Cybersecurity for Office and Home

This paper discusses the importance of cybersecurity for office and home, its impact on ABCT, security vulnerabilities, emerging threats, and recommendations for protection. It emphasizes the need for a well-built security management system to safeguard data and prevent cyber attacks.

Running head: CYBERSECURITY FOR OFFICE AND HOME
CYBERSECURITY FOR OFFICE AND HOME
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

CYBERSECURITY FOR OFFICE AND HOME 1
Executive summary:
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the security issues related to ABC technology
(ABCT). At present, the company is facing cyber attacks. The main goal of this report is to
identify the issues, emerging threats and to give recommendation for protecting home and
office from cyber attacks.

2CYBERSECURITY FOR OFFICE AND HOME
Table of Contents
Introduction:...............................................................................................................................3
Cyber security and its impact on ABCT....................................................................................3
Security Vulnerabilities of ABCT and its justification..............................................................5
Different types of Emerging threats...........................................................................................6
Conclusion:................................................................................................................................9
Recommendations....................................................................................................................10

3CYBERSECURITY FOR OFFICE AND HOME
Introduction:
Cyber security refers to the body of the processes, technologies as well as the
practices that are designed for protecting the devices, networks, data and programs from
attack, unauthorized access and damage. Cyber security also may be referred as the IT
security. The cyber security is so much important now a days because the military,
government, financial, corporates collect, store and processes huge amount of data on their
computers as well as in other devices. Some portions of the data may be such kind of
information that are sensitive. The organisations transmit data that are sensitive across their
networks as well as to the other devices for doing their business in addition the cyber security
provides the disciplines for protecting the system and the information to store it. The major
challenge that is related to the cyber security is the ever evolving nature of the risks of the
security. Traditionally the government and the organizations have been focusing on most of
the resources of the cyber security on the perimeter of the security for the system components
that are crucial most and for defending against the threats that are known. The main goal of
this paper is to discuss the security issues related to ABCT. At present, the company is
facing cyber attacks. The main goal of this paper is to identify the issues, emerging threats
and to give recommendation for protecting home and office from cyber attacks. The report
will also discuss the impact of cyber security on ABCT and the vulnerabilities of security of
ABCT as well as different types of the emerging threats. In addition, at the end of the report a
conclusion will be provided about the discussion of the report.
Cyber security and its impact on ABCT
By definition, Cyber security is the department where various technologies, processes
are used in order to protect the devices, networks and information’s from unwanted access by
the attackers and causing damage to the system and the information contained in it. The

4CYBERSECURITY FOR OFFICE AND HOME
importance of cyber security is vast. In recent world, ranging from government, military to
medical and personal information’s, all are being stored in computers and also in
unexpectedly huge amount. Hence, to deal with it, every organisation in every sector needs to
deploy an information system for the sake of data handling and editing and also sharing and
transferring in required cases. The data is being stored based on their priority, usage options,
and accessibility (Betz & Stevens, 2013). Every sector do comprises sensitive information,
leakage of which may cause severe damage to the organisation and in some cases damage is
caused to the common people. Any organisation who is operating themselves over a network
do have a threat to be attacked by criminals over the network, known as cyber criminals.
Therefore, to protect these data all the information’s are locked in the respective information
system by following some methods and prevent the unauthorised access into that system by
the criminals or anyone else. These protective measures and its implementation is collectively
known as cyber security. There are no sector, which operates themselves over a particular
network, could be considered as safe from cyber attacks and all of such organisations have to
adopt a cyber security system through which they can overcome the situation (Bada, Sasse &
Nurse, 2019). The primary region where the privacy is compromised is the section where
information’s are transferred among the organisations or within the organisation. This event
is highly exploited by the attackers worldwide. ABC Technologies, the company under
consideration, is in definite need of cyber security. Being a company dealing with high-end
technical products including hardware’s and software’s need to have a well-built security
management system so that all the details related to their products and customer details
remain confined to their database. Leakage of their data related to the products may cause
illegal copies of it in the market causing fraudulency with regular customers of the actual
company (Caldwell, 2013). If the products cause any kind of damage to the customers then
the entire blame will be on the actual company. Besides, customer’s personal details are also

5CYBERSECURITY FOR OFFICE AND HOME
something worth mentioning that will be under threat. If ABCT fails to keep the customer
data confidential, then the mutual trust that grew between the customer and ABCT will be
hampered and loss in number of customers leading to low revenue and reputation will be the
later consequences. Other fraud agencies can claim themselves to be ABCT, can operate in
their name, and can create severe misunderstanding regarding the services ABCT provides
without even knowing them (Choo, 2014). The whole information database of ABCT is
stored in Cloud hence there is a bigger possibility of data theft by the cyber criminals. As a
whole ABCT will surely suffer if they lack a firm and definite information security
management system.
Security Vulnerabilities of ABCT and its justification
The recent cyber attacks that ABCT suffered through compelled them to think about
bringing a changeover in their entire security management system. They do have a thought
that the attackers might have the hold over the information of the customers. Before
proceeding towards making the changes, the overall situation is investigated and several
instances are found that are enough to make ABCT’s security management system
vulnerable. The instance that tops the list is usage of VPN for providing computer services to
the customers. Apart from having possible performance issues, there lies a security loopholes
too within it. The usage of VPN often lets the user to use their private server but it is
generally done in exchange of the users’ data (Von & Van, 2013). The actual reason behind it
obviously remains out of the users’ knowledge and to have the access the users allow the
VPN servers to go through their data. Often these VPN servers do complete monitoring of the
user’s information and achieve their personal benefits. The VPNs that offer their service for
free or at a low cost, they may track the user and log themselves into the user’s activity in
exchange of helping them by bypassing the restrictions of internet and hiding the IP address.

