Information Security Threats and Mitigation Strategies for Nike

This article discusses the information security threats faced by Nike, including SQL injection, DDOS attacks, and XSS attacks. It provides mitigation strategies to protect sensitive data and prevent these threats. The article also addresses ethical challenges faced by Nike, such as poor working conditions, low wages, child labor, and setting up factories in countries with restrictive union practices. It suggests mitigation strategies to address these ethical issues. Additionally, the article explores the criteria for measuring the sustainability of a company and discusses Nike's efforts in water conservation, e-waste management, and sustainable MIS infrastructure. It also highlights Nike's green policy initiatives, such as using energy-saving bulbs and solar panels. Lastly, the article provides sample interview questions for a business analyst candidate and analyzes recent job adverts for business analyst roles.

Question 1
Nike faces the following information security threats that have been widely exposed by the
recent cyber attacks on the Nike website.
SQL Injection
This type of information threat occurs due to the weaknesses in Nike’s user input forms where
the forms processing mechanism leaves the potential security vulnerability that can be exploited
by sophisticated attackers. Detailed in this blog post, https://www.zdnet.com/article/nike-
website-flaw-exposed-access-to-sensitive-server-data/ it is evident that an attacker can use SQL
queries in the form submission made to the database and make serious data queries that have the
potential of stealing sensitive information from the company (Thomas and Li, 2009).
Mitigation strategies
Nike should ensure the developers working on their web application sanitize the user inputs at
the client and the midway to ensure when the inputs reach the database, all the possible rogue
code have been thoroughly removed hence only valid data gets into the database.
DDOS attack
The company faces the serious possibility of DDOD attack due to the misconfigured server
which doesn’t have load balancing capabilities hence making it very possible for an attacker to
use DDOS to make information unavailable for authorized users (Soltani, 2014).
Mitigation strategies

Nike should implement load balancing on their server by use of VLANs to separate traffic within
a given collision domain. This shall reduce the success of a potential DDOS attack on their web
servers or some critical server used to process user data.
XSS
Nike faces a serious threat from the cross-site scripting attacks where an attacker can potentially
inject scripts into the web pages of Nike and perform rogues activities on the site. The bug
bounty described at the website https://www.openbugbounty.org/reports/188255/ details this
serious threat. XSS can be exploited and expose the information assets of Nike users such as
passwords and credit card information. This can be used by attackers to perform fraudulent
activities on the website.
Mitigation strategies
Nike can perform the following mitigation mechanisms to avoid the threats of XSS, first, it is
vital for Nike software developer to always escape characters to ensure certain character which
has unique significance be exploited to inject script into the website. Second, proper input
validation both at the client and server is critical to be implemented by the developers to ensure
no garbage is allowed into Nike’s production database. Last but not least, Nike must sanitize all
inputs going into the database to remove any scripts masqueraded as inputs by rogue users.
Question 2

Nike has been struggling with the bad perception of the public on how unethical some of the
business operations are done are. This section details some of these ethical challenges that Nike
faces and the strategies to avoid them
Poor working conditions
Nike has provided poor working conditions for the employees working in their factories which
are quite below the industry standards. Although general there are low standards of living in the
majority of the countries where Nike operates, the inhumanity that these factories are set up in
draws issues with poor working conditions and how Nike generally treats its employees. There is
a considerable amount of overtime and long working hours in which have to endure by Nike’s
employees in order to remain employed in their countries. Workers in the Korean Nike’s factor,
for example, have to endure up to seventeen hours straight of working in total silence. This is a
confirmation of how barbaric the company is while dealing with its own employees.
Mitigation
Nike should install health and safety appliances such as fire suppression facilities to ensure the
safety of employees while working on Nike premises. In addition to this, Nike should ensure
cleanliness at all time in Nike compounds. This shall be a starting point to redeem the bad image
of Nike in terms of poor working conditions in those developing countries. Furthermore, Nike
should include paid leave and overtime payments to ensure the employees get compensated for
the overtime they work on any Nike project. This shall have a good deal at ensuring proper
working condition for Nike.
Low wages

Nike has not implemented key human resource policies to ensure all the workers get paid as per
the industry standards. The company has employees workers who are paid low wages which they
cannot use to sustain their standards of leaving. This has led to the exploitation of cheap labor
especially in the developing countries.
Mitigation strategies
The company can get away from these ethical issues by ensuring they standardize their
remuneration packages based on the current wages and salary rates in the country they operate
in. this shall ensure all the workers get the most from the labor they provide hence be able to
maintain their standards of living using the wages and salary received from Nike
Child labor
Nike has overlooked some of the vital labor laws in some of the countries they have set up their
manufacturing firms and has gone ahead and employed as young as 12 years old children in their
factories. This is not only unethical but also illegal which must be dealt with by Nike before they
face serious legal issues in the various jurisdictions they operate in.
Mitigation strategies
Nike should include a clause in their HR policies on the minimum age for a worker to work for
Nike on either a casual or permanent basis. This will cap the children being accepted in the
factories.
Setting up factories in Countries with restrictive union practices

