Privacy Challenges around Data for Amazon Company
Abstract
In the United States, Amazon has been ahead of other firms in technological use in its business. Amazon is using technology which is available in advanced stage having the speed of ten times faster when matched to ones which are used by other firms. The services and products provide by the Company certainly are most significant in the USA concerning service delivery in terms of quality. Amazon continues to lead by offering high-quality products and services as the Company brings in solutions to various innovative technologies. The Company capable of handling things which could have never been done before within wireless environments: sharing and streaming videos within higher definitions. With all robust technological tools, the Company still faces various challenges about data mining. Thus, the paper looks into Privacy Challenges and solutions around data for Amazon Company.
Amazon Company
Introduction
The challenges on data privacy exist since data has more value to several people. Data in content and metadata files area identifiable with the files which are used for storing them. More of these data breaches are expected to occur because several people are transferring sensitive data towards cloud storage. Utilizing cloud storage towards making data accessible from all places might have legal inferences concerning domestic and foreign laws, travel, insurance and employment. Several firms worry concerning criminals stealing their data. The paper looks into privacy challenges around data usage concerning Amazon Company. It presents why such difficulties are in existence and various general approaches to solving such them. In solving different problems regarding data privacy, it is imperative to utilize specific data tools or databases. The essay offers various data tools used in solving data challenges. Again, it provides the organization’s data security implementation and the benefits realized from the application. Discussed within the paper are various results of implementing data security in Amazon Company. It gives clarity on whether the outcomes of implementing data security meet the goalmouths of fall short of attaining such objectives.
The essay will give a summary of the most essential ideas and also make recommendations or how Amazon might have achieved even greater success. As there are multiple issues to be addressed within data privacy, big data has turned out to be fresh oil within the digital economy. Realization of significant data benefits need the requirements of multiple issues on privacy and security to be kept in mind. This shows that the entire pipeline requires to be reconsidered and tight security measures placed for curbing data breaches which can be witnessed. Sharing of data from one point to the other is the major issue posing security challenges in various organizations. Thus, the paper is insightful in providing measures of curbing data stealing just like witnessed happening in various firms.
Background
Amazon is multinational technology firm headquartered in Seattle. It is an American firm. The Company has its focus on artificial intelligence, e-commerce, digital streaming as well as cloud computing. It is regarded to be among the largest tech firms together with Facebook, Google, and Apple. Globally, Amazon forms major economic and cultural influencers. It is utterly well-known in favor of its disruptive well-established industries in mass scales as well as technological innovations. Essentially, Amazon is the international biggest online market, provider of artificial assistants as well as platforms of cloud computing. The ranking was done taking into consideration the market capitalization and revenues generated. Ideally, Amazon forms the biggest internet organization taking into consideration its revenue generation within the globe. In USA, Amazon is the second leading employer in the private sector. It is one of the most valued firms in the whole world (Varia & Mathew, 2014).
Amazon was started in the year 1994 in Washington by Jeff Bezos. Initially, Amazon commenced operating like an online market meant for books. However, in later dates, the Company expanded in order to sell software, electronics, furniture, jewelry, video games, foods, apparels and toys. In the year 2015, Amazon beaten Wal-Mart in order to become the majorly valued retailer within United States with regard to its market capitalization. By the year 2017, Amazon bought Whole Foods Market, which the Company spent US$13.5 billion (Varia & Mathew, 2014). The acquisition massively augmented the presence of Amazon being a brick-and-mortar shop. By the year 2018, Bezos unveiled the two day delivery services for its customers across the whole world. Don't use plagiarised sources.Get your custom essay just from $11/page
Amazon came into limelight at the time it was reported that it sent snippets of voice grasps to human commentators. This was expected to boost the accuracy of services the Company is offering. Even though people could have been aware of such recordings, few persons noticed the involvement of human in such practices. The Company agreed that it employed a smaller sample of recordings of Alexa voice in order to enhance the experience of customers. Currently, Amazon has been permitting individuals to opt out. However, it took various public outcries before the technological giant reversed its course. The Company has no immunity when it comes to challenges surrounding its data usage. Data breach affects companies which are handling data. Proper measures on security should be put in place to assist in reducing such acts from happening.
