Cybersecurity Threats and Recommendations for ABCT Organization

This report analyses various security threats for investigating a cyber-crime that ABCT has recently identified. It also provides recommendations for security enhancement to ensure overall organizational data security important for business and consumer service.

Running head: INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY
Information and Communication Technology
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Abstract
Developing a proper cyber-security is an important requirement for any organizations who deals
in IT products and services. This report has analysed various security threats for investigating a
cyber-crime that ABCT has recently identified. Recently the company has identified that its
information system has been hacked and it has compromised security of both the organization
and the consumer as well. Three important security vulnerabilities, which has been analysed for
the IT infrastructure of ABCT are vulnerabilities in VPN services, security issues in BYOD
service and lack of security measurement for cloud services where ABCT stores its business and
consumer data. Along with that this report has also analysed five emerging security threat for the
IT infrastructure of ABCT and provided recommendations for security enhancement to ensure
overall organizational data security important for business and consumer service.

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Table of Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................3
Explanation of CyberSecurity in ABCT..........................................................................................3
Emerging Threats in ABCT Organization:......................................................................................4
Security vulnerabilities:...................................................................................................................7
Recommendation:............................................................................................................................8
Conclusion:......................................................................................................................................8
References:....................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction:
The organization that is selected in this report is ABCT, who offers a range of services to
the clients and it includes both hardware and software services. It specifically provides advanced
and high-tech products while offering service in hardware and software configuration as well. As
the organization provides hardware and software solutions to the business, it is important to
collect data about the consumers to offer customized and personalized services based on the
business requirements (Almeshekah & Spafford, 2016). However, recently the company has
identified that its information system has been hacked and it has compromised security of both
the organization and the consumer as well.
The paper is reflecting on the importance of the cybersecurity which is not helping to
reduce security related issues but it helps to improve over the security systems. The report also
analyzes three security vulnerabilities which are raised into the selected organization as well as
five threats which are emerging by providing proper recommendations to protect office as well a
home for the cyber threats.
Explanation of CyberSecurity in ABCT
Cyber security in simple terms means network integrity and also program from the
authorized access. It is a way to defend the computer server from various attacks. There are
various ways that hackers exploit data storage, data networks for getting access to data without
proper authorization, and this requires securing those resources from hacking for which cyber-
security is required (Almorsy, Grundy& Müller, 2016). In the selected organization, there are
10,000 customers and they are storing the data in the cloud. The data are required to keep
secured so that it helps to improve security system plus security based regulations and policies.
There are various aspects that motivate hackers into doing cyber-crime such as money, fame or it
might be a part of political propaganda sponsored by the state. However, it is not essential to
identify exact motivation behind a cyber-crime, what is important is to design a proper cyber
security strategy, which ensures protection against these crimes, and safeguard IT
resources(Schoitsch et al., 2016). Therefore, cyber security is the strategies and policies that

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secure IT infrastructure and resources against security vulnerabilities and security threats, which
is, associated with different security sources.
Revolution of technology has made it easier for organization to invest in digital
technology and develop infrastructure on digital platform. However, with growing strength of
digital technologies, security issues of technology are also increasing as well(Wortmann&
Flüchter, 2015). However, most of the organizations are not considering these security threats
either because of lack of knowledge or lack of security assessment and this has inspired hackers
to take advantage of this to execute their plan and strategies for compromising data security.
ABCT has recently encountered a cyber-crime that has compromised their security and
this shows that although companies invest in technology, they are terrible in managing the
security issues with these technologies. The possible reason might be too much reliability on
vendors for securing data. No matter what is the type of industry and the organization, consumer
are important for any organization. in order to serve consumer better companies often collects
various information as it help to analyse the consumer profile so that service are according to
their requirements and expectations as well and this is required for engaging consumer with the
business and ensure profit(Cui, 2016). However, it is also important to recognize that when
companies collect this data about consumers, it is extremely necessary to protect this data from
hackers, otherwise it will make consumers lose their trust in the company and it might lead to
loss of loyal consumers. As the company has recently identified a cyber-crime that has
compromised their system security, they need to improve their system security through proper
cyber-security strategies.
Emerging Threats in ABCT Organization:
In the present situation there are various of aspects due to which the ABCT organization
can face several of cyber security threats. In the following section five types of emerging threats
will be elaborated that can be faced by the ABCT organization.
Phishing E-mails: The phishing emails is has always remained one of the biggest concern in the
context of cyber security. Phishing type of emails has always remained a huge concern for the
organization but in this case it has been considered as one of the emerging threats as currently

