Challenges of Security and Privacy in the Digital Age

This article discusses the challenges related to security and privacy faced by individuals and businesses when they go online. It covers topics such as viruses, malware, hacking, and measures to protect against these threats. The importance of anti-virus software, password protection, and training are highlighted as key measures to safeguard personal and business information.

Integrated professional skills
in the digital age

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................3
PART 1.......................................................................................................................................3
Comparison and contrast between positive and negative aspects of an individual and
business being online and offline...........................................................................................3
PART 2.......................................................................................................................................7
Challenges related to security and privacy faced by individual and businesses when they go
online......................................................................................................................................7
PART 3.......................................................................................................................................9
Online services used by businesses........................................................................................9
CONCLUSION........................................................................................................................12
REFERENCES.........................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Digitalisation is a procedure in which information is translated by some individual or
businesses with the help of some evident digital transmission method. This information’s are
kept in the set of bits and then processed in order to get used for further purpose. In this
scenario each business and individual are fond of using online platform in order to provide
their product and services on online media by taking help of digital methods of trading.
Within this internet is the prominent tool by use of which online activities related to business
are performed so internet is termed as an interactive technology in which computer works as
mediator by which valuable information can be shared so that to provide help to some person
or business. This report includes various aspects such as advantages and disadvantages for
individual and business when they go online or offline. Furthermore the report includes
alternative chosen by business in Pandemic COVID-19 (Sajid, 2016).
PART 1
Comparison and contrast between positive and negative aspects of an individual and business
being online and offline
In modern era it is necessary to have an online presence of business and individual as
well which is possible by the use of internet. When people interacts with each other by using
internet or businesses trade using online media these activities are having negative and
positive impacts which are enlightened as under:
For individual being online
In current era of internet, social media has emerged as the most effective tool in order
to communicate and contact with various people. So in order to understand social media in a
deeper concept, this should be differentiated with positive and negative aspects. With this
context thorough differentiation is explained as under:
Positive aspects Negative aspects
 Social media is helpful for individual
in the process of connecting people so
as to enhance knowledge and
individual skills (Jiang, 2016).
 Social media contains various viruses
and scams by which many fraudulent
activities may take place and hamper
emotional stability of an individual.

 Visibility can be enhanced by
individuals via using social media
channels.
 Social media can have high access by
using internet which gives high
opportunities to individual in order to
share ideas and thoughts with other
people.
 By taking help of internet any
information can be obtained at any
point of time without any major
hurdle.
 Internet is highly useful for
employees, students as with the help
of internet several training sessions
can be arranged for employee and
students in order to educate them and
enhancing their skills as well.
 Many of the time information
available on social media are fake and
don’t contain any robust source which
can create distrust among individual.
 One of the major drawbacks of
internet is data leaking which is
invading privacy of individual.
 By using various online media
various financial transactions are
performed in which chances of cyber
attacking is high and may cause
financial losses. (Harris and et. al.,
2017)
For individual being offline
When an individual is planning to communicate and gather various information via
offline media then this may have several advantages and disadvantages which are explained
as under:
Positive aspect Negative aspect
 With the help of offline platform
personal relationship can be
maintained as this involves one to one
communication and exist for longer
duration.
 Information gathered from offline
resources are trustworthy such as
form books and journals then it is a
 Within offline communication there
is no record so it is very hard to keep
them remember so that to get help
when needed in future.
 Words can be distorted in offline
communication which can change the
meaning of sent message that may
lead to generation of wrong

verified source and checked by
publishers so it is more trustworthy.
 By face to face interactions
communicational and vocational
skills can be enhanced which can help
the individual in undergo
development in professional and
personal career.
 There is no threat of hacking and
cyber-attack on offline Medias as
there is no mediator by whom
information is passed through.
 Various tools are there in offline
communication such as face to face
communication, telephone
conversation and many more.
Similarly there are so many methods
by which information can be
collected such as television,
newspaper, books, journals, radio and
many forth.
information.
 Sometimes words of presenter may
confuse the listeners in one to one
communication that can lead to
confusion.
 At some point of time information
gathered is irrelevant to the subject or
topic of the individual by which
decision can be delayed.
 In the process of collecting
information, this information can be
mixed up and to deal with separate
records are to be kept which is so
problematic. (Zhou and et. al., 2018)
For businesses being online
In the process of running a business online, various positive and negative aspects can
be seen which are elaborated as under:
Positive aspects Negative aspects
 Global existence can be established
by businesses if they are operating
their business at online platform due
to which high market can be captured
by them.
 As of now online promotional
 In the current era of internet and
being social, social media is the
technology by which customers can
be connected in a prompt and
effective manner but in the contrary
this plays negative role as well. As

