Information Security in Cisco Organization-Samples for Students

Question: Write reflection on the role of Information Security in an Cisco Organization. Answer: Background to the case This assignment depicts the role of Information Security auditing in any organization however this particular paper is focused on a recent news case published on 9th April, 2018. The case is about 200,000 Cisco Network switches reported hacked by the external attackers that interrupted the regular revenue and competitive market of the company (cisco-network 2018). This news conveys that over 200,000 worldwide network switches of Cisco were hijacked by the external attackers on this Friday (9th April, 2018). The worldwide large internet service providers and data centers of Iran, Russia, China, United States, Europe and India were apparently affected. The Iranian Government official was reported this particular news. Serious level of investigation is going on to find out the main attackers who carried out this operation. Not only to find out the attacker but also find out the impact of the attack that includes data loss has information hijacked etc. Not only this but also, someone in the control department said that, they are absolutely tired of the frequent attack arising from the government back attacks of the United States attackers. The targeted devices were over 200,000 router switches all over the world that operates the large network system of Cisco throughout. It was the responsibility of the Chief Information executives of the company to look at the security of the data centers. Apart from 200,000 router switches, 3,500 switches were negatively impacted due to this attack. Due this attack more than 55,000 devices, 14,000 devices are attacked respectively in United States and China and the rest of the victims were from other countries (cisco-network 2018). According to blog presented by Kaspersky Lab, it has been found that, the attackers who have attacked on the Cisco Router devices has also exploited a susceptibility in the software which is known as Cisco small Install. This particular device allows the hackers to run all arbitrary codes over the router switches. Cisco is planning to resolve or mitigate this negative impact by running a command which implies that no vstack config over those devices which are affected by the attack (cisco-network 2018). Even if this recommendation was found to be not that much effecting then they also have a second option in terms of restricted device access through a list of access control in Cisco Interface. It is expected that, with the help of access control no unauthenticated user will be able to access information from the server. IS risks The information security risks occurred in Cisco impacted negatively both the consumers and the users. However, it is not necessary that, the impact of all the risks will be similar for each case (Soomro, Shah and Ahmed 2016). After identifying and analyzing the risks, based on their negative impact the risks are prioritized. The different types of IS security level risks occurred in Cisco, are prioritize in terms of level of risks and its implication. No of risk Risks Level of risk Frequency Mitigation strategy Probability 1 Lack of experiences of all the employees involved in the Cisco service providers. High High In order to mitigate these issues Cisco has planned to organize professional training and development programs or the employees associated to the company (Schinagl et al. 2016) Likelihood 2 Lack of data security High High Proper encryption mechanism is needed to be adopted by the company to make sure that, none of the third party can access those data from the server without permission Probable 3 Lack of security monitoring High High There is lack of supervision of the higher authority. Due to this reason the company failed to control their confidential information. Moderate 4 Improper data encryption High Medium The Cisco router switches were directly affected by the external attack as a result the confidential information was accessed by the attackers (Al Izki and Weir 2015). Apart from encryption mechanism, firewall is needed to install to make sure that the network channel through which the data are transferred from the service providers to the users. High 4 Lack of installed antivirus High High The higher authority of the company has planned to find out to the simplest way to resolve the issues in terms of a command named as no vstack config (Shameli-Sendi et al. 2016). In addition to this another mitigation strategy was developing restrict access through access control list. Likelihood Audit plan, objectives and procedures Audit plan number Objectives Procedures 1 Before implementing proper security approaches for Cisco, an accurate training and development program for the company should have to be arranged by the higher authority To develop proper security policies and procedures To perform appropriately for performing illegal acts for the company -Development of training and development program -Adopting ISO 31000:2009 risk management policies -Installation of proper illegal acts 2 To develop proper procedures of data encryption To install firewall mechanism for securing the router network -After analyzing the current situation of the company, proper encryption mechanism in terms of private and public key should have to be installed (Garba et al. 2015). The most important part of the application is to keep the asymmetric key secured from the third party access. -In order to keep the network channel secured from the external attackers it is necessary for the company to implement firewall to keep the information secured in the server. 3 To implement data verification approaches To make those data validate -installing firewall and data antivirus -In order to validate those data, software license and SLA should have to be developed by Cisco (Tsohou Karyda and Kokolakis 2015.). 