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the there is a trend of deploying the phishing emails by using the artificial intelligence generated
phishing emails. It has been assessed that the AI generated phishing emails are way more
dangerous while compared with the manual type of phishing which is done by the humans
(Sayan, Hariri & Ball, 2017). Through the AI generated phishing emails hackers are able to
develop highly realistic e-mails and it is very much hard to distinguish between a realistic email
and a phishing emails. Thus, this is one of the most emerging threats in the for the ABCT
organization. The main goal behind this solution is that it exploits the organization by means of
bypassing the security layers so that the data are getting access easily. It s occurred into the
ABCT organization.
Cryptojacking: The cryptojacking is also an emerging threat in this segment as it one form of
cyber-attack which are used for hijacking third party mobile, tablets and other type of devices
that are utilized for mainly mining the crypto currency and for other types of services. The bad
actors use malicious types of links for infecting the websites or the online ads by using the
javascript codes. These codes are able to start the crypto mining codes within the victim’s
computer system(Li et al., 2015). It has been also assessed that currently there is a 31 percent
growth in the browser crypto jacking. This is one of the cybercrime which is used by the cyber
criminals to as they can make good amount of money with it with having minimal of effort. Thus
this is one of the most emerging security threats in this case.
Mobile Malware: While considering the internet world most of the peoples are connected to the
internet services through their mobile phones. Due to this reason in most of the cases the hackers
targets the mobile user for performing various of cyber security attacks. In this case mobile
malware is one of the emerging threat which can lead to a cyber-security attacks. From various
of researches it has been assessed that in 2017 the attack using the mobile malware was increased
by 54%. Various of mobile malware has been prepared which are able to monitor the activity of
the users on both of the iOS and android devices if gets installed successfully. Thus it creates the
vulnerability of data leakage(Whitmore, Agarwal & Da Xu, 2015). Thus it must be mitigated in
proper fashion as it also creates threat for the ABCT organization. The practice of mobile
malware can affect the ABCT organization very much negatively as this organization believes in
the BYOD practice. As BYOD practice is maintained within the organization most of the
employees uses their smartphones for storing various of sensitive data about the organization. If

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any of these employees got attacked by the mobile malware then organizational data will be
leaked very easily which will create cyber security issues for the ABCT organization.
Security mis-configuration: It is included various types of security vulnerabilities and also
issues which are caused due to improper maintenance of the system and web related
configurations. The security configuration of the business organization is secured, while it is
done with application as well as website servers and database servers. Mis-configuration of the
system is occurred which help to provide the hackers private data and also features which are
resulted in system compromise. Then, the personal data of the customers are hacked due to mis-
configuration of the system (Ali, Khan& Vasilakos, 2015). Along with that, cloud servers are
located at different places sometime out of the region where the vendor company has its offices.
Hence, it is not consumers, sometime service providers also find it difficult to ensure that they
have proper control over the data security and this is what inspires hackers to look for
vulnerabilities in this system. Once hackers get access to these servers, it is easier for them to
access important data that companies stores in the cloud storage. This has become a serious
threat to the overall security of the company. ABCT also stores data in the cloud storage,
therefore they are also likely to be affected by this emerging threat, and hence they need to
design an effective security strategy for this.
Stealing data through IoT devices: IoT devices has become an important part of the
organizational workflow for various technical and non-technical organizations. IoT is a smart
network of connecting devices along with sensors and computing storage. This devices is also
applicable for companies which provides BYOD services and hence applicable for ABCT as
well. However, IoT devices does not have large computing storage and low in memory, hence it
is not possible to implement sophisticated security algorithms for these devices. Hence, it
becomes easier to exploit these devices and get access to the organizational network to which
these devices are connected. The data that is collected by the sensors of the IoT network is stored
in the cloud and hence hacking these devices might provide access to those data as well(Hashem
et al., 2015). Therefore, IoT devices are providing organizations smarter approach to design their
communication systems, but it is affecting the overall security process as well. Hence, ABCT
should consider this threat as well as it has potential to affect their organizational security too.

