How Secure Is Your Network?

 The industry I decided to discuss is the financial industry. The financial industry includes sectors related to the IRS, credit unions, banks, individual retirement, accounting, and payroll. In this industry, every one of these organizations relies on information retention and gathering for operations. A credit union must gather new member information for prospective members, run them through a customer identification process to determine if they can do business with them according to federal laws. They need to then assign account information to that person by creating a profile that will retain their personal information, current monetary balances, history of transactions, etc. Federal law also requires these financial institutions to maintain records of this information to aid in the prevention of money laundering and many other crimes. As millions of people rely on banks and credit unions to keep their assets secure, the roles of information technology increase tremendously. Computers maintain this information more efficiently than humans and they have far fewer errors than humans. If people were to continue to process the high volume of transactions by hand and retain only a paper trail, billions of dollars would be lost in the process. 

With my current experience in financial institutions, I have found that being technically literal is a requirement in the constantly changing industry. I find my learning and relearning several OS and software required for my daily work. I have to troubleshoot a few programs a week or find workarounds for applications as the standard app is going to constant updates. The financial industry would not function properly in these times without the use of computers.