Legal Issues Impacting IT
The financial scandals involving Enron and Arthur Andersen LLP, and others generated a demand for the new legislation to prevent, detect, and correct such aberrations. In addition to this, the advancements in network environments technologies have resulted in bringing to the forefront issues of security and privacy that were once only of interest to the legal and technical expert but which today are topics that affect virtually every user of the information superhighway. The Internet has grown exponentially from a simple linkage of a relative few government and educational computers to a complex worldwide network that is utilized by almost everyone from the terrorist who has computer skills to the novice user and everyone in between. Common uses for the Internet include everything from marketing, sales, and entertainment purposes to e-mail, research, commerce, and virtually any other type of information sharing.
Unfortunately, as with any breakthrough in technology, advancements have also given rise to various new problems that must be addressed, such as security and privacy. These problems are often being brought to the attention of IT audit and control specialists due to their impact on public and private organizations. Current legislation and government plans will effect the online community and, along with the government's role in the networked society, will have a lasting impact in future business practices.