Nike has been on the spot for always preferring to set up their firms in regions and countries
which have very much restrictions on unions like Indonesia and China. This makes the
employees susceptible to poor working conditions with little choices of actions.
Mitigation strategies
The companies should always ensure all the workers get better wages and benefits even in
restrictive union countries. This shall make Nike be a place for most factory workers.
TASK 11
The following criteria can be used to measure the sustainability of a company,
a)
i. Whether it incorporates the key principle of sustainability into the core business decisions
ii. Whether the business strives to supply environmentally friendly services and or products
that strives to eliminate the demand for the nongreen alternative products
iii. Whether the business offers a green option than the conversational competition
iv. Whether the business has made efforts and commitments to acceptable environmental
principles in the operations of the business
b)
Corporate social responsibilities
Nike has been hit by major PR issue thanks to their shoddy business deals which have raised key
concerns on their relationship with its employees and various business environment. Nike has

turned this bad PR into a good one by incorporating some strategies to include the society in its
business operation and decisions (von Arx and Ziegler, 2014) . Key strategies include;
Water conservation
Nike has made efforts to ensure the quality of water and water security is maintained and
accessible in its supply chain. This has been made possible with technological innovation, for
example, the carbon-based dyeing technology which Nike has partnered with DyeCoo next time
system, a Dutch company that has the technology to dye garments without using water or any
chemicals. The process again uses less energy since the drying process takes less energy by 605.
This has a significantly conserved liter of water which could otherwise be consumed (Seeleman
et al., 2015).
E-waste management
The company can adopt the following strategies to solve the issues with the e-wastes that has
affected the company,
Refurbish; The company can endeavor to refurbish the various e-waste products that it's
channeling as wastes. Refurbishing can be outsourced to companies dealing with the refurbishing
of e-wastes such as computers and printer so as to be repaired and shipped to users who may be
in need of the devices.
Take back policy; Nike should have a strategy to ensure they buy electronic products from
companies that have a Take back clause for the products that have served their useful life. This
will leverage the company in having to establish a separate

Sustainable MIS infrastructure
Nike can develop the following strategies to achieve a sustainable MIS infrastructure
Grid Computing; this approach saves on the number of electronic devices that each device must
have in order to run by sharing these resources among multiple devices. This shall reduce the
number of electronic devices the company will have to purchase hence low e-waste in the long
run
Virtualization; Nike can opt into the concept of virtualization where hardware component such
as server, hard drive, and other computing resources can be shared among different machines
making them more environmentally friendly since a single physical hardware can be used by
multiple virtual machines instead of buying for each machine its complete sets of hardware
which may not be optimally used (Reicher, 2012).
Cloud computing; This strategy involves renting an infrastructure, software or platform which
the various applications that Nike uses in their business operations. This strategy gives the
business to achieve more sustainable MIS infrastructure as most of the heavy hardware and
software are maintained by the cloud provider. This will reduce the amount of energy used by
the company hence striving to ensure sustainable growth for the future (Pagani, 2013).
Green policy

Nike can use the following strategies to achieve its green policy
Use Energy saving bulbs;
The company should insist on the usage of energy saving bulbs within their premises to reduce
the amount of energy being used in the long run hence save on energy consumption.
Use Solar Panel;
Nike can adopt solar powered electrical appliances by running some of their appliances on solar
to reduce the carbon footprint of the company hence reducing the general emission of carbon-
based gases due to the use of fuel powered engines (Pagán, 2011)
TASK 12
a)
The following list are some of the sample interview questions for a business analyst candidate
i. Describe what SRS is and some of its key elements?
ii. Describe what requirement is?
iii. the What are the use cases?
iv. Define scope creep and strategies you can use to avoid the same?
v. Describe what is gap analysis?
vi. Define requirement optimization and describe different technique for it ?

