This is a case study of how policies, laws and regulations affect the cybersecurity field in organizations. Laws and regulations have been used in multiple various fields to provide guidance and control over how certain practices are been done. Their introduction to the Information Security field is recent, and due to the importance of what’s at stake, they seem to play a necessary role. It’s vital that we explain in details what has been observed in organizations’ programs and normal operations as a result of implementing these rules. In the past, not having any kind of direction while creating Information Security programs have proved to isolate agencies away from current progress in cybersecurity, while creating confusion on how to face …show more content…
Not a long ago, technological innovation was making its baby steps into our lifestyle. There was never a major talk on cybersecurity, even though the idea was present. Progress in technology have brought new ideas and innovations that have attracted, in turn, malicious and criminal practices; with this fast paced world we live in, we cannot afford to put our plans and goals on hold in order to deal with the problem. Today, it’s fair to say that we are all trying to catch up with the pace of technological advancement, and that is a difficult thing to accomplish, due to how fast and how complex the field has grown to be. It’s the same story in the case of cybersecurity, where we seem to be forced to react, rather act. At some point, it seemed like the cyberwar was left to the IT industries organizations to handle, until many more companies have been attracted to the technology world, due to various reasons, including competition and their respective market growth, an observation confirmed by Judith H. Germano (2014): “With time and experience (and even more alarming news report), more companies are becoming aware of, and realizing they need to address, cybersecurity concerns on a proactive basis” (p. 7). Nowadays, the society is more connected than ever, making it a target for criminals more than ever, and it requires a collective effort to achieve Information Security …show more content…
Multiple threats and attacks on and agencies have pushed all types of companies to raise the bar on security, thanks to laws that took effect. The reality is that “substantial numbers of corporate leaders lack confidence in their organizations’ level of preparedness – in part the result of a shortfall of cybersecurity literacy within organizations” (New Study Provides Cybersecurity Insight for Corporate Counsel, 2015). Some of these laws specifically target certain areas, like the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act in 2015. Information sharing between companies have shown a significant increase in cybersecurity preparedness. Not only did these companies report that they were able to defend themselves against new attacks that are similar to previous ones, but also get more knowledge in how to lawfully and properly handle certain cybersecurity
During the process of analyzing an organizations effectiveness to manage cybersecurity risks, there are ranges of security policies that need to be implemented. A prime example of this concept is the cybersecurity policies developed for consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton. The direct division formed to address the firm’s requirements within cyberspace is the Cyber Solution Network (CSN). The CSN division within Booz Allen Hamilton has a range of policies used to ensure the firm is protected against risk.
Whitman, M., & Mattord, H. (2010). Management of information security. (3rd ed., p. 6). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
Security helps the organization meet its business objectives or mission by protecting its physical and financial resources, reputation, legal position, employees, and other tangible and intangible assets through the selection and application of appropriate safeguards. Businesses should establish roles and responsibilities of all personnel and staff members. However, a Chief Information Officer should be appointed to direct an organization’s day to day management of information assets. Supporting roles are performed by the service providers and include systems operations, whose personnel design and operate the computer systems. Each team member must be held accountable in ensuring all of the rules and policies are being followed, as well as, understanding their roles, responsibilities and functions. Organizations information processing systems are vulnerable to many threats that can inflict various types of damage that can result in significant losses (Harris, 2014). Losses can come from actions from trusted employees that defraud the system, outside hackers, or from careless data entry. The major threat to information protection is error and omissions that data entry personnel, users, system operators and programmers make. To better protect business information resources, organizations should conduct a risk analysis to see what
Cyber activity has increased exponentially while security strategies lack behind. Defence funding identifies Australia’s defence priorities over the last decade highlighting counter-terrorism as the biggest security risk . The 2013 National Security Strategy continues to identify counter-terrorism as its main threat. Concern over cyber crime is apparent with the strategy, encouraging integrated policy development , yet the threat has no substantial counter strategy . In recent years the large-scale information breaches release and published online represent the vulnerability of systems including infrastructure. The case studies of Anonymous and Ransomeware raise the question of the Governments ability to counter cyb...
Cyber Security as an International Security Threat National and International Security is a sum of the actions taken by countries and other organizations that can guarantee the safety and well being of their population. It is vital for a nation to pre-emptively discover what issues could affect their security, and take action to prevent any detrimental or harmful events from happening. With the development of technology and the transition into a more technologically savvy society, cyber security has become one of the most prevalent and important economic and national security issues that the United States will come to face. United States President Barack Obama has identified cyber security as a key issue the nation will face. President Obama declared that the “cyber threat is one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation” and that “America's economic prosperity in the 21st century will depend on cyber security (“Foreign Policy Cyber Security,” 2013).”
The article “Security at Center Stage” depicts five secrets to a CSO’s success; it outlines the attributes needed to obtain success in the evolving field of security management. With the evolving role of a CSO there is a great necessity to satisfy all levels of need in the security and business setting. According to the article “Security at Center Stage” a CSO’s success is contingent on being “more that the average techie”, having a “focus on business”, being a “relationship builder”, requiring “an eye toward pervasive security”, and implementing a “dual reporting structure.”
Create a team with the following areas of expertise: Human Resources (HR), Legal, Technology, and other key business lines. The HR, Legal, and Technology team members will have a good understanding of the current policies related to information security. Moreover, such a team will be a fair representation of each area of the organization. Information Security Awareness needs to be an organizational-wide effort and must be presented in the same manner. (Wilson, M. & Hash, J,2003)
The data breach at Target had a massive impact on cyber security. According to Lauren Abdel-Razzaq, we live in a world where consumers don’t even think twice about paying with a credit or debit card or buying items online or with mobile devices (2014). However, data breaches have become a major threat and continue to impact companies all over the world. Companies should take information security as seriously as possible. We don’t live in a perfect world. Anything can happen at any time, even if a company has the most sophisticated security system in place. It is how a company reacts to a data breach that will make or break them.
