Cyber Security: Exploring the Various Aspects and Solutions

This dissertation explores the various aspects of cyber security and suggests solutions for the identified issues. It discusses the importance of cyber security in today's modern world and the increased demand for cyber security solutions. The research aims to analyze cyber security and cyber warfare, identify the risks faced by cyber security, and propose ways to mitigate these risks.

Running head: CYBER SECURITY
Cyber Security
[Name of the Student]
[Name of the University]
[Author note]

1CYBER SECURITY
Abstract:
Cyber Security is generally considered to be important aspect which needs to be
understood by everyone. The emergence of the new technologies has been associated with
giving rise to new cyber threats and this in turn has been associated with the invention of new
solutions so as to counter the threats. In today’s world almost, each and every device is
connected to the internet and this is the main reason which is responsible for opening up on
new possibilities and threats for the cyber security. This dissertation is going to explore the
various aspects of cyber security and is associated with suggesting solutions for the various
issues that has been identified.
As the world is modernizing and the internet is taking up a significant space in the
business is responsible for the increased demand of the cyber security. The Small and
Medium sized enterprises along with the larger corporations are in search for cyber security
solutions along with looking for certain proactive formulas which would be helping in the
mitigation of the risks related to cyber breaches, data theft and financial frauds.

2CYBER SECURITY
Chapter 1: Introduction:.............................................................................................................4
1.1 Background of the Study..................................................................................................4
1.2 Aim of the Research.........................................................................................................4
1.3 Problem Statement...........................................................................................................4
1.4 Research Objectives.........................................................................................................5
1.5 Research Questions..........................................................................................................5
Chapter 2: Literature review:.....................................................................................................5
Introduction:...........................................................................................................................5
Discussion:.............................................................................................................................6
Elements of Cybersecurity:................................................................................................6
Application Security:.....................................................................................................6
Information Security:.....................................................................................................7
Network Security:..........................................................................................................7
Disaster recovery or the Business continuity plan:........................................................8
Operational security:......................................................................................................8
Cases of Cyber Warfare:........................................................................................................8
Summary:.............................................................................................................................10
Chapter 3: Research methodology...........................................................................................10
Research Philosophy:...........................................................................................................11
Data Collection process........................................................................................................11
Data analysis technique:.......................................................................................................12

3CYBER SECURITY
Chapter 4: Discussion..............................................................................................................12
Types of security risks:........................................................................................................13
Ransomware:....................................................................................................................13
Malware or Malicious Software:......................................................................................13
Social Engineering:..........................................................................................................15
Phishing:...........................................................................................................................16
Some other type of Cyber-attacks:...................................................................................17
Man-in-the-Middle attack:...........................................................................................17
SQL injection:..............................................................................................................18
Zero-Day Exploit:........................................................................................................18
Denial-of-service attacks:.............................................................................................19
Chapter 5: Conclusion and recommendation...........................................................................19
Conclusion:..........................................................................................................................19
Recommendation:................................................................................................................22
References:...............................................................................................................................23

4CYBER SECURITY
Chapter 1: Introduction:
1.1 Background of the Study
Cyber security generally refers to the protection of the systems connected to the
internet and this includes the hardware, software and data from any kind of cyberattack. The
security in computing generally consists of the cybersecurity and the physical security and
both of this are used by the enterprises for the purpose of providing protection against any
kind of unauthorized access to the data centers or any of the other computerized systems
(Levi, Allouche and Kontorovich 2018). The Information security is generally designed for
the purpose of maintaining the integrity, confidentiality and the availability of the data which
are considered to be the subsets of cyber security.
1.2 Aim of the Research
The aim of this research is to analyze the Cybersecurity and the cyberwarfare which is
the main focus of this research. Besides this the risks that are faced by the cybersecurity and
the way by which the risks can be mitigated has also been analyzed.
1.3 Problem Statement
The importance of cyber security is gradually increasing day by day for the everyday
users. Besides this the increased opportunities that has brought due to the new technologies
that has also been associated with bringing a lot of security concerns which is to be taken into
account as well. The users need to be aware of the various type of risks that are associated
with the usage of everyday cyber technology where the increased number of everyday items
are being connected to the internet (Dua and Du 2016). As everything is being moved

5CYBER SECURITY
towards the internet new ways are opening up for the criminals and well as for the
government officials to compromise the cyber security and privacy of the users.
1.4 Research Objectives
The major object of this research is to understand the ways by which the cyberwarfare can be
mitigated along with understanding the basic concept of cybersecurity and the various
elements of cyber security.
1.5 Research Questions
Q1. What is Cybersecurity?
Q2. What are the basic elements of cybersecurity?
Q3. What are the major threats faced by cybersecurity?
Q4. What is Cyberwarfare?
Q5. What are the ways by which the different threats faced by cybersecurity can be
mitigated?
Chapter 2: Literature review:
Introduction:
Cyberwarfare can be defined as the computer of network-based conflict which
generally involves an attack that has been motivated politically by a nation-state on some
other nation state. This type of attacks generally involves a nation-state actor who is
associated with making attempts for disrupting the activities of a specific organization or
nation states specially for the strategic or military purposes as well as for cyberespionage.

