Gg49 : Network And Security Assessment Answers

Countering cyber risk presents a significant strategic challenge to leaders across industries and sectors but one that they must surmount in order to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the vast technological advances in networked technology that are currently in their early stages. Over the past decade, we have significantly expanded our understanding of how to build secure and resilient digital networks and connected devices. However, board-level capabilities for strategic thinking and governance in this area have failed to keep pace with both the technological risks and the solutions that new innovations provide.

Boards have a vital governance function, determining overall company behaviour and setting a company’s risk appetite. For boards, action means effectively exercising oversight by asking managers the right questions to ensure that the boards’ strategic objectives are met. This function is no different in the area of cyber resilience. By offering the following principles and tools, the Forum hopes to facilitate useful dialogue between boards and the managers they entrust with the operation of the companies to which they owe their fiduciary obligations.

Introduction:

Cyber security in any organization can be defined as the state of being protected against the criminal or unauthorized use of electronic data, or the measures taken to achieve this. This has been one of the most challenging problem with the advancement in technology. Most of the companies have integrated technology in their operations and failed to account the risks that this technology places the company. Over the past few years we have had multiple case concerning cyber attacks in some of the big companies as well as different government institutions (Bush, J.E, et al., 2015). This has been due to poor assessment of the cyber attacks a company or an institution or an organization exposes itself into the minute they integrate these technologies within the company. Through out this paper, we will get to analyze the different types of cyber threats that are relevant to our company in relation to the field in the industry the company operates, w will also get to analyze the possible impacts these attacks may have on the company and the different stakeholders in the company that are to be affected by such attacks. This will be followed by a well analyzed cyber security implementation strategy that the company can adapt to so as to secure its systems and information from an attacker either an internal or an external hacker (Von Solms, R. and Van Niekerk, J., 2013). This information gathered will help in the development of a recommendation plan for the company that can help secure the company in case of any attacks now or later, the recommendations are to be given in line with the advancement in technology.

Cyber Attacks and their Impact to the Company

It is important to address some of the most eminent attacks that company in the stock market can be used by attacker. Some of these attacks include; denial of services which is referred to as the DoS as well as the Distributed Denial of service attack, the man in the middle (MitM) attacks, phishing and the spear phishing attacks, Eavesdropping attacks, the Password attacks among other attacks most of these attacks are designed to interfere with the flow of information or used for gathering information by an attacker which is extremely relevant for our case (Knowles, W., Prince, D., Hutchison, D., Disso, J.F.P. and Jones, K., 2015). The company being in the stock market, one of its most important assets is the information that flows within the company and many attackers may be interested in this information for different reasons, competitor companies also may be interested in the same information for different competitive reasons or sabotage reasons. With this in mid it is important to address each of these attacks independently to help one get an analytical understanding of the attacks.  

Man, in the Middle (MitM) Attacks 

This is an attack that mostly affects any organization that uses a network for the exchange of information or other services. With this being said, it is possible to conclusively say that it can be an attack on any business or company since every company is in respect transferring information from one end to the other. The attacks involve an attacker managing to intercept these communications and reading the content before they reach their destination. In relation to our companies’ operations, a lot of sensitive information flows from one user in the company to the other. With this in mind it is possible to know the extent to which such an attack can harm the company (Thakur, K., Qiu, M., Gai, K. and Ali, M.L., 2015). This is an attack that has been used mostly by competitor company in the industry. With such an attack the attacker being a competitor company is able to predict your company’s next move every time hence giving them a competitive advantage. With such an attack it is also possible for the attacker to change this intercepted data or information in their favor. This ends up affecting the effectiveness of the message when it was being transferred.

Denial of Services

It is referred to as the DoS as well as the Distributed Denial of service attack. The attack involves the denial of the right users from accessing crucial services o information due to the overload of a network by the attacker. This affects the flow of work for instance in a company. The attack normally happens in a company where the attacker can either make multiple request to a server that is being used by the company and when the other legal users of the serve or the system try to access this serer, they are unable to access it since the server is occupied with dead request that have been placed by the hacker or attacker (Nourian, A. and Madnick, S., 2018). In relation to our company and the different services the company offers, access to information I the most essential part of the business. This involves the retrieving of information from different sources where stocks updates are happening. This is a process that happens continuously and with the advancement in technology, different systems have been developed to help in the retrieval and update of the stock information giving a more opportune room for an attack by an attacker (Lam, J., 2016). These attacks can significantly affect the access to information for the company incase they are carried out. These have been some of the leading attacks in the stock industry where attackers have attacked different companies and denied the access to stock information and in return affecting the profit margins of these businesses. The impact of such an attack to the company can be extremely dangerous.

