University Research Proposal: Cybersecurity Risks and Challenges

This research proposal outlines a study on cybersecurity risks and challenges in the business environment. It begins with an executive summary highlighting the purpose of the research: to analyze potential cybersecurity risks and challenges faced by businesses. The proposal includes an introduction, project objectives, and scope, followed by a literature review that explores various cyber threats. The research questions are defined, and the methodology, including qualitative and quantitative approaches, is discussed. The proposal addresses the reliability and validity of the research, the research approach, and design, along with data collection processes, sampling methods, and potential limitations. A time schedule is provided, and the report concludes with a discussion of findings and references. The primary objective is to propose research on cyber threats and maintain the privacy of organizational data. The project scope involves identifying different cyber challenges and threats companies face. The report also discusses the importance of data protection, the impact of cyber-attacks, and the role of various cyber threats like phishing, botnets, and malware. The research methodology includes both qualitative and quantitative approaches to analyze variables and ensure the reliability and validity of the research findings. The data collection process involves secondary data from online journals and primary data from a selected company's IT department, with a sample size of 60 professionals.

Running head: RESEARCH PROPOSAL
Research proposal
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

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Executive summary
The purpose of this research is to analyse the potential risk of cyber security and challenges the
business faces. The report outlines research proposal for doing the field research in this context.
To analyse a research program has been designed in purpose of getting an insight in the issues
and challenges. The scope and objective of the project is also given in purpose of further
designing the research. The primary and secondary questions are formed. The approach to the
research and data collection process is also mentioned and discussed thoroughly. The ethical that
must be kept in mind while doing the research is also discussed in the process. While outlining
the research the main criteria is to decide and check the limitations of the research. Therefore, the
limitations is also identified and given

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Project objective..............................................................................................................................3
Project scope....................................................................................................................................4
Literature review..............................................................................................................................4
Research questions...........................................................................................................................6
Research methodology.....................................................................................................................6
Qualitative and quantitative research...........................................................................................6
Reliability and validity of the research........................................................................................7
Research approach.......................................................................................................................7
Research design...........................................................................................................................8
Data collection process................................................................................................................8
Sampling method and sample size...............................................................................................8
Research limitations.....................................................................................................................9
Time schedule..................................................................................................................................9
Conclusions......................................................................................................................................9
Reference.......................................................................................................................................10
Appendix........................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
This report is based on the cyber security threat that poses many challenges for an
organisation nowadays (Gharibi and Shaab 2012). This chapter will also analyse the different
kind of cyber security threats that challenges protection of confidential data for companies that
are dependent on the information system. To analyse a research program has been designed in
purpose of getting an insight in the issues and challenges. The scope and objective of the project
is also given in purpose of further designing the research. The primary and secondary questions
are formed (Silverman 2016). The research design and methodology is discussed and within the
context, they are formed. To maintain the reliability and validity of the research the measure are
also discussed. The approach to the research and data collection process is also mentioned and
discussed thoroughly (Kumar and Phrommathed 2015). The ethical that must be kept in mind
while doing the research is also discussed in the process. While outlining the research the main
criteria is to decide and check the limitations of the research. Therefore, the limitations is also
identified and given. To maintain the given time for the schedule of doing every steps of the
research is also charted in the end.
Project objective
The primary objective of this project is
 To propose a research for the threat of cyber security and maintain the privacy of the
organisational data

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 To identify and analyse the different threats that are becoming a headache of
incorporating the social platform and information technology adopted by small, medium
as well as the big firms in the global market.
Project scope
The scope of this project lies in the thorough research and identifying different kind of
cyber challenges and threats that a company can face in the present modern world. The
advantage of doing this project will be based on the primary data collected and getting different
perspective of the challenges faced in different context of using cyber platform for different
platform in social internet world.
Literature review
Cyber security is important for business that is using the information system integrated
technology in their companies. The challenges that the companies are facing recently are related
to the data protection of their organisation. The abundant use of technologies and increase in the
number of crime in data protection these days are quite a challenging issue (Chertoff 2008). The
cyber-attacks have become frequent and this critical matter threatens most of the government
ministry. The network security is most essential part of resolving the harm that may come from
ignorance of the matter. The effectiveness of the organisation’s management also must be
considered in use of technology. In the opinion of Babate et al. (2015) the emerging challenges
are in seen in the new devices like Smartphone and other digital devices which enhances the
threat of the data.

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Phishing is identified as the most dangerous tech that uses the clients or individual’s
credentials that both personal and important in this era. The deceptions are rather threatening ,
which leads to a crime that is punishable for 12 years of jail (Clemente 2013 ). Botnet is
controlled and operated within the cyber criminal community, which uses viruses to permanently
damage the pc or other systems (Donaldson et al. 2015). Malwares and key loggers are
programmes that are also harmful and used by hackers to collect private and confidential
information. Social engineering is a technique to trap the clients or any individual victims that
has valuable information for crime purposes. The Viruses are very well known hacking and
virtually affecting software or programmes that are harmful for the whole system. This can also
spread through external devices like pen drives (Hall 2016). The impact of virus is very essential
to be eliminated or the whole system comes crumbling down. The vendors in this security
industry are very useful and proactive and constantly update the code and security systems in
place (Babate et al. 2015). Thus these risks are primarily threatens the organisations. The
networking between the organisation and intra organisation have become challenging to use. The
lack of leadership and in handling this matter and low ethical consideration of the person is the
main issue in the business. The collaboration in the different departments is also among the
major problem in withstanding cyber crime (Gharibi and Shaabi 2012). Lack of educational
awareness among the employees is also a reason of risk instigated in the cyber security measures.
The laws and regulation of the organisation as well as of the nation regarding cyber crimes needs
to be firm and implemented thoroughly. This is also a contributing factor of having the cyber
security. The regulatory limitations must be facilitated for better result (Gharibi & Shaab 2012).
The ease in access of the software tools and programmes must be restricted to trustworthy