6CYBER SECURITY
Despite of the fact that Cyberwarfare generally refers to the cyberattacks that has been
penetrated by one nation-state on another it might also be associated with describing the
attacks that are conducted by the terrorist groups or by hackers which are generally aimed at
furthering the goals that the particular nations are having. When the attacks are carried out by
the advanced persistent threat or by the APT actors then it becomes very difficult to define
the attribute that the cyberattacks are having for the nation-state (Mittal et al. 2016).
However, this type of attacks often can be linked with specific nations. Despite of the fact
that there exist numerous examples of suspects cyberwarfare attacks in the recent history, still
no formal agreed-upon definition of cyberwarfare has been provided and the experts are
generally associated with explaining this as a cyberattack which is directly responsible for
loss of life.
Discussion:
Elements of Cybersecurity:
The cybersecurity can be ensuring if there exists an efficient coordination of the
efforts throughout the information system and this includes the following:
Application Security:
This is the type of security which is provided by making use of the software, hardware
along with the procedural methods so as to protect the applications from any type of external
threats. In the process of software designing the aspect of security is gaining a lot of
importance and the major reason behind this is that the applications are becoming more
frequently accessible over the networks. For this reason, the applications become much more
vulnerable to numerous types of threats. Actions which are taken for the purpose of making
sure that the security of the applications is ensured is often termed as countermeasures and
the most basic software countermeasure is the application firewall which is responsible for

7CYBER SECURITY
limiting the execution of files or the handling of data by certain programs (Weinstein 2016).
Enhancement of the application security is possible by defining the enterprise assets in a
rigorous way, along with identifying what these applications does or is going to do with
respect to the assets, creating the security profile for every application and many more.
Besides all this the potential threats are to be identified and prioritized as well along with
documenting the adverse events and what are the actions that are to be taken for each of this
case. This process is generally termed as threat modelling.
Information Security:
Information security generally refers to the set of strategies that are adopted for the
purpose of managing the various processes, tools or policies that are necessary for the
purpose of preventing, detecting, documenting and countering the various type of threats that
are face by the digital as well as by the non-digital information (Massey 2017). Information
security is having the responsibility of establishing a set of business process which helps in
the protection of the information assets regardless of the formatting of the information or if it
is in transit or not or is being processes or is at rest in storage.
Network Security:
This is the type of security which includes any type of activity that is designed for the
purpose of protecting the usability and the integrity of the network as well as the data. This
mainly consists of the software as well as the hardware technologies (Pathak and Nanded
2016). The major responsibility of an effective network security includes the management of
access to the network. This type of security is associated with targeting a variety of threats or
is responsible for stopping the attackers from entering or spreading the malwares on the entire
network. This type of security is associated with combining numerous defense layers at the
edge as well as in the network (Mackey and Nayyar 2016). Each and every network security

8CYBER SECURITY
layer is associated with the implementation of policies and controls so as to authorize the
users in order to gain access to the network resources.
Disaster recovery or the Business continuity plan:
Disaster recovery and Business continuity is generally considered to be the ability of
any organization to recover from any kind of disaster or from any kind of events which are
entirely unexpected and this helps in resuming the operations (Song, Kim and Lee 2016).
This security measure is associated with outlining the ways by which the recovery can be
accomplished. The key factor for the success of the disaster recovery plan is by having a plan
well established before the striking of the disaster. This two terms business continuity and
disaster recovery are often used together however both of them are having entirely different
meanings (Mittal et al. 2016).
Operational security:
Operational security or the OPSEC is considered to be an analytic process associated with the
classification of the information assets and is also responsible for the determination of the
controls that are required for the purpose of protecting the assets. This type of security is
generally associated with describing the strategies that are implemented for the purpose of
preventing the potential adversaries from discovering the various operation related data that
are critical (Peng 2015). Due to the reason that the information management and protection
has become important for achieving success in the private sector and for that reason the
OPSEC processes are now becoming more common for the various business operations.
Cases of Cyber Warfare:
Aurora 2010:
This is the location which can be considered to be the place from where the current age of the
cyberweapons had started. This type of attack was considered to be one kind of shock as the