6CYBERSECURITY FOR OFFICE AND HOME
Hence, data theft is quite easy for an organisation using VPN in their dealings. It is not
mandatory that only the VPNs for free or low cost are responsible for such kinds of threats.
Even the popular and top VPNs are found to have flaws that compromises the data privacy of
an organisation. Cisco Talos did the discovery of the flaws in two of the most popular VPNs,
NordVPN and ProtonVPN. The flaw was popping up of a new OpenVPN command line that
was considered to be a possible scope for the execution of codes by the attackers on Windows
machines, entirely unauthorised (Choucri, Madnick, & Ferwerda, 2014).). The second in the
list of the vulnerabilities is BYOD policy abbreviated from “Bring Your Own Device” of
ABC Technologies. Bringing of personal devices into the working area is always considered
to be a threat to data privacy. Connecting of the devices to the computers, unethical actions
by the employees such as copying the company data into their personal devices and later
transferring them to other rival companies are some of the instances that can take place if the
organisation allows the employees to bring their own device. The list contains a lot more, but
one of them worth mentioning is free wifi connection to the visitors and the guests. This
provision is something that anybody with evil intention against the company will enjoy. Free
access to the company’s personal wifi is like a gift to the cyber criminals. They can easily
track down all of the company’s information as the entire system of the company is also
running in the same network. Hence, for the skilled hackers, it is like getting a piece of cake
to hack into the system and steal their information (Colbert & Kott, 2016). One of the facts
that internet served regarding the negative instances of BYOD is a survey that states that 39%
of the companies are not willing to allow BYOD because of safety issues as they found at
least one devices that is affected with malware. Hence, any connection of the malware
infected device with the company computers or the network may make the malware land on
the system of the company and can cause severe damage to it.

7CYBERSECURITY FOR OFFICE AND HOME
Different types of Emerging threats
Among the emerging threats of recent times, five are being listed as possible the most
critical ones affecting the industry. They are as follows:
 Exploitation of AI-generated fake video and audio
 Poisoning AI defences
 Hacking smart contracts
 Using quantum computers to break encryption
 Attack from cloud computing
Exploitation of AI-generated fake video and audio
Phishing has shown its impact of fake mails to convince the people to hand the
attackers over with their passwords and credentials. Now, it is time for AI to play its role as a
threat to the cyber world. AI generated fake audio and video are now to be used in order to
serve for the attackers’ benefits. Audio tracks or video tracks using graphical innovations one
can easily deploy something in the internet to convince the users to believe it and do as said.
It is seen to be as realistic as a human action (Lewis, 2014). Companies like ABCT can also
be the victim of such techniques. Any video posted by them can be overwritten with fake
audio and can convey anything that the attackers want against ABCT. Confusing the
customers and the industry by spreading fake news against them, in a realistic manner could
be one of the consequences that this technique can bring in.
Poisoning AI defences
The companies that deal with providing security to other companies are using AI to
build defence against the cyber attacks. Whereas the attackers have also found a way out of
these defence engines by poisoning them. They use Generative Adversarial Networks
(GANs) that does the pitching of two neural networks that can simple detect the algorithms

8CYBERSECURITY FOR OFFICE AND HOME
that the defence engines are using. On the context of the considered organisation, ABCT if
goes for such AI based defence engines then they also come under the threat circle of the
attackers.
Hacking Smart Contracts
The smart contracts, which are software programs, can perform the particular function
they are coded for if the requirements are met. These programs are stored in block chain. As
the designing of the block chain is transparent, hence, keeping the smart contracts private is
something that cannot be done. Therefore, the attackers get the chance to hack the data based
on the transparent designing of the Block chain
Using Quantum computers to break encryption
As the quantum computers are in their infant age, so it will take some years to be
effective and cause threat to the cyber world. It is qualified to break the encryption, hence
after its development, which is obvious, will cause severe threat and almost every sector that
uses encrypted form of security needs to think of an alternative.
Attack form cloud computing
There are companies that manage other company’s information database are mouth-
watering targets for the hackers. Big firms such as Google and Amazon can pay handsomely
to the talents worldwide for meeting the security requirements but they are also not out of
reach of the hackers. Though it has been seen that smaller firms are the primary targets for
the hackers. An instance was witnessed when US govt. accused Chinese hackers for sneaking
into the systems of a company which used to manage their IT (Luiijf, Besseling & De, 2013).
They accessed to the system of this company to gain control over the systems of 45 other
companies. In this regard, it is known that ABCT uses cloud as a storage device for their