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Security vulnerabilities:
The computer services that the company provides is through the virtual private network
or VPN. However, level of encryption for VPN service might not be proper, it depends on the
service provider, and ABCT has very little control over it(Collins, 2016). If service does not
ensure proper encryption, it is easier for hackers to intercept data communicated through the
VPN network. Hence this a possible security vulnerability for ABCT.
BYOD service that the company has integrated with the IT infrastructure is vulnerable to
security hack as employees often have careless attitude while accessing these services.
Employees often does not create a strong password and this makes it easier for hackers to get
access to these systems due to low level of encryption and authentication as well. As there is
security issue with these BYOD service, it is a possible security vulnerability for ABCT.
ABCT stores data to the cloud, which has security vulnerability as well. It is not known
what the security measures are and what is the level of access control that the service provider
has implemented with its cloud service. Hence, data might be accessed by other third parties
without acknowledgement of ABCT, which compromises security of the data that ABCT stores
in the cloud platform for better data storage, and data access for improved efficiency.
The data breach is really a big issue for the organizations and specially for the
organization which uses the online cloud service from a 3rd party. In this case the ABCT
organization is one of them which uses the cloud service and due to this they also becomes
vulnerable to data breach issue(Iannacone et al., 2015). This 3rd party organization has faced the
data breach issue in many of the cases for which many of the confidential data of organizations
has been leaked out. Thus the ABCT organization can face the issue of data breach in this case.
In this aspects the data loss issue is a huge factor. It has been assessed that in many of the
cases the data has been lost due to some internal error of the cloud service provider. When this
type of data got deleted from the online server it becomes impossible to fetch the data from the
server. The ACBT organization also uses the cloud service providers for many of their services
and due to this factor this also creates vulnerability within the ABCT organization.

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Recommendation:
There are recommendations which are required to provide so that all the cyber attacks
issues are to be mitigated by:
Security of the email: It is found that email is required to overcome by providing security
tips to mitigate the cyber threats in home as well as office. The users is required to select only
one password of 10 characters so that it can contain alphabets, symbols and also numbers so that
it is not easier to identify as well as guess the password. In every 3 months, the password is
required to be changed. The phishing attempt is created with trick to reveal the financial details
and password. It is required that the systems users are not transferring the sensitive information
to others so that there are chances of hacking of the information.
Training program for the staffs: It is recommended to provide training to the employees
so that they can become familiar with the cybersecurity principals, so that all the issues as well as
challenges are required to be removed. Training is required so that it can help to take proper
steps to handle the cyber threats related to the problems which are raised.
Angler phishing: It is required to understand that the social media footprint can cause
risks when the user’s accounts are hacked by the hackers. It is estimated that fraudsters can
automate the accounts so that angler phishing is required to be occurred into the social media
accounts. There is proper adoption of the solutions which can help the users to scan the new web
domains included angler phish.
Conclusion:
The recent cyber-attack according to ABCT has made their IT infrastructure vulnerable to
data hack and data exploitation. Hence, it is required to increase security of the existing systems
and improve overall security of the system. Hence, the report has analysed various security
issues with the existing system that might have affected the IT infrastructure of ABCT. The
analysis has identified that although no issue have been identified in the VPN service, it is an
important area where security vulnerability exist as well. As most of the service provided by
ABCT is through internet, securing VPN service is an important requirement, which requires
effective strategy such as increased encryption for data if ABCT want to ensure data security.

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BYOD policy needs improvement as well as devices that employees consider for accessing
organizational network and database, provides easier access to these sensitive data through these
devices and all it requires is just to establish control over this smart devices such as smartphone,
tablets, laptops that the employees bring with them in the workplace. Security strategies such as
strong password, two-phase authentication should be considered. Cloud services has increase the
efficiency of the organizational process and it has made data access and processing easier.
However, it is important to note that hackers exploit cloud storage as security measures of cloud
service is not that proper and hence it is required to ensure that private cloud model is chosen for
enhancing data security in the cloud platform. However, it is important to note that as there are
various sources that contributes to the data vulnerabilities, effective security policy is required
that considers security threats of different vulnerability sources and provides measures against
them for developing and designing effective security strategy.

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challenges. Information sciences, 305, 357-383.
Almeshekah, M. H., & Spafford, E. H. (2016). Cyber security deception. In Cyber deception (pp.
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problem. arXiv preprint arXiv:1609.01107.
Collins, A. (Ed.). (2016). Contemporary security studies. Oxford university press.
Cui, X. (2016). The internet of things. In Ethical Ripples of Creativity and Innovation (pp. 61-
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Systems (FAS* W) (pp. 313-317). IEEE.

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security co-engineering and standardization for highly automated automotive vehicles.
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