9CYBER SECURITY
Chinese hackers had continuously been associated with attacking large number of US
organizations in a systematic way and also included big organization like Google which went
public regarding its different type of concerns. Hitherto s the type o malware attack that was
seen as something that happened to little peoples. It was suggested that Aurora is not a
complex attack but is a brazen one and the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was also
associated with publishing a public rebuke to China. This was the first time when one country
was associated with blaming the other country publicly for this type of attack.
Stuxnet (2010)
This is one of the most famous cyberweapon in history and the major reason behind this is
that this was the first weapon which was documented thoroughly and was a huge shock for
the security industry when it was firstly introduced in the year of 2010. After its release the
researchers were immediately concerned about the fact that this is entirely different. This
weapon was associated with targeting the industrial SCADA systems and was associated with
the usage of four different zero days and besides this the design of this weapon generally
included some odd elements like the wormlike ability so as to spread on the USB drives. It
was observed that most of the attacks occurred in the Iran. It was never thought the US would
be lying behind all these stuffs or would be caught while doing it.
Flame (2012)
This was Publicised by different security firms and Flame or the Skywiper Was considered to
the confirmation that Stuxnet was no fluke. Besides this the Flame was also associated with
targeting Iran and Middle-eastern countries and generally consisted of modules having
special functions which was responsible for indicating the fact that this type of attack is only
possible for a well-resourced state. Along with having a huge malware standard Flame was

10CYBER SECURITY
not only considered to be sophisticated but downright sneaky right down to its capability of
spoofing into the Microsoft certificate and the rootkit functions as well.
Summary:
There exist numerous examples of suspects cyberwarfare attacks in the recent history,
still no formal agreed-upon definition of cyberwarfare has been provided and the experts are
generally associated with explaining this as a cyberattack which is directly responsible for
loss of life. The different forms of cyberwarfare have been discussed below:
 There are certain viruses or computer worms or malware that is having the capability
of taking down the various services like the water supply or transportation system or
the power grids, critical infrastructures and the military systems as well.
 Denial of service attack is an event of cybersecurity which generally occurs whenever
an attacker is taking an action that is responsible for preventing the legitimate users
from accessing the computer system that has been targeted or the device or the other
network resources (Peng 2015).
 Hacking and theft of the critical data from different institutions, Government and
business is another form of cyberwarfare.
Ransomware which is responsible for holding the computer systems as hostages until the
victims pay the ransom is another form of cyberwarfare.

11CYBER SECURITY
Chapter 3: Research methodology
The research would be carried out by collecting the secondary information from
different sources which includes the research articles, journals, and some media sources as
well. The major reason lying behind the investigation of he researches papers is for the
purpose of understanding the previous researches and also for understanding the gaps.
Considering the past findings further research study is to be conducted so as to proceed with
the investigation and deploy the successful techniques of mitigating the various cybersecurity
risks.
Research Philosophy:
Research philosophy can be classified into two major categories and this includes the
interpretivism and positivism. Interpretivism is generally associated with including the
process of conducting the research study only by following the scientific studies only.
Besides this in this type of philosophy less attention is provided to the area of human
involvements in the research work. This philosophy is mainly considering the suspicions and
te perspective of the analyst regarding the examination of the various operations and the
exploration range. Another Philosophy or the Positivism is associated with incorporation of
the investigation theory and this includes the perceiving and viewing of the clarifications
which are certified along with the affirmations. This is turn is responsible for separating of
the investigation issues in perspective of them. The positivism thinking is got by the
researchers having a hope of making keen appraisals of the data that are available along with
making an indicate breakdown of the examined issues which are indicated by the truths,
reality founding’s and the verified records. This work would be performed by taking the
positivism philosophy.

12CYBER SECURITY
Data Collection process
Secondary collection process has been adopted in order to conduct the entire process
of research. While exploring the information only the information which are important would
be gathered in order to satisfy the destinations of the entire research.
Data analysis technique:
The data which is utilized in order to conduct the research includes the quantitative
data. The information which are gathered would be compared by means of critical thinking.
All these techniques would be compared so as to understand the ways by which the
cybersecurity can be strengthened. Besides this it would also help understanding the basic
precautions that are to be adopted by the users so as to remain secure.
Chapter 4: Discussion
The constant evolving nature of the security risks is considered to be a major
problematic element of the cybersecurity. The traditional approaches are generally focused
upon the resources and on the crucial system components so as to protect them from the
biggest threats which are known. This in turn is responsible for leaving the various
components undefended along with keeping the systems not protected from the risks which
are less dangerous. So, for the purpose of dealing with the current environment the advisory
organization have now been associated with the promotion of the approaches which are more
proactive and adaptive (Greengard 2016). For example, the NIST or the National Institute of
Standards and Technology has recently been associated with the issuing of the updated
guidelines in the risk assessment framework that they are having. These updated guidelines
had been associated with recommending a gradual shift of the security process towards the
monitoring in a continuous way and helping in real-time assessments. The version 1.1 of the
Framework was released on April 2018 for Improving Critical Infrastructure. This is a