Business owners will go to amazing lengths to keep their workplace safe while completely overlooking their IT security and their multifunction devices. IT security breaches cost the average company $800,000 in 2009 (Tattrie, 2009). Those figures represent a 97 percent increase from 2008. The $800,000 includes labor lost when a breach freezes systems, cost of repairing the damage caused by the breach, and the cost of replacing the faulty security. That is quite a large sum that is also highly avoidable. Due to escalation in Internet use, the amount of computer security breaches that businesses have experienced in the last year has increased at a rapid rate. Breaches can come from external attacks as well as within the walls of a company. External attacks are serious but the threat created by a company’s employees can be much worse (Robb, 2010). Last year 81 percent of security breaches came from inside the company. Employees can cause deliberate attacks, but more likely employee use can compromise your system without malice and unknowingly. Employees can abuse internet access privileges by downloading pornography, downloading music, and pirating software. Obviously, this is improper use of company time and resources but more importantly, it can expose your company to fines from the Business Software Alliance (BSA) and it also can make your computer network more vulnerable to access from outside troublemakers and industry spies. BSA has collected more than $70 million in penalties from companies where employees violated piracy laws.
As electronic commerce, online business-to-business operations, and global connectivity have become vital components of a successful business strategy, enterprises have adopted security processes and practices to protect information assets. But if you look at today's computing environments, system security is a horrible game of numbers: there are currently over 9,223 publicly released vulnerabilities covering known security holes in a massive range of applications from popular Operating Systems through to obscure and relatively unknown web applications. [01] Over 300 new vulnerabilities are being discovered and released each month. Most companies work diligently to maintain an efficient, effective security policy, implementing the latest products and services to prevent fraud, vandalism, sabotage, and denial of service attacks. But the fact is you have to patch every hole of your system, but an attacker need find only one to get into your environment. Whilst many organisations subscribe to major vendor's security alerts, these are just the tip of the security iceberg and even these are often ignored. For example, the patch for the Code Red worm was available some weeks before the worm was released. [02]
Max Thielen Last year Target fell victim to a massive cyber attack that compromised data on millions of its customers. The breach lasted from November 27 to December 15. During that time, information on 40 million debit and credit accounts was stolen. In addition, Target would later report that another 70 million customers’ names, phone numbers, and mailing addresses had been stolen (Whitney). A piece of malware that retails on the black market for around $2,000 is believed to be the culprit for the stolen data.
According to Riley Walters, a researcher on foreign and national policy, an average of 160 successful cyber attacks occur every week on various U.S. industries in attempts to gain confidential information (1). Similar to other national security challenges following the 9/11 attacks, cyber threat can originate from unexpected places, resulting in a creation of a dynamic risk to national security. Cyber attackers can come from places such as the intelligence gathering components of foreign militaries or organized terrorist organizations, to any experienced individual. Each have different abilities and operating methods, making their threats difficult to counter (Rollins Henning 1). Year after year, federal agencies report an ever increasing amount
This case study is based on European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA) to examine the current and emerging cyber threats and threat trend for emerging technology areas. This will be followed by the explanation about threat, threat agent, technology areas and attack methods. This case study also provides a description of the procedure followed; also use few descriptions on use- cases of cyber threat intelligence. The primary commitment of the ETL 2014 lies in the recognizable proof of top cyber danger inside the reporting time frame. With the developing risk landscape, it makes up the fundamental commitment towards ID of cyber dangers. This report also examines how the
It is unrealistic to imagine that the copious amount of departments responsible for cybersecurity are able to adequately protect the country; therefore, the government needs to form one department that can be responsible for all cybersecurity problems and cyberattacks. When forming this new department, resources from other groups that currently share responsibility can be moved in order to decrease the amount of resources needed for the new group. But, it is also unfathomable for the government to be responsible for all cybersecurity as “... the reality is that while the lion’s share of the cybersecurity expertise lies in the federal government, more than 90 percent of the physical infrastructure of the Web is owned by private industry” (McConnell 4). Therefore the government must collaborate with the private sector. This cooperation can be utilized to help form the new government group as “there is also an opportunity for the new agency to be formed in a more deliberate way, drawing on leadership from the private economy to promote efficiency and cost-effectiveness” (Cohen 2). By working with the private sector, the new agency can reduce costs of personnel and equipment, increase performance, and maintain diverse cybersecurity plans. Once a
The nation has become dependent on technology, furthermore, cyberspace. It’s encompassed in everything we deliver in our daily lives, our phones, internet, communication, purchases, entertainment, flying airplane, launching missiles, operating nuclear plants, and implicitly, our protection. The more ever-growing technology empower Americans, the more they become prey to cyber threats. The United States Executive Office of the President stated, “The President identified cybersecurity as one of the top priorities of his administration in doing so, directed a 60-day review to assess polices.” (United States Executive Office of the President, 2009, p.2). Furthermore, critical infrastructure, our network, and internet alike are identified as national assets upon which the administration will orchestrate integrated cybersecurity policies without infringing upon and protecting privacy. While protecting our infrastructure, personal privacy, and civil liberties, we have to keep in mind the private sector owns and operates the majority of our critical and digital infrastructure.