Cyber-Security Solution Report for JL Organization

This report analyzes the cyber-security issues that have impacted the JL organization and recommends solutions to the security threats based on appropriate security management standards. It includes five critical security issues in JL’s information system, the recommended solution, and a breakdown of cost in addressing security threats at JL Corporation.

Running head: CYBER-SECURITY SOLUTION REPORT 1
A report on cyber security solution for JL Organization
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CYBER-SECURITY SOLUTION REPORT 2
Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................................2
Purpose........................................................................................................................................2
System description.....................................................................................................................2
Five critical security issues in JL’s information system.............................................................3
Ransomware threats..................................................................................................................4
Phishing attacks..........................................................................................................................5
Malware threat...........................................................................................................................5
Lack of security management controls and procedures.........................................................6
Network connections..................................................................................................................6
The recommended Solution..........................................................................................................7
Identify........................................................................................................................................7
Protect.........................................................................................................................................8
Detect...........................................................................................................................................8
Respond.......................................................................................................................................8
Recovery......................................................................................................................................8
Why NIST is better than other approaches................................................................................9
A breakdown of cost in addressing security threats at JL Corporation..................................9
Summary......................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
Cyber-security management is a fundamental aspect of every information system that
organizations should give priority. JL firm is inclusive. Cyber-security measures protects
information system including sensitive data and critical infrastructures of organizations from
being compromised by cyber-criminals thus mitigating risks as it enhance the business
opportunity and investments (Yan, Qian, Sharif, & Tipper, 2012; Jang-Jaccard, & Nepal, 2014).
An effective information system must have security counter measures put into place in order to
meet the security requirement needs of the organization. Following this rationale, this article
seeks to analyze the cyber-security issues that has impacted the JL organization and recommend
solution to the security threats on basis of appropriate security management standards.
Purpose
This document presents a cyber-security report addressing five critical cyber-security
issues at JL firm as required by the organization’s manager for security management. This report
contains important security vulnerabilities identified in JL system and recommendations to
mitigate the security threats in the organization. The recommendations provided herein supports
program goals, activities as well as efforts that are essential for the organization to achieve
compliance with the security requirements within JL Corporation.
System description
The JL corporate’s online marketing system is a system whose primary purpose is to help
the firm in online marketing activities and to manage employees of the organization. On the off
chance the system is evaluated against NIST SP 800-60 security management standards which
cites the types of information and Information System to security categories, the following would
be ratings on JL organization’s security impacts in a 1 to 10 rate scale (see table 1).

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System objectives Ratings Comments (Worst, Worse,
Low, High, Moderate,
High, Excellent)
Availability 5 Medium
Confidentiality 4 Low
Integrity 3 Worse
Overall ratings 4 Low
Table 1: JL’s security impacts ratings
From table 1 above, it can be deduced that security management system of the
organization is wanting. The root cause of this situation is in the vulnerabilities within JL
corporate’s information management security system. The following section shows five critical
security vulnerabilities that are associated with this status.
Five critical security issues in JL’s information system
Five security issues/threats have been identified for the JL corporate’s information
system. Threats refer to inherent weakness in the organization’s information system that can be
leveraged by cyber-criminals and compromise the organization’s information system. This may
lead to undesirable impacts on the protection of the organization’s availability, confidentiality
and integrity of the system including but not limited to the organization’s critical infrastructures
and data among other corporate’s assets (Wang & Lu, 2013; Zhu, Joseph & Sastry, 2011). The
issues may result from error in configuration which can make the system network or the network
host susceptible to malicious attack from remote or local users. It can exist in numerous areas of
a system including web servers, firewalls, operating systems, fire suppression system,