13CYBER SECURITY
voluntary cybersecurity framework that has been developed for the purpose of using it in the
banks, defense, communication and energy industries. Besides these industries the framework
can also be adopted by all other sectors as well.
Types of security risks:
The process of coping up with the new emerging technologies and security trends is
very challenging task. Despite of all this it is very much essential to implement the
cybersecurity so as to protect the information as well as the assets protected from various
cyberattacks (Mills and Goldsmith 2014). Some of the different type of cyberattacks have
been discussed in the later sections.
Ransomware:
This is a subset of the malware in which the data existing in the victim’s computer is
locked typically by encryption. Once the files of the victims get locked the attackers demands
for a payment so as to decrypt the ransomed data and return the access of the data to the
victim once again. The main motive of this type of attack is nearly always monetary and
unlike the other type of attacks the victims are notified about the fact that an exploit has
occurred and they are provided with the information about how they can recover themselves
from the attack (Gordon et al. 2015). These payments are generally demanded in terms of
virtual currency like the bitcoin and major reason behind this is that the identity of the
cybercriminal would remain unknown.
Ransomware generally spreads by malicious email attachments, software applications
which are infected, eternal storage devices which are infected and the websites that has been
compromised (Zhang et al. 2015). Besides this a growing number of attacks have been
associated with the usage of remote desktop protocol along with other approaches which do
not rely on any other form of user interaction.

14CYBER SECURITY
Malware or Malicious Software:
Malware or the malicious software is considered to be any of the program or file
which is harmful for the computer users. Malwares generally consists of the different type of
computer virus, Trojan Horses, worms or spyware. Different type of functions can be
performed by these malicious programs and this includes the stealing, encryption or deleting
of the sensitive data, alteration or hijacking of the core computing functions and monitoring
the activities of the computer user without their permission (Biron, Dey and Pisu 2018).
Malware can be differentiated into different types and they consist of unique traits as well as
characteristics. The most common malware is the virus which can be defined as the malicious
program associated with executing itself and spreads by infecting the other files or programs.
Worm is another type of malware that is having the capability of replicating itself without ant
kind of assistance from the host program (Gupta 2018). Typically, the spreading of the
worms is done without ant kind of human interaction or directives from the malware authors.
There also exists other malware like the Trojan horse or the spyware.
Malware authors are generally associated with the usage of different type of means
for the purpose of spreading the malware and infect the device or the network. Delivering of
the malicious programs is possible physically as well through a USB drive or by other means.
Besides the spreading of malware is also possible by means of the internet through drive by
download which is associated with automatic downloading of the malicious program in the
system of the user without the approval or knowledge of the user (Yan et al. 2016). These are
generally generated when the user clicks on any malicious links or visits any malicious
website. Phishing attack is another common type of malware delivery and tis includes an
email disguised as legitimate message which consists of the malicious link or attachment
which can deliver the malware executable to unsuspecting users (Kaur, Behal and Kumar
2015). Besides this some of the sophisticated malware attack often features the usage of the

15CYBER SECURITY
Command-and-Control server which is associated with allowing the threat actors to
communicate with the infected systems, exfiltrate the data which are sensitive and controlling
the compromised device or server remotely.
Social Engineering:
This is considered to be an attack vector which generally relies upon the human
interaction and this often includes the manipulation of the people so as to break into the
normal security procedures as well as the best practices for the purpose of gaining access to
systems or to the network or the physical location or for finical gains. The threat actors are
generally associated with the usage of social engineering techniques for the purpose of
concealing their true identities and their motives as well (Yunfei et al. 2015). This is done for
the purpose of presenting themselves as a trusted individual or source of information and
their major objective includes the influencing, manipulation or tricking the users into giving
the privileged or for providing them with the access within an organization. Besides this there
are many social engineering exploits that relies highly upon the willingness of the people who
tend to be helpful (Cherdantseva et al. 2016)). For example, the attackers might be associated
with representing themselves as a co-worker who is facing some kind of urgent problems and
requires access to the additional resources present in the network.
This type of attack is considered to be one of the tactics which is very popular
amongst the hackers as this is often considered to be most easy way by which the users can
be exploited than finding a network or vulnerabilities in the software (Stoddart 2016).
Besides this the hackers are often associated with the usage of the engineering tactics that
acts as the first step in their larger campaign so as to infiltrate a particular system or a
network for the purpose of stealing sensitive data or disperse the malware.