Password Attacks

This is normally an internal attack on the company but also can be carried out by an external attacker. The attack involves the attack of passwords of a company by an attacker. The attacks involve the access of different passwords in the company especially for the sensitive section of the company.in case such an attack is successful, it results to serious impact to the company since the attacker normally has access to all the company’s information in regards to the area they have managed to attack the attack is normally doe internally where the attacker has a well understanding of the company’s organization hence they are able to attack a particular password of their interest. In case this happens controlling the damage of such an attack becomes hard since the attacker many have different motives for the hack. In case of a sabotage attack, it becomes such a had case in the recovery from such an attack in the company since the information accessed by the attacker may at one point be the original copies of this information. For a company in the stock market industry information is crucial and for the analytics of this information means the success of the company. A password attack on a system that contains this information can be extremely damaging for the company. The attack also can be carried out by external attackers but are usually aware of the company’s structure. The advancement in technology in relation to the developments in cloud computing among other network related advancements have made most of the companies more prone to such attacks. For instance, an attack on the cloud services of the company here most of the company information is stored can impact the company a lot (Khan, N. and Al-Yasiri, A., 2018).

Recommendation

Controls on how to avoid Cyber attacks

With the identification of the possible attacks that the company may fac it is also important to address the different policies and strategies that the company can take so s to control the issue of cyber security.

Cyber security Protocols

These are protocols that needs to be implemented within the company s as to ensure the security of the company systems from attackers. These reports include the password protocol. This protocol is very important in preventing the company from password attacks by hackers or attackers. The password protocol can point out the password setting process which stipulates the requirement of any password set in the company by any one. Such criteria ensure that the passwords that are set in the company are strong enough and cannot be easily hacked. This policy is to be implemented by the IT department of the company (Fielder, A., Panaousis, E., Malacaria, P., Hankin, C. and Smeraldi, F., 2016). Also, under the same protocol, the passwords can be changed after a week or two so as to ensure the security of the company is constantly changing hence making it harder for the hackers or attackers to crack these passwords or keep up with the changes. These protocols are to be adhered to by every employee of the company and the IT department keeping logs of these changes to ensure that all the employees do not fail to do this.

The company can also control the different sites that the workers in the company access. There are different sites such as social media sites where the attackers normally set up traps and get information from the website users without their knowledge. This is normally referred t as phishing. This is one of the commonly used skill by the hackers to gather information from un knowing users. The company on the other hand places this policy and develops a system which filters such IP addresses from being accessible from the company’s network. The policy is strictly followed and this helps the company monitor all the incoming traffic since less places can b visited by the workers using the company network hence giving the IT department an easier task monitoring for any attack attempts.

Network Monitoring

This is the other strategy that the company should integrate, it involves the constant tracking of the network traffic of the company. The tracking involves the constant checking of where the network signal is weak o any abnormal activity in the network is registered. This is the best strategy to help avoid a denial of Service attack as identified to be one of the most eminent threat to the company (Lam, J., 2016). The continues monitoring will help also identify any surge in the use of the company’s network. In the case of stock markets, the company networks are usually on highly traffic due to the constant flow of information to and from different users and sources, this makes it possible for attackers to carry out a denial of service attack without being identified hence the need for the constant monitoring (Gupta, B., Agrawal, D.P. and Yamaguchi, S. eds., 2016). This will enable the IT sector of the company map out the company’s traffic hence in case of unknown traffic within the network, it becomes possible for the un identified users to be identified and in case of a danger it can be resolved before it gets out of control. The monitoring process are also to be complied with and no deviation from the protocol are to be allowed. Logs are to be kept by the responsible bodies to increase the accountability of the monitoring process in case of any attack

