Cybersecurity Issues in Southern Cross University: A Security Consultation Report

CYBER SECURITY
Unit Cybersecurity
Unit code CMP71001
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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CYBER SECURITY
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Task 1: BOYD risk assessment..................................................................................................2
Task 2: Certificate-based Authentication...................................................................................3
Task 3: Anti-spam guideline......................................................................................................5
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7

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CYBER SECURITY
Introduction
The foremost determination of this security consultation report focusses on the cyber
security issues related with the Southern Cross University. The paper focuses on the cyber
security threats faced by the educational institution and the new policy adopted by the college
authority is causing lots of problems regarding the security issues of both the students and the
college authorities. The risks from the new policies are considered in this document with
prime importance. Based upon the security issues as a cyber security consultant few
recommendations are suggested to the college authorities. The top cyber threats faced by the
college is discussed which will be helping the readers of this document to get along with all
the possible risks associated with that particular issue. The different aspects of the top most
threat are examined in the later sections of this consultation report. The document also guides
its readers the methods by which the cyber risks are mitigated.
Task 1: BOYD risk assessment
This section of the report will be focussing on the importance of the risk assessment
policy adopted by the college authorities of Southern Cross University. The most critical
components of the university information system is the admin module of the official website
where all the shareholders of the college accesses, any sort of data alteration may cause huge
damage to both the reputation of the college as well as for the future of the students (Crossler
et al., 2014). The other important component is the library management system incorporated
in the student module of the website, it has all the examination schedules, syllabus according
to the required departments, all the previous marksheets and other essential documents. Any
changes in the data of this particular module will have a direct negative impact on the
university status (Byrom et al., 2018). The threats may come from the internal stakeholders of

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CYBER SECURITY
the college authorities as well as from external influence also. The internal stakeholders
include all the users who are accessing the university portals and the external influence comes
from the third parties who have the limited access to the university portals. The third parties
may alter data for their personal benefits. The new BRING YOUR OWN DEVICE policy
adopted by the college has some security concerns as it increases the chances of the intrusion
and other criminal activities (Afreen, 2014). This policy will be very much insecure for the
college authorities as wide range of personal devices will be connected to the college systems
as it may have a negative impact on the security of the data. As a security consultant the issue
related after the incorporation of the new policy is examined by the qualitative risk analysis.
This technique used in the analysis is the brain storming as it can quantify the level of the risk
and defer the risk mitigation process so that the organisation does not face similar situations
due to the same issue (Dhingra, 2016). The risk assessment process involves development of
a security panel who will be dedicatedly focussed on the cyber security issues of the
university, they will be harnessing all the possible cyber security threats and the threat agents
manually as well as by the risk assessment software’s such as ballast (Garba et al., 2015). The
other most significant objective of the security panel is to combine the likelihood and impact
values of the risks in a specific matrix chain while is a very important step in managing the IS
issue of any organisation (Bruder, 2014). After considering all the risk associated with the
new policy it can be said that this policy is not at all suited for this organisation as it has more
limitations than benefits.
Task 2: Certificate-based Authentication
This section of the report will be focussing on the replacement of the existing
password-based authentication schemes with the certificate-based authentication (O’Neill et
al., 2017). The password-based systems are very much insured these days as it involves the