Fig.1. Total number of data breaches from 2005-2019 in Amazon
Source: Privacy clearing house
Challenges
Amazon as a tech-firm has been facing challenges surrounding its security issue around data. Securing business data is something which many firms get to be hard and it is a mission which is never-ending. There massive multiple impacts concerning data breaches. This forms the major motive as to why firms are spending considerable resources when it comes to securing its data. In the process of securing data, Amazon faces some of the challenges as explained below:
Amazon workers
The major point of vulnerability when it comes to securing data is the employees of an organization. These individuals have legitimate accessibility towards various credentials which are vital for the Company. As indicated by Subashini & Kavitha (2011), the major causes of data breaches include miscellaneous errs which is accounting for 9 percent of the breaches which have been confirmed. Of these breaches, 30 percent of these incidents insider jobs. The misuse of information by the employees accounted for 11 percent of the total incidents which occurred. The actions of employees in data breaches account to 19 percent of the total incidents taking place. The innocent workers might cause greater damages juts like malicious hackers can do. The major happenings of data breaches caused by employees happen as result of human errors. Mobile phones of key data employee can get lost thus leading to major information leaking into the hands of unknown people who might have bad intentions with such information.
Similarly, letters can be misaddressed as well as cabinet filling might contain sensitive data thus an employee ends up sharing such information by the third party. Some of the data breaches occur as result of negligent of carelessness of some of the employees. In most cases, there are warning pop-ups which flashes up on the screens and most workers don’t take immediate actions in getting solutions to such predicaments. For instance, according to Johnson & Goetz (2007) 26 million of warnings offered by chrome are often ignored by about 71 percent of workers. This is because some workers have insufficient acquaintance on technical skills. This made Chrome to simplify the language in which the warning language was to be remitted. Thus, employees in Amazon Company are major causes of security challenges which an organization has been facing.
Human errors might complexity levels. Commonly, everyday faults might suggestively influence data protection and privacy. Most of the security analysts purport that human errors form major challenges which have negative impacts on data securities and privacies. Employees who are ill-informed and unaware might cause leaks to passwords which are weakly formed. At times, such workers might delete data mistakenly thus falling for scams of phishing
Malware
Malware can infect the Company’s computers or networks then steals information, internet usage as well as other valuable data, which can be attained. For instance, malware like ransonware holds an organizational data into hostage thus advancing incessant threats which might be acting to siphon the data. This causes essential damages to business operations. With multiple new signals of threats which are created every day, Amazon has been constantly cautious against such dangers. The challenge of data privacy caused by malware has prompted the growth of the whole industry devoted towards generating counters in deluging malicious software. Such threats have flooded various business systems. To have the problem controlled, there has been an upsurge of antivirus industries. However, doing the antivirus alone is not sufficient in keeping the corporate data to be secured from each attack.
Data protection is not an easy feat. In the whole information security lifecycles, Amazon company leadership of Chief Technology Officer has been experiencing pitfalls as well as hurdles in controlling data security. The tools for data loss can assist in safeguarding users from leaking data that are sensitive from malicious attacks or rather data threats which have occurred mistakenly (Johnson & Goetz, 2007).
Maintenance and implementation costs for robust measures of security
As a matter of fact, robust-multi-layered security is costly for Amazon. Implementing and maintaining such security measures internally call for huge sums of money. The cost ranges from licensing fees, hardware costs of a particular needed security, needed labor force in support of maintaining and updating the system. All these costs can be immense in order to get appropriate solutions to security challenges. Workers who have accessibility to privileged accounts can often pose threats to securities (Paryasto, Alamsyah & Rahardjo, 2014). Cyber-security certainly is a major concern in which the owners of businesses as well as executives of technologies should undertake in ensuring that an organization reaps more when measures are taken to control the problem. Many businesses have been successfully hacked to gain access to crucial information on the operation of such firms. The hackers often are aware of the major vulnerabilities, which organizations are subjected to. It is costly to buy and maintain software meant for prevent hacking within an organization.
Fig. Increase of data breach in USA
Source: Home security data
Solutions
Safeguarding against deliberate and accidental insider misuse can be something which can be hard. However, for Amazon to limit such risks the management should put into practice the following:
Restriction of the accessibility to organizational data towards the minimum needed for duties- The Company ensures that no newly recruited employee gets access towards each secured database. Access restriction bare minimum reductions on the risks of data breaches. However this might as well have impacts on work efficiency whenever employees require accessibility to some particular databases in order to conduct their projects assigned.
Drilling workers in rudimentary protocols of information safety. Workers in Amazon Company allow incessant trainings on basic accounts on various security protocols in order to avert accidental sharing of the details of users. This incorporates safety on web browsing, phishing detections and link download trainings.
Establishing guidelines and outcomes of data security which are clear. As long as workers have acquired trainings on basics of information security, they are supposed to be held accountable on the standards which have been set by the Company to be followed. At all times, Amazon management stresses of the consequences of infringing the spelt out standards.
Revoking access permits for workers who have been terminated from working with Amazon. Irrespective of how trustworthy a worker can be at times of his working tenure, it is paramount to eradicate the credentials used for accessing the system immediately such person gets terminated. Having accounts of users which are unused is an austere risk to data security. This is because even workers who are honest can be tempted in performing actions which are illicit whenever their employer terminates them.