activities are highly cost saving and
eye catching. These activities are
having high business benefits in
promotion of business offerings in
effective manner. For instance M&S
is using online promotional activities
so as to promote their offerings in
more efficient manner so that they
can deal with rivals.
 With the help of online platform fast
payment gateway can be provided to
customers by which hassle free
experience can be given to them that
is helpful for the business to earn
profit by selling their products on real
time.
 One of the major positive aspect of
online media is that all the
information can be conveyed to
stakeholders in appropriate manner by
which transparency can be
maintained. This feature gives credit
worthiness to the company by which
goodwill can be enhanced in
marketplace.
negative news can be get viral in a
very short span of time such as
Controversy of Nestle diminished
their brand image as this publicity got
viral and inappropriate information
lead them to face high business losses
and share in market goodwill.
 On the other side online payment
system is not safe as some of the
customer faces problem of frauds and
deception by which they don’t trust
online measures and this impacts
profitability of the company in
negative sense.
 Another biggest fear of online
business is that this can be imitated
by others in a very easy manner as all
the information is available online.
For example: pricing strategy of
Tesco can be used by Sainsbury in
order to position their product in the
market in prominent manner.
(Frustaci and et. al., 2017)
 As traditional businesses are not
having online presence such as old
grocery shops so this is not possible
for them to serve customer at large.
For businesses being offline
Positive aspects Negative aspects
 With the help of offline business
personal relation with customer can
 Maintenance cost of offline business
sis too high as businessmen has to

be established which is helpful for the
company in enhancing customer
footfall and market image in
prominent manner.
 Offline businesses are helpful for the
customers to enhance their brand
loyalty for some brand as some
personnel are like to shop things by
touching them so this is advantageous
for the shopkeepers and offline stores.
 This is an easy concept for the
businesses to attract more customers
as they can directly convey quality of
product and material. For instance
M&S is having huge range of good
quality clothing range which can be
tried by customer and affect their
buying decisions in positive manner.
When the business are promoted via online
promotional tools it contains high efficiency
as they contains brochures, leaflets in which
customer can get full information and
enhance trust towards offering of the
business and business get high profits from
high footfall. (Malina and et. al., 2016)
pay store rent, electricity bill and
many more by which overall
expenditure can be increased. For
example ZARA is having their stores
at many places and there are some
expenditure which are unavoidable
also in this pandemic time so this
creates difficulties for the business to
survive and they have to sacrifice
their profit margins.
 Offline marketing campaign are very
costly as so many places at once
campaign are executed. This
expenditure decreases overall profit
of the business.
 On the other hand customer capture
rate is low in offline business as at a
single moment one customer can be
handled by shopkeeper. For instance
showroom of M&S in victoria street
London will have customer exposure
of nearby area and neighbourhood.
This limits the business to embrace
growth opportunities.
PART 2
Challenges related to security and privacy faced by individual and businesses when they go
online
Virus and malware issue: One of the prominent issues faced by individual and
business when they trade and communicate online is the threat of viruses and malwares.
There is so much malicious software which are installed so as to attack personal computer
and take out personal information. These software damage whole computer system of source

by which data can be corrupted and leaked data may cause secrecy issues to individuals.
Likewise when an individual is going online in order to communicate and connect they face
lot of security issues and threat of leaking of personal data. If personal data of an employee
get leaked then this may loss the company as well. For example personal data of hotel
Marriott was kept on cloud computing software and leaking of this data will cause high losses
to business as well as a law suit of breaching data security. So this is the issue which is faced
by businesses and individuals when they are going online and by this goodwill and personal
image can get hampered. (Mukherjee and et. al., 2017)
Hacking: Another challenge aligned with businesses and individuals when they go
online is threat of hacking. Hacking practices are adopted by some individual with a harmful
intention of stealing data from other systems with the use of internet and to use that
information in some unethical manner. There are various practices which are used by
individual in order to meet their agenda of stealing other’s information in unethical manner.
Various methods are used by hackers such as Clickjacking in which only by a single click
hacking may take place. Some more methods are there which are used by hackers in order to
sneak into another computer system and steal information from there which may be crucial in
nature. So threat of hacking is always there with individual and business as businesses are
having fear of leaking their information which is crucial and adversely affect sustainability of
them and for individual data leak may invade their privacy.
Measures of Security and Privacy Challenges
With the major purpose to avoid negative impacts over business of threat and viruses
corrective actions are to be taken in order to lower negative impacts within business and
individual life. These measures are helpful for the business and individual to deal with those
threats and viruses. These measures are explained as under:
Anti-viruses: This is known as the most essential for those businesses which are
having their business on online platform and for individuals who are prone to use social
media and other online media platform in order to explore knowledge and enhance their
skills. For those individuals and businesses threat viruses is always there so in order to avoid
this threat anti-virus software are to be installed in personal computers as they are helpful in
protecting computer from any external attack of malware and viruses. Anti-viruses software
safeguards personal computer data in which crucial information such as accounting details