9CYBERSECURITY FOR OFFICE AND HOME
information, hence it is the most possible way to hack into their system and take entire
control over the information system of ABCT.
Conclusion:
Thus it can be concluded that the importance of cyber security is vast. In recent world,
ranging from government, military to medical and personal information’s, all are being stored
in computers and also in unexpectedly huge amount. Hence, to deal with it, every
organisation in every sector needs to deploy an information system for the sake of data
handling and editing and also sharing and transferring in required cases. The primary region
where the privacy is compromised is the section where information’s are transferred among
the organisations or within the organisation (McGuire & Dowling, 2013). This event is highly
exploited by the attackers worldwide. ABC Technologies, the company under consideration,
is in definite need of cyber security. Being a company dealing with high-end technical
products including hardware’s and software’s need to have a well-built security management
system so that all the details related to their products and customer details remain confined to
their database. Leakage of their data related to the products may cause illegal copies of it in
the market causing fraudulency with regular customers of the actual company. If the products
cause any kind of damage to the customers then the entire blame will be on the actual
company. The data is being stored based on their priority, usage options, and accessibility.
Companies like ABCT can also be the victim of such techniques. Any video posted by them
can be overwritten with fake audio and can convey anything that the attackers want against
ABCT (Pillitteri & Brewer, 2014). Confusing the customers and the industry by spreading
fake news against them, in a realistic manner could be one of the consequences that this
technique can bring in. Apart from having possible performance issues, there lies a security

10CYBERSECURITY FOR OFFICE AND HOME
loopholes too within it. The usage of VPN often lets the user to use their private server but it
is generally done in exchange of the users’ data. The actual reason behind it obviously
remains out of the users’ knowledge and to have the access the users allow the VPN servers
to go through their data. Often these VPN servers do complete monitoring of the user’s
information and achieve their personal benefits.
Recommendations
After the discussion of the types of vulnerabilities ABCT has and other emerging
hacking techniques. By applying some techniques the cyber attack can be reduces. They are
as follows;
 Use of firewall: One of the most important line for the protection for cyber-attack is
the firewall. It is recommended by the Federal Communication Commission that all
the SMBs has been set up one Firewall for providing a barrier between the cyber
criminals and sensitive information. It is also very necessary that the employees who
will work from home must include firewall into their systems.
 Regularly back up data: This is so much important to avoid cyber-attacks as much
as possible. While it is recommended by SBA that all the information and data
including word processing documents, databases, electronic spreadsheets and the
account payable or receivable file must be backed up by a scheduled time every day.
 Keeping home office secure: The home network have the ability to connect all of the
devices that includes the personal computing devices, printers and smartphones. By
following these this home can be secured such as, by removing unnecessary apps
from a device, setting up auto patches and updates and always change the default
passcode as well as by setting up the permission of the user appropriately.

11CYBERSECURITY FOR OFFICE AND HOME

12CYBERSECURITY FOR OFFICE AND HOME
References:
Bada, M., Sasse, A. M., & Nurse, J. R. (2019). Cyber security awareness campaigns: Why do
they fail to change behaviour?. arXiv preprint arXiv:1901.02672.
Betz, D. J., & Stevens, T. (2013). Analogical reasoning and cyber security. Security
Dialogue, 44(2), 147-164.
Caldwell, T. (2013). Plugging the cyber-security skills gap. Computer Fraud &
Security, 2013(7), 5-10.
Choo, K. K. R. (2014). A conceptual interdisciplinary plug-and-play cyber security
framework. In ICTs and the Millennium Development Goals (pp. 81-99). Springer,
Boston, MA.
Choucri, N., Madnick, S., & Ferwerda, J. (2014). Institutions for cyber security: International
responses and global imperatives. Information Technology for Development, 20(2),
96-121.
Colbert, E. J., & Kott, A. (Eds.). (2016). Cyber-security of SCADA and other industrial
control systems (Vol. 66). Springer.
Finklea, K., Christensen, M. D., Fischer, E. A., Lawrence, S. V., & Theohary, C. A. (2015).
Cyber intrusion into US office of personnel management: In brief.
Lewis, T. G. (2014). Critical infrastructure protection in homeland security: defending a
networked nation. John Wiley & Sons.
Luiijf, E., Besseling, K., & De Graaf, P. (2013). Nineteen national cyber security
strategies. International Journal of Critical Infrastructures 6, 9(1-2), 3-31.

13CYBERSECURITY FOR OFFICE AND HOME
McGuire, M., & Dowling, S. (2013). Cyber crime: A review of the evidence. Summary of key
findings and implications. Home Office Research report, 75.
Pillitteri, V. Y., & Brewer, T. L. (2014). Guidelines for smart grid cybersecurity (No. NIST
Interagency/Internal Report (NISTIR)-7628 Rev 1).
Von Solms, R., & Van Niekerk, J. (2013). From information security to cyber
security. computers & security, 38, 97-102.