vii. Define some of requirmenent elicitation techniques ?
viii. Explain key skills that a business analysis used to conduct their roles?
ix. Explain how you would perform requirement gathering?
x. What is business process design?
b)
Looking at the following three recent job adverts on MIS jobs especially the business
analyst role in the links https://www.indeed.co.uk/viewjob?
jk=a8b49d64d7f5290c&tk=1daconhij92gu803&from=serp&vjs=3,
https://www.indeed.co.uk/viewjob?
jk=a76fc0bfffe776ce&tk=1daconhij92gu803&from=serp&vjs=3,
https://www.experiencedcareers.pwc.co.uk/ShowJob/Id/880134/Business-Analyst/
They both incorporate roles and responsibilities that require skills in preparing business
requirements hence one must be able to understand SRS, SDD. The roles also involve
someone who is cable of documenting business processes and functions hence one must
understand business process design. The roles need someone with the skills to make very
prompt business decisions (Junnila, 2009).
TASK 13
a)
Nike has incorporated several structure data on their website that is ideal for search
engine optimization and data analytics. First, the different sports ware by gender data
makes it easy to analyze buying history based on gender. Second, different sports ware

for different sport type makes it key for the company to analyze the sport with most in-
demand sportswear. Thirdly, the different brands of the sports ware boots make it easy to
track the most in-demand brand (Bonsón, Cortijo and Escobar, 2011).
Apart from the structures data, Nike has the following unstructured data, First, the twitter
feeds is critical to analyze business perform by analyzing comments and retweets.
Second, the Facebook likes and comments again is key for analytics and it provides some
user feedbacks, The feedback responses in the contact us form again is used for analytics
to analyze customer feedback, Email messages can also be analyzed for keywords
(Bevelander, 2012).
Nike can leverage data analysis to benefit in the following ways,
Proactive and able to anticipate needs; The analysis makes the company be able to
anticipate in advance customer needs and makes products to satisfy the needs
Deliver relevant products; Use data to gauge the best product that is in demand
Personalization of services; The company can use analytics to customer marker
advertisement that is tailored to specific customer needs
Optimization and improving operational efficiency; Use data analysis to identify gaps in
the business operations and makes strategies to improve efficiency

Mitigate risks; Data can be used to make better business decisions on production and
sales by
reducing uncertainty.
c)
Big data can be defined in the data meets the following criteria
Volume; Company collects data from different sources such as social media which make
the data collected by companies to be of high volume in petabytes scale.
Velocity; data get streamed from different sources in real time and at unprecedented
speeds makes the data be listed as big data.
Variety; The data in the format of structures, unstructured making traditional structured
database not able to handle hence the data form part of the big data
TASK 14
a)
Main entities include,
Users, Company, Brand, favorite brand, City, Favourite city, category person group,
category product group, product,
The Entity model is as shown below

b)
data driven website has the following advantages,
i. Easy to update content faster by just a few clicks by the webmaster to make changes to
the site
ii. It is ideal for e-commerce sites where different products are be added with different
prices and different offers

iii. Reduces chances of errors by enhanced data validity checks hence improving user
experience
iv. It is highly scalable since the business presentation layer, middle and data layers are not
tied hence as the business grows, the website shall be able to accommodate changes more
efficiently
c)
The infographic page is as shown below

TASK 15
a)
The sales dashboard is as shown below

b)
Some of the key business processes can be automated by the following application. Smart
shoes for the basketball players that can expand during the time of the day based on the
temperature hence making it more comfortable to wear since the needs of the shoes are
always changing on time.
c)
The following shows the financial analysis from excel

References
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performance: new evidence for the USA and Europe. Quantitative Finance, 14(6), pp.977–991.
Bevelander, D.L., 2012. Who Is Engaging with Whom? Internationalizing Opportunities for
Business Schools in Emerging Economies. International Journal of Educational Management,
26(7), pp.646–663.
Bonsón, E., Cortijo, V. and Escobar, T., 2011. An analysis of preconditions for EBR in Europe
and the United States. International Journal of Disclosure & Governance, 8(3), pp.229–251.
Junnila, S., 2009. Environmental Impact and Intensity of Processes in Selected Services
Companies. Journal of Industrial Ecology, 13(3), pp.422–437.
Pagán, C.O.C., 2011. Business Method Patents: A controversy for companies. Revista de
Derecho Puertorriqueño, 50(2), pp.239–263.
Pagani, M., 2013. Digital Business Strategy and Value Creation: Framing the Dynamic Cycle of
Control Points. MIS Quarterly, 37(2), pp.617–632.
Reicher, C.P., 2012. A simple decomposition of the variance of output growth across countries.
Applied Economics Letters, 19(9), pp.869–872.
Seeleman, C., Essink-Bot, M.-L., Stronks, K. and Ingleby, D., 2015. How should health service
organizations respond to diversity? A content analysis of six approaches. BMC Health Services
Research, 15, pp.1–18.
Soltani, B., 2014. The Anatomy of Corporate Fraud: A Comparative Analysis of High Profile
American and European Corporate Scandals. Journal of Business Ethics, 120(2), pp.251–274.
Thomas, H. and Li, X., 2009. Mapping globally branded business schools: a strategic positioning
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