The major perfect solution of solving malware problem is the conventional use of antivirus program. These antivirus programs employ blacklisting in blocking particular threat signals which reduce massive risks from ravaging the Company’s filing systems. However, the antiviruses only have the capability of safeguarding against threat signals which are known.
In guarding against malware, Amazon utilizes robust, multi-layered measures of security in support of data storage. These measures can include the following:
Perimeter Firewalls- these assist in blocking exterior traffics from entering the system by ensuring that the malware is installed in the first place. Through utilizing threat recognition which is IP sensitive, perimeter firewalls which have been installed by Amazon has been helpful in providing protections against any new malware which can threaten the operations of the Company (Gantz & Reinsel, 2012).
Intrusion detections as well as event system of event logging. The systems of intrusion detection allow firms in tracking the origin points of intrusion attempts. As this is likely not to avert malware from penetrating into the systems, IDS permits the attack to be trailed back as of its source in order to prevent future threats with regard to the privacy of the system. The IDS assists in detecting IP addresses thus barring unauthorized loggings.
With regard to high cost of purchasing and maintaining strong security measures, Amazon Company is using secured cloud provider in running its information technology infrastructure. Through the secured cloud systems, Amazon is capable of leveraging benefits of enterprise grades, which is a strong multi-layered security device attained at a cheaper cost. Similarly, the cloud providers handle updates and maintenance of the cloud environments alongside the Company’s security measures and tasks at affordable costs. This is enabling the department of internal department of IT to put more focus on tasks which are supposed to drive businesses to good results. In using the cloud computing providers, the Company made steps further in reducing costs which could have been incurred in data security. Thus, Amazon attained its dream of cost reduction for its operations
Conclusion
In summary in nowadays innovations and competitions, there is the rampant use of internet ecosystems all through. This ensures that there are responsive markets to the demands of consumers. The providers of broadband are responding to various acts of competition which are expected in the marketplace. Through the creation and deployment of multiple facilities, the Amazon stands a better chance of moving safeguarding technological innovations by ensuring that its data security is not breached. This has assisted in expanding capacities and speeds in terms of service delivery as well as offering competitive organization prices.
The paper has outlined various challenges faced by Amazon in the event of securing its data privacy. Maintenance of stable Internet is an important goal which assists in benefiting consumers. These aiding edging providers in addition to various tech-firms, which later assist in reaching several people. Amazon may place patents to assist in safeguarding its major innovations to avoid. However, this does not show that other mobile firms can never collaborate with them towards using their technologically designed products. There are several salutations which have been outlined being used by Amazon in curbing various security breaches. These solutions have been placed in the development of inventive notions. These happen even if such tendencies come from within an organization or from elsewhere. The programs used by Amazon in this industry assist in reducing various threats to the Company’s data. The Company employs technical experts together with services of business consultative to bring to market ideas which are going to assist the Company move forward in all its endeavors. The developments of programs have supported various projects as done in the Amazon. The rules on net neutrality for the prior periods have been on a data usage by the employees are followed to the dot. This preventing various insider threats. Many tech- firms are changing their data security techniques towards ensuring that safety is enhanced in an organization. This is likely to have impacts on the proper data management and property infringements in support of these firms. Activation of user devices in technological innovation shall assist clients in buying wireless devices then move ahead to do the activation of data security without moving to the actual stores to have these services done for them.
The Company’s survival is focused on competitive advantages the firm enjoys. The competitive strategy is emphasizing the uniqueness of markets. Amazon places more emphasis on selling quality products to attract as well as retain the existing clients. The managers within the organization put more focus on the competitive advantages via the attempts of ensuring that quality produced by the Company is unmatched. The quality of products is based on generic strategies. For instance, in place of subsidiary products, Amazon, and advocates for selling of technological items of higher quality. Thus, these are meant to maintain the existing and attract new customers. Intensive strategies for growth are implemented to maximize the plan of generic benefits. The strategic objectives applied by Amazon assists the Company in succeeding in its areas of business growths.
References
Varia, J., & Mathew, S. (2014). Overview of amazon web services. Amazon Web Services, 1-22.
Gantz, J., & Reinsel, D. (2012). The digital universe in 2020: Big data, bigger digital shadows, and biggest growth in the Far East. IDC iView: IDC Analyze the future, 2007(2012), 1-16.
Subashini, S., & Kavitha, V. (2011). A survey on security issues in service delivery models of cloud computing. Journal of network and computer applications, 34(1), 1-11.
Johnson, M. E., & Goetz, E. (2007). Embedding information security into the organization. IEEE Security & Privacy, 5(3), 16-24.
Paryasto, M., Alamsyah, A., & Rahardjo, B. (2014). Big-data security management issues. In 2014 2nd International Conference on Information and Communication Technology (ICoICT) (pp. 59-63). IEEE.