Data Security: The Misuse of Technology and Points of Vulnerability in Everyday Information Systems

Data security in the information age is a critical facet in the integrity and reliability of the various information systems making up value structures of businesses, organizations etc. Aside from professionals directly involved with securing data within these systems, the importance of data security is not readily apparent to the everyday user of devices in the information systems. The purpose of this literature review is to highlight challenges related to data security and business information systems in conjunction with digital literacy. An extensive literature review was conducted with the aim of identifying and describing scenarios of technology misuse as well as vulnerabilities in vital business information systems. A gap in awareness continues to plague those who leverage information systems for its myriad uses because everyday users will in most cases dismiss data security advice as alarmist or jargon-laden. This falls in line with a 2018 cyber security survey from Statista which showed that 22% of data security tasks was preventing malware while 17% of tasks were dedicated to preventing social engineering and phishing attacks. This literature review will describe possible data insecurity solutions as well as potential areas of further research. The paper will point out the importance of digital literacy as well as recommendations for its improvement in society and also ongoing research in that regard. The essence of this literature review is to identify certain everyday information systems such as decision support systems and transaction processing systems; while pointing out vulnerabilities and threat nature i.e. technical or non-technical and also demonstrating the importance of digital literacy and lack thereof.