Network and Cybersecurity: Threats and Control Measures

This report discusses the different categories of threats and control measures for network and cybersecurity. It highlights the importance of data security and the different mitigation techniques that organizations can implement to secure their data and other important information.

Running head: NETWORK AND CYBERSECURITY
NETWORK AND CYBERSECURITY
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Executive Summary:
Cyber security of the networks as well as the information is one of the most important
concerns of the organizations today, all across the world. There are different kinds \of data
security related issues which the organizations are facing now a days. There has been cases in the
recent past where in which big organizations were reported to have faced security and data
breaches I their work places, which have had a global impact for the employees as well as the
customers of the organization.
This report will highlight the different categories of threats, which are common across the
organizations in today’s world, and the associated control measures and what those control
measures aim to do. By the end of the report, the reader will have a detailed knowledge about the
control measures, which the organizations can implement internally in order to secure their data
and the other important information.

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Table of Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................5
Accidental corruption of information:.........................................................................................5
Control measures:....................................................................................................................5
Description of the issue:..........................................................................................................5
Classification and type:............................................................................................................5
Loss of intellectual property:.......................................................................................................6
Control measures:....................................................................................................................6
Description of the issue:..........................................................................................................6
Classification and type:............................................................................................................6
Software piracy:...........................................................................................................................6
Control measures:....................................................................................................................6
Description of the issue:..........................................................................................................6
Classification and type:............................................................................................................7
Theft of information (hacker):.....................................................................................................7
Control measures:....................................................................................................................7
Description of the issue:..........................................................................................................7
Classification and type:............................................................................................................7
Theft of information (employee).................................................................................................7

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Control measures:....................................................................................................................7
Description of the issue:..........................................................................................................8
Classification and type:............................................................................................................8
Website defacement:....................................................................................................................8
Control measures:....................................................................................................................8
Description of the issue:..........................................................................................................8
Classification and type:............................................................................................................8
Fire and flood:..............................................................................................................................8
Control measures:....................................................................................................................8
Description of the issue:..........................................................................................................9
Classification and type:............................................................................................................9
Elevation of privilege:.................................................................................................................9
Control measures:....................................................................................................................9
Description of the issue:..........................................................................................................9
Classification and type:............................................................................................................9
Theft of equipment:.....................................................................................................................9
Control measures:....................................................................................................................9
Description of the issue:........................................................................................................10
Classification and type:..........................................................................................................10
Viruses, worms and Trojan horses:...........................................................................................10

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Control measures:..................................................................................................................10
Description of the issue:........................................................................................................10
Classification and type:..........................................................................................................10
Conclusion:....................................................................................................................................10
References:....................................................................................................................................11

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Introduction:
Cyber security is a concern that is gaining more and more importance within the
organizations in today’s world and needs to be addressed on an urgent basis. There are different
kind of cybercrimes that take place across the organizations all across the world.
In this report, the different control measures for the different categories of threats will be
discussed in details, which will give the reader a clear understanding of the threats and the
associated mitigation techniques. By the end of the report, the reader will have an in-depth
understanding of the different mitigation techniques as well as the categories of the different kind
sof threats that are prevailing in the organizations in todays world.
Accidental corruption of information:
Control measures:
- Usage of proper antivirus programs
- Regular troubleshooting of system and application issues.
- Hardware as well as software should be properly updated.
Description of the issue:
This is the issue faced by many companies today, wherein the important data gets
corrupted accidentally due to different reasons such as malware infection and improper
troubleshooting of existing issues within the systems of the organizations. The data is corrupted
or copied in multiple locations and are often decrypted causing them unable to be read or opened
(Wu and Irwin 2016).

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Classification and type:
Usage of proper antivirus can be classified as a product based solution for this issue,
while regular hardware and software troubleshooting can be classified as physical control
measures. These are aimed to prevent any kind of data corruption in the organizational systems
and workstations.
Loss of intellectual property:
Control measures:
- By using patents, trademarks, trade Secret as well as Copyrights.
- Incorporating a proper SLA (Service level agreement) with other third party
organizations and doing proper research before sharing any confidential information with
anyone..
Description of the issue:
Protection of intellectual property is aimed for protection of inventions, artistic as well as
literary works such as symbols and images, which are created by the organizations out of
creativity.
Classification and type:
Usage of patents and trademarks is for preventing the loss of intellectual data, It is
classified as administrative in nature. An agreement or SLA is signed in the beginning with the
third party organizations so that the third party companies’ to the parent company in case of any
misconduct can provide proper compensations. Therefore, it is also an administrative feature.
Software piracy:
Control measures:
- Licensed software’s should be used for enterprise purposes.