4 Regular maintenance Proper data maintenance approaches are needed to be adopted by Cisco to make sure that none of the information are well maintained Audit Questions and documents What is the eligibility criteria considered for the applicants who wish to take job in Cisco? What are the interview steps to be followed to hire an employee for the company? What the training and development programs arranged for the employees who have been hired for the company? Is the training program appropriate for the employees who have been hired? What is the total time duration for the training program? What are the security policies adopted by the company? What are the encryption mechanisms adopted by the company to ensure data security? What are the data control approaches used by the company to avoid information security risks? What are the other technologies adopted to secure the sensitive information of the company? How did the information and control system of the company was interrupted? What will be the list of benefits the company may have faced after the adoption of the security policies? In order to ensure the access of the employees, what are the details document logs have been followed? What are the different network activities and data security approaches have been followed by the company? What are the data monitoring and information security mechanisms to be followed by the company to avoid information Security risks? Control recommendations Due to the sudden attack on the router switch Cisco faced many challenges. In order to avoid information security risks and other risks the company should adopt some of the control mechanism in terms of recommendations and those are as follows: Encryption and firewall: In order to keep maintain the Information Security of the company it is necessary for Cisco to adopt suitable encryption mechanism and firewall to avoid unauthenticated data access. With the help of Encryption technology, the unauthorized users will not be able to access information or even misuse them. Installation of antivirus software: Proper antivirus within the operating system and software vendors should have to be adopted to avoid external infection. The antiviruses are to be active and updated as well. Strong password: The data server is needed to be secured with strong password to avoid unwanted users to access information from the server. It will help the company to keep the credential information secured from the external attackers. Data backup: In addition to firewall and encryption mechanism, another thing that should have to be recommended include data backup. Data backup will ensure that, if any of the data gets hijacked by the external attackers then, data backup will help the users to access those data from the server. Conclusion From the overall discussion it can be concluded that, Cisco has faced a data hijack related challenge, due to external attack in its router switches. Besides this, the hackers also reset the target devices and make them unavailable to be reconfiguration. They also left a message informing them to not to mess up with their election. Not only the consumers but also the employees working for Cisco have also faced major challenges. It is the responsibility of the company executives to develop certain IS risk management strategies and policies to ensure the success of the company. An IS risk management strategy and recommendations to mitigate the issues are illustrated in this report. References Ahmad, A., Maynard, S.B. and Park, S., 2014. Information security strategies: towards an organizational multi-strategy perspective.Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing,25(2), pp.357-370. Cisco-network (2018).cisco-network-switches-reportedly-hacked. [online] inforisktoday.com. Available at: https://www.inforisktoday.com/200000-cisco-network-switches-reportedly-hacked-a-10788 [Accessed 11 Apr. 2018]. Garba, A.B., Armarego, J. and Murray, D., 2015. A policy-based framework for managing information security and privacy risks in BYOD environments.International Journal of Emerging Trends Technology in Computer Science,4(2), pp.189-98. Moore, T.W., Probst, C.W., Rannenberg, K. and van Eeten, M., 2017. Assessing ICT Security Risks in Socio-Technical Systems (Dagstuhl Seminar 16461). InDagstuhl Reports(Vol. 6, No. 11). Schloss Dagstuhl-Leibniz-Zentrum fuer Informatik. Rebollo, O., Mellado, D., Fernndez-Medina, E. and Mouratidis, H., 2015. Empirical evaluation of a cloud computing information security governance framework.Information and Software Technology,58, pp.44-57. Scott, K., Richards, D. and Adhikari, R., 2015. A review and comparative analysis of security risks and safety measures of mobile health apps. Shameli-Sendi, A., Aghababaei-Barzegar, R. and Cheriet, M., 2016. Taxonomy of information security risk assessment (ISRA).Computers security,57, pp.14-30. Soomro, Z.A., Shah, M.H. and Ahmed, J., 2016. Information security management needs more holistic approach: A literature review.International Journal of Information Management,36(2), pp.215-225. Tamjidyamcholo, A., Baba, M.S.B., Shuib, N.L.M. and Rohani, V.A., 2014. Evaluation model for knowledge sharing in information security professional virtual community.Computers Security,43, pp.19-34. Tsohou, A., Karyda, M. and Kokolakis, S., 2015. Analyzing the role of cognitive and cultural biases in the internalization of information security policies: recommendations for information security awareness programs.Computers security,52, pp.128-141. Al Izki, F. and Weir, G.R., 2015, September. Gender Impact on Information Security in the Arab World. InInternational Conference on Global Security, Safety, and Sustainability(pp. 200-207). Springer, Cham. Schinagl, S., Paans, R. and Schoon, K., 2016, January. The Revival of Ancient Information Security Models, Insight in Risks and Selection of Measures. InSystem Sciences (HICSS), 2016 49th Hawaii International Conference on(pp. 4041-4050). IEEE.