You are a member of the application development organization for a small but rapidly growing software company
Question:
You are a member of the application development organization for a small but rapidly growing software company that produces patient billing applications for doctors’ offices. During work on the next release of your firm’s first and only software product, you dis-cover a small programming glitch in the current release that could pose a security risk to users. The probability of the problem being discovered is low, but, if it is exposed, the potential impact on your firm’s 100 or so customers could be substantial: Hackers could access private patient data and change billing records. The problem will be corrected in the next release, scheduled to come out in three months, but you are concerned about what should be done for the users of the current release. The problem has come at the worst possible time. The firm is currently seeking approval for a $10 million loan to raise enough cash to continue operations until revenue from the sales of its just-released product offsets expenses. In addition, the effort to develop and distribute the patch, to communicate with users, and to deal with any fallout will place a major drain on your small development staff, delaying the next software release by at least two months. You have your regularly scheduled quarterly meeting with the manager of application development this afternoon; what will you say about this problem?
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