and other things are stored. Similarly for individuals these software are helpful in avoiding
any outer invading concern.
Password protection: This measure is used by business and individual to avoid any
hacking which can attack personal system. Accounts can get protected with the help of robust
passwords and this is not an easy task for hackers to hack personal system of individuals.
Robust passwords are not easily decoded by hackers and this will safeguard personal
information of business and individual as well. Passwords are highly protected with some
encryption code and these can only be decrypted by authenticate users those have cipher key.
This is a helpful tool for business and individual to protect organisational activities and
individual concerns as well. (Zhan and et. al., 2018)
Training: Most of the prominent challenges can be seen due to nonexistence of
awareness of using social media and internet. In order to deal with this situation appropriate
training is to be provided to individual and business personnel so as to make them aware
about malicious activities and internet hacking. This helps them to stay aware about these
activities so whenever they see something unwanted they can avoid any prominent loss.
Training is helpful in performing counter act in order to deal with hacking and viruses in
effective manner and safeguard business and individual privacy.
PART 3
Online services used by businesses
As from amid COVID-19 businesses are not able to operate at their organisation
premises as this virus is spreading like fire in gathering. So government has locked down
countries and urged people to stay at home. In this condition all the business operations are
stopped and businesses are facing heavy losses. On the contrary by using some online tools
businesses are giving their services on online platform such as WebEx, team viewer and
many more. For retail business it is not possible to use these tools but for service industry
these tools are proven to be highly advantageous in COVID-19 pandemic. This pandemic has
affected people and business at global level so these tools are helpful for the business to give
uninterrupted services to their clients and give them hassle free experience and enhance their
brand loyalty as well. For instance in this pandemic time tuitions and school lectures are
given to students by using online channels so as to avoid losses faced by students in their
academics. On the other hand if any presentation is to be given to client who is associated

with ecommerce or software development business so by using these tools business can get
connected to their client and execute their business operations in appropriate manner. In the
period of lockdown due to COVID-19 these tools have emerged in the market and helping the
business in executing business operations. Here two major tools are differentiated with each
other:
Zoom: Zoom is a video conferencing tool which is used by businesses in order to have peer
to peer view and to inculcate videoconferencing and distance education in appropriate
manner.
WebEx: WebEx is a video conferencing tool which is used by business in order to establish
meeting with their clients and solve queries of customers in effective way.
Basis Zoom WebEx
Features  It is a meeting app which is based on
WebRTC technology.
 This is highly secured and provides
robust security concern throughout
the meetings. (Oyman, Intel IP Corp,
2016)
 People can join video call and
meeting form anywhere and from
any devices which is highly
convenient.
 This support 1000 videos participant
and 29 videos at a time.
 With the help of this tool
webinars and video
conferencing takes place.
 This provides B2B and B2C
experience so as to provide one
meeting experience to clients.
 This tool is provided by Cisco
by which telepresence solutions
are to be given to clients.
 100 person can join a meeting
room within this tool. (Akiyama,
Masuda and Yamaoka, 2018)
Application  This is mainly used by schools and
businesses in order to stay in touch
with an informal manner.
 In this no additional software is need
to be downloaded so it is hassle free.
 This is highly convenient in nature
so a person can join the video chat
room or meeting room from
 This is used by larger
organisations in order to host
external parties meetings.
 It is a communication tool and
based on a cloud computing
technology.
 It is a more official tool and
used by businesses in order to

anywhere. (Lenkaitis, 2019) have a meeting with clients.
Suitability  It is a single platform tool by which
webinars and conferencing may take
place with a single click.
 This is best for small business as
require low investment and provides
high quality benefits over face to
face interactions.
 Some businesses like tuitions, gym,
yoga classes this tool is highly
effective and profitable.
 This is used by large
organisation where people are
from different vicinity and need
to have conference table
experience.
 This is highly used for webinar
as huge contestants can be
getting connected at once.
 For businesses like software
solutions, media solution this
tool is advantageous.

CONCLUSION
From the above detailed report it can be concluded that in this revolutionary world
internet is used at a prominent manner in order to have personal and professional
development. Business may have several benefits if they are operating it on online platform,
Such as high customer base and low cost of promotional activities. On the other hand there
are various threats which will be faced by them such as threat of viruses and malwares. This
leads to decrease in business efficiency and market goodwill due to high threat of bugging
and malicious activities. Similarly when an individual is using internet in order to
communicate and share information this gives them various advantages such as exposure to
large audience and enhancement in skills and knowledge (Welch and et. al., 2016). On the
contrary this lead to face them various disadvantages such as wrong representation of
information which can change the meaning of subject. In last due to COVID -19 pandemic
businesses are running online in order to deal with their client and execute business
operations in appropriate manner. (Moo, and et. al., 2019)

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