16CYBER SECURITY
A wide variety of tactics are used by the attackers for the purpose of performing this
type of attacks. At the initial stage of most of the social engineering attacks is associated with
performing of research and reconnaissance on the target. In case if the target is an enterprise
then the hackers might be associated with the gathering of intelligence on the structure of the
employee, the internal operation, the common lingo used within the industry and the possible
business partners among the other information (Brown, Gommers and Serrano 2015). One of
the common tactics that used in social engineering attacks is focused upon the behaviors and
patterns of the employees who are having a low level but is having an initial access like the
security guard or the receptionist. The hackers might be associated with scanning the social
media profile of the persons for gaining the information and studying their behavior online
and in person as well. From there it is possible for the attacker to design an attack which is
based upon the collection of information and exploiting of the weaknesses which are
uncovered during the phase of reconnaissance (Shin, Son and Heo 2015). In case if the
attacker is successful the attacker would be having an access to the sensitive data like the
credit card or the bank related information. This initially helps the attacker in making money
from the targets or for having a gained access to the protected systems or networks.
Phishing:
This is considered to be form of fraud which includes an attacker who is associated
with masquerading as the reputable entity or a person by making use of an email or some
other communication channels. The attackers are generally associated with the usage of
phishing emails so as to distribute the malicious links or attachments which is capable of
performing various type of functions and this includes the extraction of the login credentials
or account related information from the victim (Fielder et al. 2016). This type of attack is
very popular amongst the cybercriminals as this far easy for tricking the victims by making

17CYBER SECURITY
them click on malicious links in a seemingly legitimate phishing email than trying to break
through the defense of the computer.
Phishers might be associated with the usage of social engineering along with other
public sources of information and this includes social networks like the LinkedIn, Facebook
and Twitter so as to gather background information related to the personal and work history
of the victim along with their interest and their activities (Alotaibi et al. 2016). Besides this
many of the phishing emails are written in a poor way and can be clearly identified as fake
emails, there still exists certain cybercriminal groups who are increasingly associated with the
usage of the techniques that are almost similar to the ones used by the professional marketers
for the purpose of identifying the messages that are most effective.
Typically, the victims are associated with receiving the messages which appears to be
received from a known contact or an organization and these attacks are generally carried out
either by means of malicious file attachments which consists of the phishing software or
through the links that connects to the malicious websites (Corradini and Nardelli 2018). In
either of the cases the main objective is to install the malware on the device of the user or for
directing the victim to the malicious website which has been set by the attacker so as to trick
the users into divulging of the personal as well as the bank related information like the
passwords, ID of the accounts, details of the credit cards and many more.
Successful phishing attacks generally represents themselves by the messages that
seems to have been received form a company which is well-known and it is difficult to
differentiate these messages from the authentic messages (Rawat and Bajracharya 2015). A
phishing email might be including the corporate logos along with identification of graphics as
well as data which are collected from the company that is being misrepresented. Malicious
links which are present in the phishing messages are usually designated so as to make it

18CYBER SECURITY
appear as if they go to the spoofed organization. The usage of the subdomains and misspelled
URLs are some of the common tricks as is the use of other link manipulation techniques.
Some other type of Cyber-attacks:
Man-in-the-Middle attack:
This the type of attack which is also known as the eavesdropping attacks that occurs
when the attackers insert themselves into a two-party transaction. When the attackers are
associated with interrupting the traffic then they can filter and steal the data (Smith et al.
2017). Two of the most common points of entry for the Man-in-the-Middle attacks includes
the following:
 In the unsecure public Wi-Fi, the attackers might be associated with
the inserting themselves between the visitor’s device and the network. By this way the
visitors pass all the information through the attacker without even knowing.
 Once the malware gets breaches the device the attacker becomes
capable of installing the software to process all the information regarding the victim.
SQL injection:
SQL or the Structured Query Language or the SQL injection occurs whenever an
attacker in associated with inserting the malicious code into the servers that makes use of the
SQL, which in turn is responsible for forcing the server to revel the information which is
normally should not be revealed (Kharraz et al. 2015). An attacker is capable of carrying out
a SQL injection simply by means of submitting the malicious code into a vulnerable website
search box.
Zero-Day Exploit:
This is the type of attack which occurs when the vulnerabilities in the network is
announced. However, this happens before any solution or patch is implemented to the

