Write an opinion/response/feedback on the posts mentioned in the word document. The responses should have references and also valid in-text citations (APA Format) (total 4 responses)

(These posts are posted by Professor and other students, so when you write the response please relate to their statements.

Post 1

Most organizations in today’s world, are tending to focus more on securing the organizations from external attacks to protect and maintain sensitive data from external attacks, as it is becoming more and more easy to hack into private information of any company. The dependence on technology and security in modern times spreads in all departments of the company. There are stories every day in news about the data breach tied to vulnerability of security. Not all the employees in a company work directly with Information Technology department and hence are not aware on how easily a data can be lost. It is very important to for employees to make a right choice on if they should open the link, steps to be performed to ensure a product is secure etc., Hence it is important for businesses to educate their users on importance of building a sustainable security culture focusing on awareness and beyond, maintaining compliance.

Through compliance we can build a mandatory session for every employee on do’s and don’ts by evaluating trainings and procedure. Training and reinforcing data security protocols in a workplace place plays an important role. They should contain SOP and Work instructions to protect any information. They should be evaluated on regular basis to reflect and new updates and instructions related to threats. How to maintain secure data in a private share allowing only certain section of people to access them etc.,

Below are the different ways on how to ensure a secure environment

Educating Employees on password Policies and making sure they update every 90 days.

System Patching done regularly

Encryption using secured share drives for different departments

Access Control limited to regular accounts.

Making use of PAWS (privileged access work stations) to login into an elevated environment

Keeping physical information secure.

Managers ensuring team members are not sharing passwords for shared mailboxes or service accounts with others. Setting expectations on handling data.

Regularly backing up data

Post 2

Businesses always compete to meet customer satisfaction. One of the integral sectors is information and technology. The customers need to be well informed of the product as well as their preferences catered (Takanobu, Tabayashi, Narita, Takanishi, Gugliemelli & Dario, 1999). For this to be successful, a competent information system must be put in place. The system will never work without human input. Thus, can be argued that the human and information system are inseparable. While this is an established fact, businesses must be willing and always ready to spend a reasonable amount of resources to educate its employees with matters security

There are a number of reasons for educating employees. First, technology, if used rightfully, yields profit but always detrimental when mishandled (Sato, Nakajima, Yamaguchi & Harashima, 2005). In the event of a physical accident caused by untrained information system personnel, the business is likely to lose a lot including the workers who in most cases, are expensive to acquire. Such occurrences may end up bringing down the entire business.

Secondly, we are in eras marred with cyber threats. Hackers try to access private information within the business information system. And to date, most of the hackers caught, claim to have gained access through the insiders! This implies that the employees have either been negligent, less knowledgeable, or just untrustworthy (Sato et al, 2005). There is, therefore, a need to spend reasonable time training the employees on possible attacks, how to avoid them and perhaps, the most appropriate course of action to take in case of any occurrences.

In addition, business like any other venture, operate within the bounds of law of the land. By this, there are regulations that any given information system put in place, must abide by (Gong, Huang & Farh, 2009). Most often than not, failure to comply with such laws may bring great chaos to the business which may see it shut down. Since employees are seen to be the property of the business, their failure to comply may still affect the business at large. Rather than risking the business by not training the employees, it would be plausible to spend resources training them and avoid future crises.

Post 3

Managerial Accounting:

It is also known as cost accounting. It is the practice of identifying, accumulating and collecting the company financial data and deliver this information to management and help them to plan, set goals and evaluate these goals. This information is used internally within the organization by managers and employees.

Financial Accounting:

This type of accounting focuses on financial statements which are shared to stockholders, financial analysts, lenders and external stakeholders of the company. This statements helps to understand the overall financial state of the company which includes the operations, financials, balance sheets, cash flow and company’s financial condition.

Differences between Financial and Management accounting:

Managerial accounting information is used by the internal management of an organization to make managerial decisions and to identify and reduce unnecessary spending and maximize profits. While financial accounting statements are used externally by outsiders such as customers, Investors, government authorities, creditors to guide them in making decisions on whether to do business with the organization. Another difference is that financial accounting reports are objective, auditable, reliable, consistent and precise and they must be accurate and timely and compulsory under company law. while managerial accounting is usually approximate but more subjective, judgmental, valid and relevant. They are not subject to the legal requirements that financial accounts are.

Post 4

Managerial accounting considers internal processes to account for business transactions whereas financial accounting considers aggregation of accounting information into financial statements like balance sheet, Income statement and free cash flows. The financial statements drafted in the financial accounting are shared with stakeholders, lenders, financial analysts, and or other organizations. Managerial account assists the management team in the operations and making discussions for internal purposes.

The different categories that can be considered to understand their difference much better are:

1. Efficiency: Financial accounting reports on the profitability whereas managerial accounting reports on the problems and solutions.

2. Standards: Financial accounting needs to comply with specific accounting standards whereas managerial accounting does not.

3. Systems: Financial accounting pays no attention to the overall system that the company has for generating profit, whereas the other is interested in identifying the bottlenecks

4. Valuation: Financial accounting focuses on the valuation whereas managerial does not.

5. Certifications for jobs: For financial account the certification required is CPA and for managerial Certified management account is required.