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- Illegal download of software’s should be prohibited within the organizations.
Description of the issue:
This is an issue where software’s are illegally pirated or used in other systems by illegal
download from the internet in order to avoid the license fees associate to its usage.
Classification and type:
The control measures such as usage of license is administrative in nature, which should
be incorporated by the system administrators. It helps in checking as well as identifying the
authenticity of the software’s being used in the organizations.
Theft of information (hacker):
Control measures:
- Usage of network firewalls.
- Use of audit trail features in the enterprise data workstations.
Description of the issue:
The hackers are stealing confidential information of the organizations remotely by
bypassing security measures of the organizations. They release Trojan horse, which is a kind of
virus as well as phishing frauds into the organizational computers (Mahmood and Afzal 2013).
Classification and type:
Network firewall is a product, which helps in preventing attacks from hackers. Audit
trails are also a product-based feature, which can help in detecting who accessed what
information and from which system in the organization.
Theft of information (employee)
Control measures:
- Ensure employee job satisfaction

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- Introducing strict data policies within the organizations and ensuring that the employees
abide by the same.
Description of the issue:
Employee vandalism occurs when the employees have a revengeful tendency towards a
particular fellow employee or the organization as a whole and purposely wants the data of the
organization to be corrupted for his own personal or professional interests.
Classification and type:
Both the control measures are administrative in nature, which helps in preventing the acts
of employee vandalism within the organizations.
Website defacement:
Control measures:
- Detection as well as defacement monitoring tools should be used.
- Adequate response techniques should be ready in case of any such incidences.
Description of the issue:
It is a malicious attack that a website can face which will in turn change the appearance
of the website. The hackers break into the company servers and replace the appearance of the
hosted website with their own.
Classification and type:
It is a product-based solution since the monitoring tools are specialized defacement
testing products that helps in preventing such an incidence. Response techniques are
administrative in nature in order to counter attack such indecencies once they have already
occurred.

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Fire and flood:
Control measures:
- Important data systems should be kept at elevated stores within the organizations.
- Fire extinguishers should be there on all floors of an office building
Description of the issue:
Flood is a natural calamity that can cause damage to the systems as well as the networks.
Fire can cause massive burnouts of the systems and organizational infrastructures.
Classification and type:
These control measures have to be carried out physically in order to prevent as well as
counter attack the issues.
Elevation of privilege:
Control measures:
- Background verification of all system administrators should be carried out.
- Preventing escalations of privilege accounts.
Description of the issue:
This issue occurs when data, which is supposed to be accessed by officials of higher
privilege, are actually accessed and illegally used by users of lower privilege, within the
organization.
Classification and type:
The control measures are administrative in nature and both the measures help in
preventing users of lower privilege to access data meant for higher officials.

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Theft of equipment:
Control measures:
- Ensuring more tight security features such as CCTV cameras in all rooms.
- Alarm systems in all floors of the workplace and tight security guards at every doors.
Description of the issue:
This issue occurs when there are any kinds of threats of any physicals devices such as
laptops or other sensitive equipment’s from the workplace that can contain sensitive
organizational data.
Classification and type:
These are physical in nature and helps in preventing as well as identifying the thief in
case a theft has already occurred within the organization.
Viruses, worms and Trojan horses:
Control measures:
- Use of antivirus programs.
Description of the issue:
Virus infections can cause data theft as well as privacy breach by the hackers.
Classification and type:
This is a product-based solution such as usage of enterprise antivirus programs like
Kaspersky internet security, which prevents such virus attacks.
Conclusion:
Therefore, it can be concluded that if the organizations have proper knowledge about the
mitigation techniques of the data security issues as discussed above, they will be able to prevent

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all possible security threats. If the organizations can consider these threats at the time of
implementing any new technology, it will be able to reach newer heights within their work
culture in terms of their data and information security.

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References:
Mahmood, T. and Afzal, U., 2013, December. Security analytics: Big data analytics for
cybersecurity: A review of trends, techniques and tools. In Information assurance (ncia), 2013
2nd national conference on (pp. 129-134). IEEE.
Wu, C.H.J. and Irwin, J.D., 2016. Introduction to computer networks and cybersecurity. CRC
Press.