the celebrities’ accounts. They
reported that the hackers used methods such as phishing and cracking their password to gain
access to their private data. In the past, users received push notifications only when someone
logged in to their accounts from a new device or when someone reset the password. As opposed
to the old system, the new system can now send a notification to the user when someone tries to
back the users’ stored data into another device.
Good governance is the heart of every public and private organizations because it is
simply a concern for any size of a business of any shape and type. Governance refers to the
methods used to manage an organization to maintain it at its highest level and the systems used
for achieving it (Tylecote, 2007). Good governance has several advantages. It enhances the
efficiency of processes by that tasks are done consistently and repeatedly. It affects the
company’s performance its appetite to risks and its ability to innovate. It goes without
mentioning that it is very crucial for an organization to achieve its objectives and its drive for
improvement as well as maintain its ethical and legal standing in the view of the shareholders,
regulators, customers and the society at large. Good governance also ensures that errors are more
visible through the implementation of systems that detect errors quickly. Another advantage is
that it improves the reputation of an organization. Sharing private information on governance
methods used by a company, transparency allows stakeholders to be more confident that the