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application servers and many other areas (Zhu, Joseph, & Sastry, 2011; Moore, 2010). The five
critical risks identified in the JL’s system include:
Ransomware threats
This is one of the most prevalent issues associated with technology in the current world.
The ransomware refer to security issues which occur by infecting an information system and
locking all users out of the system, normally by encrypting the system hard drive and then
keeping the decryption on hold until the victim pay some fee (Dlamini, Eloff, & Eloff, 2009). JL
has been a victim of such kind of attack and the chances that the attackers may come back is very
high if the organization does not make changes in its information security management system.
The organization’s two work stations were compromised by ransomware in 2017 July. And the
company was forced to pay the ransom.
This kind of vulnerability always result from lack of security software within a computer,
computer software that are not updated frequently or systems with weak passwords
(Elmaghraby, & Losavio, 2014; Elmaghraby & Losavio, 2014). JL computers do not have
security software installed in them, which is probably the reason why the organization’s
information system was compromised by the attackers. This security issue should be given first
priority in that attackers utilizing this strategy always hold decryption until the organization pay
a fee which might be a very large amount of money; it is always paid in bit coins. This may
decline the economic status of the organization.
Phishing attacks
Phishing attacks refer to the attacks which usually occur through emails requesting
sensitive information or login details. This a serious threat at JL corporation as the organization’s
employees rely on emails. Confidential data is emailed without using any cryptographic

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techniques in the organization’s system which is one of the vulnerabilities that trigger email
phishing. This technique has been common with hackers, they send a mail to lure the
organization’s personnel into giving out their sensitive information by tricking the victims into
believing that they know the sender.
The tactic is normally usually used by cyber-criminals to access private and sensitive data
about the organization users for malicious reasons. This kind of attack is normally prone to
organizations which utilize emails and or online databases (Liu, Xiao, Li, Liang, & Chen, 2012;
Khurana, Hadley, Lu, & Frincke, 2010). Nearly, all business organization can be subject to this
threat; the attacks are common more than other security threats, however, they are very
preventable. It is high time that JL Corporation establish a security countermeasures to defeat
the hackers with malicious minds and making this threat a priority will enable protect the right to
privacy of the organization’s users.
Malware threat
This is another awakening threat that was found to be common in JL organization. The
Malware attack, similar to ransomware make use of phishing attacks to access network through
encryptions and vulnerabilities in a software (Hansen, & Nissenbaum, 2009). The attack is very
difficult to decipher, however, installing security programs can prevent them from affecting
information system (Ning, Liu, & Yang, 2013). As JL communicate with its client online,
sending information to its clients through various online services. An organization employee also
used an unknown USB flash in the computer organization’s computers.
The chances that the organization’s critical infrastructures may get affected is very high
since such online activities and using devices like USB drives and for the worst, lack of security
software are some of the leading vulnerabilities to malware threats. This is the reason why the

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organization’s devices started to develop unique features including slow operations and the
malware inspired popups that are displayed in the firm’s computers. This should be a wakeup
call that JL corporate has not yet implemented a robust information system security management
strategies. The organization JL should deal with this threat as early as possible because malware
may end up ruining the entire system thus paralyzing the organization’s activities.
Lack of security management controls and procedures
Controls and procedures are important aspects of every information system and should
not be taken for granted. The controls and procedures refer to legal compliance that govern the
use of information system of an organization to protect the organization’s information system
and critical infrastructures from cyber-criminals (Al Ameen, Liu, & Kwak, 2012). Besides the
gap of skilled personnel in JL organization, the corporate does not have pertinent policies and
controls that govern its employees on how to utilize the resources in a manner that comply to
ideal cyber security conscious behavior. Employees use critical infrastructures past boundaries
which may lead to serious impacts on the company’s information system, this precipitates a need
for pertinent security program to protect the organization system from both internal and external
security threats. Security control should be one of the organization’s priority in the sense that it
assures safety of the information system and organization assets, it moreover act as the driving
force towards achieving the organization’s goals and therefore it should not be taken for granted.
Network connections
This is another critical area which is utilized by various hackers to gain access into the
organization information system for malicious reasons. The network connections apply to
connections of a critical infrastructures which allows for sharing resources including data
(Sadeghi, Wachsmann, & Waidner, 2015). JL’s connection devices comprising the D-Link DSL-

