HLS 625 Final Assessment

Information Technology Security Institution Date Categories of computer crime Cybercrime refers to criminal act conducted through use of cyber-technology within the realm of cyber (Tavani, 2000). There are three broad category of cybercrime. Cyberpiracy which is the use of cyber technology in unauthorized ways to produce copies of software and propriety information and or distribute propriety information across the network. Another category is cybertresspass which refer to use of technology to gain or surpass unauthorized access to a computer system that can either belong to an organization or personal computer system or even access password protect website. The third category is cybervandalism. When an attacker uses cyber technology to release programs that impedes and interrupt the transfer of electricaldata across one of extra networks. They can also destroy data resident in the computer for damage in password protected website. Cyber espionage is the act of using cyber-technology to invade an organization, military or government network in order to obtain high level of intelligence without being noticed(Nye Jr, ,2010). Cyber espionage like spying on political enemies, governments, military and competitors for personal, economic and military advantage. Cyber espionage takes place through the internet and employs socially engineered software's and malwares that enters the target system and rewrite the system in order to disguise from being noted. For instant the medianta report pointed out to a Chinese APT1 software that was used to commit act of cyber espionage on United States of America. Cyber terrorism refer to situation where terrorists gain control of the network that control major infrastructure like dams, air traffic control, nuclear plans and uses them to cause havoc on the people, injuring millions in the process and destroying national security. Cyber terrorism is theoretically anchored on the belief that hackers can gain access to critical government systems and then cripple military, financial or infrastructural systems. This new form of vulnerability has been enhanced by the growing dependence on information technology that has given terrorists access to infrastructure that would be really hard to access if not for information technology(Nye Jr, ,2010).. Therefore as a country get more advanced and sophisticated in terms of technology, the more it becomes susceptible and vulnerable to cyber-attack. Even though no actual cyber terrorism attack has ever taken place, concerns of its dangers are very well founded. Principles of information system security Privacy breach incident response constitute mechanisms put in place to help detect attack and strategies on the ground to help minimize and contain damage related to the attack. Privacy incident breach can be defined as an event that involves misuse of personal information that may involve customer or employee data. The act could be intentional, or unintentional, criminal, commercial, or innocuous (Stair, & Reynolds, 2013). When such an act occurs then a breach on privacy is deemed to have occurred and the affected company respond by assembling the incident team and validating data breach. Unlike decades ago before the advent of digital age, advancement in technology has led to deterioration of privacy with data breaches. Technological advancement has shifted the storage of customer private information from tangible medium like hardy copy formats to electronic sources like internet and or even cloud. Use of electronic storage exposes data to criminal activities thereby reducing chances of ensuring privacy. Such acts like hacking, malware, insider breach, unintentional exposure of private data on websites and emails. Data breach damages company's reputation, are expensive and can diminish customer's trust in an organization. Such reputational damage can cost company profits and customer base. Cryptography can be defined as the science that uses complex mathematics and logic to design strong security measures using encryption. It entails hiding data's meaning through artfully crafted encryption methods (Bhatti, 2012). Cryptography borrows from military where secret agents, field commanders and other parties in war relied on information during war. Armies got advantages of maneuver, timing and surprise by keeping information away from the enemy. Hiding the meaning of information is the surest way of keeping information secrete. In developing security encryptions, cryptographers uses transposition, codes and substitution. Therefore cryptography offers confidentiality, authentication, integrity and nonrepudiation to information security (Bhatti, 2012). These functions may be used separately or may overlap while providing information security. Cloud computing Cloud computing is a prototypical internet service that supports network that is on demand to a pool of computing resources. These resources include network, servers, storage, applications and services. These resources should be able to be switch on with minimal administrationact orinteraction with service providers (Mell & Grance, 2011). Cloud computing technologies are versatile and is implementable to a wider variation of architectures using dissimilar service and distributionprototypes and are also compatible with other technologies and software designs. The nature of cloud infrastructure makes it susceptible to numerous attacks making it very much attack prone. Targeted attacks are a threat category that denote computer intrusion by hackers that are aimed at specific targets with the aim of compromising them. The attacks are always based on social engineering and malware and maintains presence within the victim's network allowing the attacker to operate freely within the network and extract all the vital information it requires. Targeted attacks are always part of a broader campaign aimed at obtaining sensitive data from particular organizations usually from civil society organizations, business and government or military networks. Data breach is when analteration to security has taken place that leads to unintentional or illegaldamage, harm, change, unofficialexposéof,contactwith data under protection or otherwise processed( Shaw, 2009).Data breach can be perpetrated by insiders, criminals, organized groups and state sponsored groups. Hacktivism is a politically or socially motivated act of breaking into a computer system in order to gain vital in formation. The act of hacktivism is perpetrated by hacktivist. Hacktivist uses the same techniques as hackers but are concerned with disruption of normal services in order to bring attention to a social or political agenda (Shaw, 2009). While hacktivism is considered crime in most cases, proponents consider it act of protests like any other. Advanced persistent threats Advanced security threat refers to as a situation where a long term sophisticated attack is waged on a specific targeted entity. The main aim of the attacker in this situations to obtain high level intelligence mostly from foreign governments, national defense, manufacturing and financial industries. Advance persistent threat is an attack by an adversary who possesses sophisticated level of expertise and resources required to attack the system and generate opportunity to acquire and extend foothold within the information technology infrastructure of organizations with an aim of extract critical information or impede critical aspect of a mission (Mell & Grance, 2011). The advance persistent threat continuously adopts to defenders efforts to resist it and repeatedly pursue its objective over an extended period of time.The use of mobile devices and unmanaged provide an avenue to be exploited by advanced persistent threat. Another point of threat is use of publicly available web applications. Advanced persistent attacks can be injected into these webs to gather intelligence. Advanced persistent threats are characterized by motivation for financial gain or competitive advantage, they are usually long and sustained for a longer period of time and they have target organizations, companies or platforms (Tankard, 2011). Business and governments offer financial targets for hackers as well as intellectual property. Advanced persistent attacks may persist for weeks or even months and in extreme cases may persist for years. In some cases advanced persistent threats starts by gathering intelligence about file locations, security protocols, system vulnerabilities and then when armed with the information, they will launch attack in a span of minutes. Examples of such attacks include the aurora APT attack that was targeted at Google but ended up affecting other companies. The attack was aimed at gaining access at goggle and altering the application code. Another attack was the Zeus botnet which began as a platform for pan attack on financial institutions but later became the framework for other advanced persistent threats. Additionally Stuxnet is also an advanced ...