System Upgrades

The company should integrate a secure system within the company that involves upgrading the security systems as the newer upgrades are resent in the market, new upgrades come with more security and means the older versions have loop holes that attackers can use to get into access to the company’s systems. This has been the major challenges with most of the companies and the issues has significantly costed the companies due to attacks that have utilized this advantage. Fr instance the firewalls. This are essential systems for a secure network but are upgraded from time to time. The minute these upgrades are integrated within the company the security system of the company is boosted and becomes much better. Such systems help monitor and filter the different traffic that wishes to access the company network, the minute such a system is out of date and an attacker is aware of this, it becomes possible for an attacker to get access to the company network undetected and carry out the different damage they had without the knowledge of anyone in the network (Knowles, W., Prince, D., Hutchison, D., Disso, J.F.P. and Jones, K., 2015). Companies normally place the protocol among there need to do security protocols but fail to implement them due to the common notion of may which implies that if a device is not broken they why try to fix it. This has been discredited with the changes and advancement in technology. The changes in technology are very essential for the security of the company.

Educative measure

The company should also educate the employees on cyber security, these trainings should be designed to help the employees identify the magnitude of these attacks to the company and to there respective work. The learning programs can teach the workers the different forms of attacks that they may be faced with, the teaching can also incorporate the different protocols that the company has put in place so as to prevent any form of attacks (Abomhara, M. and Køien, G.M., 2015). These training can emphasis on some protocols that most of the users in the company’s network may end up ignoring such as switching off their systems when they are not using the m since such an opportunity may be grabbed by an attacker to carry out their damage. Also, the uses can be taught how to set up secure passwords that protect their systems. Such education greatly impacts the cyber security understanding of the users of the company network. In return this boost the adherence to the company security policy by the company employees.

Conclusion:

 Cyber security is a major threat within any industry as the advancements in technology keeps on changing. Our company in the stock market a cyber-attack is eminent and the need to be prepared is important, the company needs to have safety measures at hand that will help the company when such a time comes. As seen from the different reported cases companies from every part of the country continues being attacked and this show the need for the company to understand more in relation to the impacts of such an attack. For all this to be implemented in the company, the board and the management body f the company needs to priorities these cases and lead the way so that the rest of the other company can follow.

References:

Abomhara, M. and Køien, G.M., 2015. Cyber security and the internet of things: vulnerabilities, threats, intruders and attacks. Journal of Cyber Security, 4(1), pp.65-88.

Bush, J.E., Ayyagari, A., Li, W., Lorimer, S.W., Benson, M.L., Bates, S.J. and Craig, J.A., Boeing Co, 2015. Methods and systems for use in identifying cyber-security threats in an aviation platform. U.S. Patent 9,178,897.

Fielder, A., Panaousis, E., Malacaria, P., Hankin, C. and Smeraldi, F., 2016. Decision support approaches for cyber security investment. Decision Support Systems, 86, pp.13-23.

Gupta, B., Agrawal, D.P. and Yamaguchi, S. eds., 2016. Handbook of research on modern cryptographic solutions for computer and cyber security. IGI Global.

Khan, N. and Al-Yasiri, A., 2018. Cloud security threats and techniques to strengthen cloud computing adoption framework. In Cyber Security and Threats: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications (pp. 268-285). IGI Global.

Knowles, W., Prince, D., Hutchison, D., Disso, J.F.P. and Jones, K., 2015. A survey of cyber security management in industrial control systems. International journal of critical infrastructure protection, 9, pp.52-80.

Lam, J., 2016, June. IIET: Cyber security in modern power systems-Protecting large and complex networks. In Cyber Security in Modern Power Systems, IET (pp. 1-12). IET.

Nourian, A. and Madnick, S., 2018. A systems theoretic approach to the security threats in cyber physical systems applied to stuxnet. IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, 15(1), pp.2-13.

Thakur, K., Qiu, M., Gai, K. and Ali, M.L., 2015, November. An investigation on cyber security threats and security models. In Cyber Security and Cloud Computing (CSCloud), 2015 IEEE 2nd International Conference on (pp. 307-311). IEEE.

Von Solms, R. and Van Niekerk, J., 2013. From information security to cyber security. computers & security, 38, pp.97-102.