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2740B wireless router, the windows servers among other embedded deices. This resembles a
weak connections that may be leveraged by hackers to gain access into the organization’s
information system and compromise it. Besides other essential resources that will help in
toughening the security in the organization’s information system, there is a need for information
security program for JL to protect its data from frauds. This is one of the issues which should be
given priority due to the reason that it may give cyber-criminals opportunity to gain access into
the system where critical information, both user and organization information are stored (Choo,
2011). When intruders gain access into the network resources which is always common with
organizations, all of these information may get lost, thus network security should be hardened to
protect the system from such intruders.
The recommended Solution
There are numerous ways through which the security problems can be addressed.
However, my proposed solution is establishment of NIST based security management system.
The National Institute of Standard Technology NIST refers to a cyber-security framework that
was established to improve information system security (Shen, 2013). Because JL Company is
composed of employees who are not IT oriented, they need a framework which is easy to apply.
The NIST standards can be easily applied in any organization.
Identify
This is the first step in risk management. The stage involves identifying and classifying
security threats to be addressed in the following steps. In JR’s case, this step would involve to
pinpointing various threats including malware threats, email phishing, ransomware networking
and deficiency in control system.

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Protect
This is the second stage of cyber security management. It can be utilized by the JL
management safeguard their information system. This can be done in various ways; the
organization can install software security programs in their computers, they can also articulate
roles and responsibilities alongside policies to govern the use of the organization’s assets and
control the access of its information system. JL can also utilize this stage to establish a more
secure network to assure security to its system.
Detect
At this stage, JL will monitor its system including but not limited to access control and
network activities like repeated connections, email spams, and abnormal connections among
other malicious events that may lead to data breach.
Respond
This step involve development of security management strategies to be executed is by
any case a security incident occur. The security management program will be established on
basis of the security management guide referenced in NIST SP 800-61.
Recovery
The recovery stage involve the activities for resilience and restoring business activities
that were affected by security events. The JL organization will execute disaster recovery and
contingency plan at this stage to survive in situations like ransomware attacks as referenced in
NIST SP 800-34.

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Why NIST is better than other approaches
Unlike other alternative approaches that may as well be implemented by JL, the NIST
framework is simple and easy to implement. The framework is not a technical in-depth solution
to the cyber-security mess. Additionally, other approaches are designed specifically for big
organizations, NIST, however, is a standard framework, it fits both startups and seniors, as a
result, and it offers opportunity to new players in the field like JL corporate to leverage its values
making it a standard framework.
In contrast, adopting NIST framework may seem expensive compared to other alternative
frameworks. However, what would it cost an organization if it succumb to an attack like
ransomware? If by any case the corporate experience a ransomware attack, the disaster recovery
and contingency plan controls cited in NIST SP 800-34 will help the organization to recover
from attack and get on with its daily activities as usual. Moreover, NIST standards ratifies the
move from traditional audit-focused controls and procedures (Greer et al., 2014). The traditional
policies are majorly based on audits, controls and procedures, transactions and compliance
objectives. The current risk based approach, on the other hand focus on business and customers,
which give emphasis on risk management through control compliance tracking as well as diverse
knowledge and experience regarding risk management.
A breakdown of cost in addressing security threats at JL Corporation
Security threats Security management Cost
Ransomware Patching $15000
Endpoint protection $10000
Email filtering $30000
Phishing Awareness training $23000

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Web filtering $19000
Email filtering $24500
Malware Security software installation $7000
Endpoint protection $12000
Email filtering and monitor $24000
Security management
controls
Training and awareness $10000
Policy establishment $31000
Network connection Monitoring users activities $23000
Access management $14500
Infrastructures $50000
Summary
At a glance, this article has analyzed the JL information system. In doing so, the
document has identified five critical security threats associated with the organization’s system
and the reason why they should be given more attention. The article has further proposed an
appropriate information system security management for the organization with a detailed cost
breakdown for security management. It can be concluded that implementation of security
management program can lead to far reaching benefits to JL organization. However, it is
recommended that before taking any initiative into implementing any security management
program, the organization should consult its counterparts who have implemented the program to
have an idea of what the process involve for adequate preparation.

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