Cyber Security and Resilience Protocols for Corporations: A Case Study of Woolworths Group Limited

2018
Corporate Governance

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction............................................................................................................................. 2
Current Cyber Risks.................................................................................................................. 3
Integration of cyber security and resilience protocols.............................................................3
Examples of best practice.........................................................................................................4
Recommendations................................................................................................................... 6
Conclusion................................................................................................................................ 9
References..............................................................................................................................10

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INTRODUCTION
In today’s competitive business world, the important for the internet and online based
services has grown significantly. Along with the popularity of these services, the risk
associated with cyber security has increased substantially in the past few decades. Due to
the risk of cyber-attacks, the enterprises are facing the risk of violation of their data which
adversely affect their financial position and reputation in the market. In order to address
these issues, the corporations focus on implementing the latest cyber security policies in
their business structure. The importance of cyber resilience has increased substantially since
corporations have to adapt their business structure to ensure that they are able to avoid the
key risks associated with their cyber security (Herrington and Aldrich, 2013). In this report,
the current cyber risks which affect the operations of an enterprise will be discussed in
order to understand the key cyber security risks faced by corporations. This report will take
the example of ‘Woolworths Group Limited’ which is listed on ASX 200 to evaluate how the
company can integrate its cyber security structure along with resilience protocols to address
the key issues associated with cyber securities. Examples of various corporations will be
discussed in the report to understand how other corporations have integrated their cyber
security infrastructure with resilience protocols. Lastly, various recommendations will be
given in the report which can be used by enterprises to address the key issues related to
cyber security.

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CURRENT CYBER RISKS
There is a wide range of cyber security risks which corporations face while using an online
based infrastructure in their business structure. These risks resulted in increasing the threats
faced by corporations while using their data. Woolworths Group is a major Australia based
organisation which operates in the retailing industry. The enterprise faces risks associated
with loss of their data due to increased risk of cyber-attacks. Cyber criminals focus on
finding new ways based on which they can attack the servers of the company and collect its
confidential data. The cyber criminals use Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attract to
order to gain access to the computer systems of large organisations which result in
compromising their computer systems (Biener, Eling and Wirfs, 2015). Cyber criminals attack
websites, servers or computer systems of organisations in order to stop them from
accessing their data or using their services. Cyber criminals also use malware to hack into
the servers of corporations to access their confidential data. In April 2018, Woolworths
reported data crash due to which the computer systems of the corporations situated across
the country suffered from data breach, and they stop responding. Woolworths is the third
largest enterprise in Australia which has reported this system failure in a single month,
other companies include ANZ Bank and Commonwealth Bank (The Weekly Times, 2018). The
system outage of Woolworths shows that the cyber infrastructure of the enterprise is not
suitable for protecting its servers and data from cyber-attacks.
INTEGRATION OF CYBER SECURITY AND RESILIENCE PROTOCOLS
Organisations focus on integration of their cyber security infrastructure and resilience
protocols in order to promote cyber resilience in the enterprise. Cyber resilience is referred
to a broad approach which focuses on encompassing cyber security along with business
continuity management. The objective of this strategy is to defend the corporation from
potential cyber-attacks while ensuring the survival of the company during such attacks.
Following are various principles and key steps which can be taken in a corporation in order
to establish cyber resilience (World Economic Forum, 2017).