FEATURE
around for thousands of years, since people started to protect
their property, first by building moats around their castles, followed
by locks on doors and bars on windows; with technological
advances, cameras and security systems became more efficient
protectors. However, these innovations do not stop crime from
happening as there continues to be break-ins.
Imagine being able to teleport to any place on earth in a
matter of seconds – no security would be able to protect you and
detect criminals.
This is where the cyber world comes in. The word “cyber”
was initially used to represent computers and computer technology,
but later was adopted to refer to the Internet and everything
in connection with it. Personally, I use the concept of the cyber
world to represent all technology that is interconnected.
In the cyber world, each computer is comparable to a house
in the real world; for instance, a house has an address that is
compatible with an IP address, its fence can be seen as the firewall,
locks are compatible with passwords and valuable items are
the information inside it. As long as there is something of value,
meaning information, there will always be interest. In our current
world, information is wealth.
Here comes the teleportation part of the metaphor.
Given how technology connects everything in our world
via the Internet (the cyber world), anyone can be in front of
your house in a matter of seconds. I am referring to everyone in
the world, all 7,874,965,825 of us. According to Internet World
Stats, about 4,929,926,187 people had access to the Internet in
September of 2020. Even a fraction of this population of people
having the ill intent and necessary skill to engage in criminal
activity will have an effect on everyone’s daily life.
Targeting information
Information on computers consists of zeroes and ones. It never
stops to amaze me how these numbers represent all data
information nowadays. This information is the main target of
cyber criminals.
As with our physical world, there are different parts of the
cyber world. There are homes with computers that hold the
information of our day-to-day lives with our pictures, schedules
and lists of chores. There are small and mid-size businesses
with accounting software, clients and member information and
employees’ information. There are big companies with accounting
software, factory control software and human resource software.
The governments have control over a vast variety of
departments, yet again overseeing accounting, human resources
and strategic planning and many other aspects that represent
data.
Now let’s focus on a typical club’s operations. We work with
many clubs and most of them have similar IT infrastructure.
There is a server to host usernames of employees, software that
manages members’ information, accounting software, banquet
management software, tee time reservation software and all
the files that employees of the club create and maintain for the
overall operation. All this is information that is important to the
club, comparable to the content of the house that is important to
its occupants.
Where private clubs may be vulnerable
Credit card numbers, personal information of clients and employees
and proprietary information related to the company, which
may give its competitors competitive advantage, are all examples
32 § The Canadian Society of Club Managers § www.cscm.org
/www.cscm.org