19CYBER SECURITY
effected network. The attackers are associated with targeting the disclosed vulnerabilities
during this time that is after the announcement by before the solution is provided (Scaife et
al. 2016). Constant awareness is generally required for the purpose of detecting the
vulnerabilities that the Zero-day threats are having.
Denial-of-service attacks:
Denial-of-service attack is the type of attack which is associated with flooding the
entire system or the server or the network with the traffic so as to exhaust the resources as
well as the bandwidth. Initially this would be resulting in making the system not capable
fulfilling the legitimate requests (Kharraz et al. 2016). The attackers might also be associated
with the usage of multiple compromised devices for the purpose of launching the attack. And
this type of attack is termed as distributed-denial-of-service attack or the DDoS.
The different type of security risks is also responsible for increasing the investments
on the cybersecurity technologies and services (Huang et al. 2018). According to Gartner’s
prediction by the year of 2017 the worldwide spending on the security products and services
would be reaching almost an amount of $83.4 billion which is around 7% increase than the
previous year 2016. It is also estimated that this would be continuing to grow to almost $93
billion by the year of 2018.
Chapter 5: Conclusion and recommendation
Conclusion:
Ransomware attacks in nearly impossible to stop however there exists certain
important data protection measures that can be adopted by individuals as well as by
organizations so as to make sure that the amount of damage remains minimum and the
recovery can be done quickly. These strategies mainly include the compartmentalization of

20CYBER SECURITY
the authentication systems as well as the domains, keeping the storage snapshots updated
mainly those which are present outside the main storage pool, and enforcement of the hard
limits regarding the authorization of accessing the data and permitting the access (Mercaldo
et al. 2016). One of the solutions for preventing ransomware attacks as suggested by the
experts is by backing up of the computing devices on a regular basis and by updating the
software and this also includes the antivirus software as well on a regular basis. Besides this
the end users should also be aware before clicking on any links attached with the emails from
strangers or before opening the attachments in the email. The victims should always do
whatever is needed in order to avoid the payment of ransom amounts.
The Social engineering attacks can be prevented and for that the security experts have
been associated with recommending that the IT departments should regularly indulge
themselves in carrying out the penetration testing which is the process that makes use of the
social engineering techniques (Kirda 2017). This penetration testing would be associated with
helping the administrators in learning which type of users are posing the maximum amount of
risks for the specific type of attacks along with helping in the identification of the employees
who requires addition amount of training.
Phishing attacks can be prevented in numerous ways. The first way of providing
defense against phishing attack is by educating the users about how the phishing messages
can be identified. Implementation of a gateway email filter can help in trapping numerous
mass-targeted phishing emails for the purpose of reducing the number of phishing emails
before they reach the inbox of the users.
The mail servers of the enterprises should utilize at least one email authentication
standard for the purpose of verifying the emails that are being received. These generally
consists of a SPF protocol or the Sender Policy framework protocol that helps in the

21CYBER SECURITY
reduction of the spam emails. Then comes the DomainKeys Identiffied Mail or the DKIM
protocol which is associated with enabling the users to block all messages except the
messages which consists of the cryptographic signature. Lastly comes the DMARC or the
Domain-based message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance protocol (Sittig and
Singh 2016). This protocol is responsible for the specifying the fact that both the SPF as well
as the DKIM can be in use for the inbound emails. Besides this it also provides a framework
that can be used for using both this protocols so as to block any unsolicited emails including
the phishing emails in a more effective way.
Additionally, providing of a web security gateway can also help in prevention of the
phishing attacks. This is another layer of defense which is responsible for preventing the
users from reaching the target of the malicious links (Cabaj and Mazurczyk 2016). The web
security gateway generally works by checking the URLs that has been requested against a
database of sites which has been constantly updated.
There are various other resources in the internet which are associated with helping in
combating the phishing attacks. Anti-Phishing Group Inc. and the OnGuardOnline.gov a
website of the federal government is associate with providing advice about the ways by
which the phishing attacks can be spotted, avoided and reported. Other interactive security
awareness aids incudes the Wombat Security Technologies Anti-Phishing Training Suite or
the PhisMe is associated with helping the employees in learning how the phishing traps can
be avoided (Brewer 2016). Whereas some sites like the FraudWatch International and
MillerSmiles is associated with publishing the latest phishing email subject lines that
circulates all throughout the Internet.

