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FOR GLOBAL MANAGEMENT : What tools and techniques can be developed to help preve

ID: 377213 • Letter: F

Question

FOR GLOBAL MANAGEMENT : What tools and techniques can be developed to help prevent or mitigate a cyber attack once an attack is underway at a major IT firm. What implementation risks could there be to these tools and techniques? How can viable alternatives can you provide? FOR GLOBAL MANAGEMENT : What tools and techniques can be developed to help prevent or mitigate a cyber attack once an attack is underway at a major IT firm. What implementation risks could there be to these tools and techniques? How can viable alternatives can you provide?

Explanation / Answer

Cyber attack is an IT related issue wherein the attack is initiated against a website, computer or a system. It is a security threat for the computer related programs or system. The attack is done purposefully to compromise on the confidentiality, integrity or availability of any information stored in the computer.

The following tools and techniques to prevent the cyber attacks are:

1. The first and the foremost tool is to review the computer’s security chain to know where the link is weak. Even a single weak link will make the computer system vulnerable to cyber attacks. Once the weak link is identified the link has to be replaced with an alternative or the weak link needs to be strengthened.

2. Compliance work plan needs to be drafted in advance to prevent a cyber attack. The work plan should include policies, procedures, code of conduct and specific incident response procedures so that they are monitored often to prevent the risk of any cyber attack.

3. Coordination with other departments to ensure that there is a communication and cooperation within departments in the event of cyber attacks and data breaches. Any information provided by the departments may trigger the IT firm to identify potential cyber attacks on the system.

4. Data management program needs to be implemented across the entire organization so that the IT firm has a standards set to prevent or mitigate the risk of cyber attack and ensure that the security of the company information.

5. Employees policies should have a clear mention of the policies that restricts employees from ‘unauthorized access’. The policy should detail on the disciplinary actions that will be provided to the employees on the breach of the policies.

6. Company should invest adequately in security related equipments and procedures to prevent cyber attack. For example, the most updated software to identify the cyber attacks, using a different web server apart from the regular server.

7. There should be confidential platform to report any cyber incident. This will help the Chief Security Officer to know what were the cyber attempts and the potential cyber threats.

Challenges faced with the implementation of the above mentioned tools and techniques:

a. Lack of transparency- Sometimes the IT firm will not maintain transparency in the actions that they take to prevent or mitigate the risk of cyber attack. Due to this lack of transparency, the department might not coordinate and cooperate with the IT department.

b. Proficiency in cyber related programs- should be an essential skill of an employee who works for the prevention of the cyber attacks. Otherwise, there might be delay in the identification and resolution of the cyber attacks.

c. Integrity of the employees is the prime factor for an effective implementation of steps to prevent cyber attack. The theft of the trade secrets or any information that might be a potential threat for cyber attack is a great challenge while implementation of the tools and techniques to prevent cyber attack.

d. If the policies and compliance plans are weak, then this will be a challenge in implementing the technique for prevention of cyber attacks.

Viable alternatives are:

1. The IT firm should provide transparency in the actions that they take gain more trust from other departments.

2. The recruitment should be based on strong proficiency in software programming related to prevent cyber attacks.

3. The employees should be appraised based on their integrity competency.