Security Management for the World Wide Web - High-Performance Web Databases: Design, Development, and Deployment - page 726

with it more utility and the availability of a wealth of electronic and auto-
mated resources, each phase has also exponentially increased the risk to
our internal networks and computing environments.
Phase I, the early days, is characterized by a limited use of the Internet,
due in the most part to its complexity and universal accessibility. The user
interface was anything but user friendly, typically limited to the use of com-
plex UNIX-based commands via line mode. Security by obscurity was defi-
nitely a popular and acceptable way of addressing security in those early
days, as security organizations and MIS management convinced them-
selves that the potential risks were confined to small user populations cen-
tered around homogeneous computing and networking environments.
Most companies were not externally connected in those days, and certain-
ly not to the Internet.
Phase II is characterized by the introduction of the first versions of da-
tabase search engines, including Gopher and Wide Area Information Sys-
tem (WAIS). These tools were mostly used in the government and
university environments and were not well known nor generally proliferat-
ed in the commercial sector.
Phase III brings us up to todays environment, where Internet browsers
are relatively inexpensive, readily available, easy to install, easy to use
through GUI frontends and interfaces, interoperable across heterogeneous
platforms, and ubiquitous in terms of information access.
The growing popularity of the Internet and the introduction of the Inter-
net should not come as a surprise to corporate executives who are gener-
ally well read on such issues and tied into major information technology
(IT) vendors and consultants. However, quite frequently companies contin-
ue to select one of two choices when considering the implementation of
WWW and Internet technologies. Some companies, who are more techni-
cally astute and competitive, have jumped in totally and are exploiting In-
ternet technologies, electronic commerce, and the use of the Web. Others,
of a more conservative nature and more technically inexperienced, contin-
ue to maintain a hard-line policy on external connectivity, which basically
continues to say “NO.”
Internet technologies offer great potential for cost savings over existing
technologies, representing huge investments over the years in terms of
revenue and resources now supporting corporate information infrastruc-
tures and contributing to the business imperatives of those enterprises. In-
ternet-based applications provide a standard communications interface
and protocol suite ensuring interoperability and access to the organiza-
tion's heterogeneous data and information resources. Most WWW brows-
ers run on all systems and provide a common user interface and ease of use
to a wide range of corporate employees.