22CYBER SECURITY
Recommendation:
Workers with high skills in cybersecurity roles would be helping in gaining a more
robust response towards the various problems faced by the cybersecurity. Besides this is is
also essential the everyone understands the threat environment and the risks that are to be
faced. This is to be done so as to address the various cybersecurity problems and adopt the
methods that are helpful in eliminating the problems. There are different type of attacker and
this ranges from script kiddies to professional criminals and the state actors as well.
Malicious parties ae continuously associated with making frequent use of the vulnerabilities
in the software despite of the slight drops in the number of zero-day vulnerabilities. Despite
of the reason that patches are being released for the vulnerabilities this is still very little or is
too late. Which means that the organizations or individuals who are facing huge amount of
risks needs to analyze the situations very carefully so as to mitigate the issues in an effective
way. Denial-of-service attacks are easy to control despite of the various possibilities for the
malicious parties to utilize the cheap services which requires very little knowledge or skill so
as to carry out this type of attacks. However, it is very important to make sure that the
mitigation measure is effective and for doing so it is essential to remain vigilant.
Providing protection to the sensitive data is becoming an increasingly complex and
the major reason behind this is the increased number of devices which are used for the
purpose of accessing the sensitive information along with the mitigation of the personal as
well as the company data which comes in association with it. In addition to this the imminent
arrival of the GDPR generally requires an approach so as to protect the data which is
associated with taking into account the specific requirements associated with the personal
information.

23CYBER SECURITY
References:
Alotaibi, F., Furnell, S., Stengel, I. and Papadaki, M., 2016. A Review of Using Gaming
Technology for Cyber-Security Awareness. International Journal for Information Security
Research (IJISR), 6(2), pp.660-666.
Asri, S. and Pranggono, B., 2015. Impact of distributed denial-of-service attack on advanced
metering infrastructure. Wireless Personal Communications, 83(3), pp.2211-2223.
Biron, Z.A., Dey, S. and Pisu, P., 2018. Real-Time Detection and Estimation of Denial of
Service Attack in Connected Vehicle Systems. IEEE Transactions on Intelligent
Transportation Systems, (99), pp.1-10.
Brewer, R., 2016. Ransomware attacks: detection, prevention and cure. Network
Security, 2016(9), pp.5-9.
Brown, S., Gommers, J. and Serrano, O., 2015, October. From cyber security information
sharing to threat management. In Proceedings of the 2nd ACM workshop on information
sharing and collaborative security (pp. 43-49). ACM.
Cabaj, K. and Mazurczyk, W., 2016. Using software-defined networking for ransomware
mitigation: the case of cryptowall. IEEE Network, 30(6), pp.14-20.
Cherdantseva, Y., Burnap, P., Blyth, A., Eden, P., Jones, K., Soulsby, H. and Stoddart, K.,
2016. A review of cyber security risk assessment methods for SCADA systems. Computers
& security, 56, pp.1-27.
Corradini, I. and Nardelli, E., 2018, July. Building Organizational Risk Culture in Cyber
Security: The Role of Human Factors. In International Conference on Applied Human
Factors and Ergonomics (pp. 193-202). Springer, Cham.

24CYBER SECURITY
Dua, S. and Du, X., 2016. Data mining and machine learning in cybersecurity. Auerbach
Publications.
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.
Fung, C.J. and McCormick, B., 2015, November. VGuard: A distributed denial of service
attack mitigation method using network function virtualization. In 2015 11th International
Conference on Network and Service Management (CNSM)(pp. 64-70). IEEE.
Gordon, L.A., Loeb, M.P., Lucyshyn, W. and Zhou, L., 2015. The impact of information
sharing on cybersecurity underinvestment: a real options perspective. Journal of Accounting
and Public Policy, 34(5), pp.509-519.
Greengard, S., 2016. Cybersecurity gets smart. Communications of the ACM, 59(5), pp.29-31.
Gupta, A., 2018. Distributed Denial of Service Attack Detection Using a Machine Learning
Approach (Master's thesis, Science).
Huang, D.Y., Aliapoulios, M.M., Li, V.G., Invernizzi, L., Bursztein, E., McRoberts, K.,
Levin, J., Levchenko, K., Snoeren, A.C. and McCoy, D., 2018, May. Tracking ransomware
end-to-end. In 2018 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (SP) (pp. 618-631). IEEE.
Kaur, H., Behal, S. and Kumar, K., 2015, October. Characterization and comparison of
distributed denial of service attack tools. In Green Computing and Internet of Things
(ICGCIoT), 2015 International Conference on (pp. 1139-1145). IEEE.
Kharraz, A., Arshad, S., Mulliner, C., Robertson, W.K. and Kirda, E., 2016, August.
UNVEIL: A Large-Scale, Automated Approach to Detecting Ransomware. In USENIX
Security Symposium (pp. 757-772).