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people. Lack of control in the mechanisms is also factor that pushes the criminals to steal data
and breach the protection level of organisations.
Minimising the impact of this negative aspect of internet and modern world software
technologies the organisations must gather the systems and protection measure that are essential
for privacy of the client’s information protection (Babate et al. 2015). Would this not only
influence the annual revenue but also trust factor that a suppliers or a client presents to its
customers. Most of the hackers take only minutes to breach the data but the companies will take
much more time to recover the damage of the incident. The future of the business are becoming
more dependent upon the internet accessibility and cyber space these days. Therefore, the threat
also increases parallel. Updating the systems also in addition upgradation of the systems must be
done on a periodical basis. In addition, that must be frequent. The changes in the systems will
ensure more variety and thus confusing the hackers in their intensions (Foreshew 2017). The
threats in the field includes the continuous efforts from the hackers side, international
connections and time lag in the data breach and detection.
Research questions
Primary question
What is the potential risk involved in using cyber platform for business?
Secondary questions
 How the challenges and risks can be mitigated in securing the data of an organisation?
 What are the effects of hacking data and what challenges does it poses?
 What are the different kinds of threat that threatens the data security of the company?

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Research methodology
The research design and methodology here includes both qualitative and quantitative
research approach. The outline of the research including both qualitative and quantitative way of
doing research.
Qualitative and quantitative research
Qualitative research includes the analyzing the categorical variable and mainly focuses
on the attitudinal survey and research approach of data. However, quantitative way of doing
research is to analyse the numeric and alphanumeric variables. These two methods help in
generalising the research (Silverman 2016).
Reliability and validity of the research
The approach to any research must be reliable and valid. The main concern lies in
maintaining the reliability and validity of the research data. To ensure the main outcomes is
useful and that it can be utilised further in future research these two factors must be considered.
These two factors also take into consideration the ethics of the research. The most important
emphasis is too given in quality in a qualitative research. The factors that ensure the reliability
and validity of the research are applicability, consistency, conformability, credibility and
transferability of the research (Silverman 2016). These factors must be concluded as this are the
essential factors that maintains the reliability of the method chosen. This also ensures the
trustworthiness of doing research. On the other, hand the validity consists of two factors. The
concept validity is given to account the imperceptivity of the conceptions that are used in
methodology. The construct validity is used to ensure the steps of the internal process are used to

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maintain the internal subjective validity (Gast and Ledford 2014). This factor also takes into
consideration, the subject variability, maturation, instrument and task sensitivity and population
and history of the research.
Research approach
Deciding the approach to research is after designing the research. The inductive and
deductive way of doing research is most common method. The inductive way of doing research
is to us e the data collection method, observing and analysing the variable and based on the gaps
identified the hypothesis are formed and testes. The theory selection must be done beforehand.
Here for this particular research proposal the inductive way of doing research is selected. The
data collection must be done in the basic inductive way (Kumar and Phrommathed 2015).
Research design
The exploratory design method is selected for this particular research. The primary and
secondary data will be collected and the analysing process will include the descriptive analysis of
data. Based on the objectives the research questions and questionnaires will be formed and given.
The focus will be onto collecting the primary data from the respondents and based on
observation the descriptive study will be formed (Tarone et al. 2013).
Data collection process
The secondary data will be collected for different online journal. The literature review
will be given on the arguments that are contextual and related to the subject and objective of the
research (Tuohy et al.2013). Analysing the risk of cyber security and its potential threat related
to data protection of a company in their management system must be based on the gap analysis
of the research done previously in the field (Gast and Ledford 2014). The primary data will be

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collected from one identified company that have used data protection and what have compelled
them to use that. A group of 60 professionals in the Information technology department will be
identified and questioned.
Sampling method and sample size
The sample data will includes the variables like the different cyber security threats , what
are the risk related to the cyber security and what are the positive and negative outcomes of the
process (Panneerselvam 2014). For observing this variables the group of 60 employees will be
questioned based on the questionnaire prepared.
The variables either will be dependent or will be independent in nature based on the
research objectives. The topic of the research is based the cyber security and identified the
precautions and mitigating the risk arising from not having cyber security method incorporated
in the company Information security system (Mackey and Gass, 2015). The set of hypothesis will
depend upon the gaps analysed in the literature review section. Based on hypothesis the result
will be calculated and the arguments that are developed in the objective and research scope.
Surveying the respondents and with the structured interview questionnaires and based on the
convenient sampling method the data gathered will be analysed (Panneerselvam 2014). The
sample must be chosen also taking into consideration the probability of the sample size.
Research limitations
There are some constraints in conducting a successful research. That is getting the
authentic journals and research material from reliable sources, getting peer reviewed data
(Mackey and Gass, 2015). In addition, the time constraints must be taken into consideration. The
ethics of doing research must be kept in mind. No personal data must be given in the research

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and the deviation of the result must not be generalised or manipulated at any cost. The real data
and analysis result must be presented in the findings section (Tarone et al. 2013).