25CYBER SECURITY
Kharraz, A., Robertson, W., Balzarotti, D., Bilge, L. and Kirda, E., 2015, July. Cutting the
gordian knot: A look under the hood of ransomware attacks. In International Conference on
Detection of Intrusions and Malware, and Vulnerability Assessment (pp. 3-24). Springer,
Cham.
Kirda, E., 2017, February. UNVEIL: a large-scale, automated approach to detecting
ransomware (keynote). In Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering (SANER), 2017
IEEE 24th International Conference on (pp. 1-1). IEEE.
Levi, M., Allouche, Y. and Kontorovich, A., 2018, June. Advanced Analytics for Connected
Car Cybersecurity. In 2018 IEEE 87th Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC Spring) (pp.
1-7). IEEE.
Mackey, T.K. and Nayyar, G., 2016. Digital danger: a review of the global public health,
patient safety and cybersecurity threats posed by illicit online pharmacies. British medical
bulletin, 118(1), pp.110-126.
Mallikarjunan, K.N., Muthupriya, K. and Shalinie, S.M., 2016, January. A survey of
distributed denial of service attack. In Intelligent Systems and Control (ISCO), 2016 10th
International Conference on (pp. 1-6). Ieee.
Massey, D., 2017, November. Applying Cybersecurity Challenges to Medical and Vehicular
Cyber Physical Systems. In Proceedings of the 2017 Workshop on Automated Decision
Making for Active Cyber Defense (pp. 39-39). ACM.
Mercaldo, F., Nardone, V., Santone, A. and Visaggio, C.A., 2016, June. Ransomware steals
your phone. formal methods rescue it. In International Conference on Formal Techniques for
Distributed Objects, Components, and Systems (pp. 212-221). Springer, Cham.

26CYBER SECURITY
Mills, S. and Goldsmith, R., 2014. Cybersecurity challenges for program managers.
DEFENSE ACQUISITION UNIV FT BELVOIR VA.
Mittal, S., Das, P.K., Mulwad, V., Joshi, A. and Finin, T., 2016, August. Cybertwitter: Using
twitter to generate alerts for cybersecurity threats and vulnerabilities. In Proceedings of the
2016 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and
Mining (pp. 860-867). IEEE Press.
Pathak, P.B. and Nanded, Y.M., 2016. A dangerous trend of cybercrime: ransomware
growing challenge. International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Engineering &
Technology (IJARCET) Volume, 5.
Peng, S.Y., 2015. Cybersecurity threats and the WTO national security exceptions. Journal
of International Economic Law, 18(2), pp.449-478.
Quyoom, A., Ali, R., Gouttam, D.N. and Sharma, H., 2015, May. A novel mechanism of
detection of denial of service attack (DoS) in VANET using Malicious and Irrelevant Packet
Detection Algorithm (MIPDA). In Computing, Communication & Automation (ICCCA),
2015 International Conference on (pp. 414-419). IEEE.
Rawat, D.B. and Bajracharya, C., 2015, April. Cyber security for smart grid systems: Status,
challenges and perspectives. In SoutheastCon 2015 (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
Scaife, N., Carter, H., Traynor, P. and Butler, K.R., 2016, June. Cryptolock (and drop it):
stopping ransomware attacks on user data. In Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS), 2016
IEEE 36th International Conference on (pp. 303-312). IEEE.
Shin, J., Son, H. and Heo, G., 2015. Development of a cyber security risk model using
Bayesian networks. Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 134, pp.208-217.

27CYBER SECURITY
Sittig, D.F. and Singh, H., 2016. A socio-technical approach to preventing, mitigating, and
recovering from ransomware attacks. Applied clinical informatics, 7(2), p.624.
Smith, S.N., Nah, F.F.H., Cheng, M. and Ravindran, S.K., 2017. The Impact of Monetary
Value Gains and Losses on Cybersecurity Behavior. In Proceedings of the Midwest
Association for Information Systems Conference.
Song, S., Kim, B. and Lee, S., 2016. The effective ransomware prevention technique using
process monitoring on android platform. Mobile Information Systems, 2016.
Weinstein, R., 2016. Cybersecurity: Getting beyond Technical Compliance Gaps. NYUJ
Legis. & Pub. Pol'y, 19, p.913.
Yan, Q., Yu, F.R., Gong, Q. and Li, J., 2016. Software-defined networking (SDN) and
distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks in cloud computing environments: A survey,
some research issues, and challenges. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 18(1),
pp.602-622.
Yi, P., Zhu, T., Zhang, Q., Wu, Y. and Pan, L., 2016. Puppet attack: A denial of service
attack in advanced metering infrastructure network. Journal of Network and Computer
Applications, 59, pp.325-332.
Yunfei, L., Yuanbao, C., Xuan, W., Xuan, L. and Qi, Z., 2015, August. A Framework of
Cyber-Security Protection for Warship Systems. In Intelligent Systems Design and
Engineering Applications (ISDEA), 2015 Sixth International Conference on (pp. 17-20).
IEEE.
Zhang, H., Cheng, P., Shi, L. and Chen, J., 2015. Optimal denial-of-service attack scheduling
with energy constraint. IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 60(11), pp.3023-3028.

28CYBER SECURITY