About cyber Security

Discuss about the Developing an Effective Cyber Resilience Strategy.

Cyber security is considered as the concept which ensures the protection of the internet-connected systems and devices, and this also includes the hardware, software and data related to the cyber-attacks. In terms of computers, security includes both cyber-security and physical security, as both the terms are used by the organizations for the purpose of protection against the unauthorized access to data centers and other systems of the computers. Information securities which are designed for the purpose of maintaining the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data are the subset of the cyber-security.

Cyber security includes the technologies, processes, and controls which are designed for the purpose of protecting the systems, networks and data from cyber-attacks. Effective cyber security reduces the risk related to the cyber-attacks (Bjorck, Henkel, Stirna & Zdravkovic, 2015).

This report is written for the board members of the company, so that they gain adequate knowledge about the cyber security and all its aspects. This report addresses various issues such as it critically evaluate the manner through which organization can best integrate its cyber security and resilience protocol. This report further provides the examples related to the best practice in this context and also the recommendations on how company should initiate its cyber resilience policy at the board level of the company. At the end, brief paragraph is defined from the name of conclusion which reflects all the essential components of this report.

The biggest issue related to the cyber security is its constant evolving nature of security risks. Traditional approach of this concept mainly focuses on the resources related to the difficult system components and also provides protection against the biggest known threats. In other words, it leaves the components undefended and fails to protect the systems from the risk which are less dangerous.

In context of dealing with the current environment, organizations of advisory nature promotes the more proactive and adaptive approach.

It must be noted that, there are different types of threats which relates with the cyber security. While adopting the new technologies and digitalization, security trends and threat intelligence are considered as the challenging task. However, it is necessary to protect the information and other assets from the cyber threats, as they can immerge in any form.

Following are some threats related to the cyber security:

Ransom ware-this is considered as the malicious software which makes the data or systems unusable till the time payment is made by the victim. It is define as the fastest growth threat related to the malware and it target all types of users and business organizations across the globe.

Threats of cyber security

Phishing- Phishing is the concept in which untargeted and bulk of emails are sent to the large number of people, and these e-mails asked sensitive information from the persons such as their bank details. All these mails encourage the readers to open the malicious attachment or to visit their fake website which either download the malicious content in the system of the user or ask them to provide their sensitive information, respectively.

Distributed Denial of services – A Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attack at the time when accesses of the legal user are denied by the system, and when the services overcome with the request from different sources (CERT, 2018).

Scams targeting the businesses- business organizations operated in Australia are considered as the common targets of the scams, with the adversaries using the advanced social engineering techniques for the purpose of targeting the members of the staff and increase the perception of being the legitimate.

Secondary targeting- In this opponents target the small networks which are connected through the IT systems for the purpose of targeting the organizations of higher value. It helps the cyber rivals to exploit the data related to the customers and network with the help of the direct and indirect means. 

Targeting bulk personally identifiable information- networks of the Australia holds large number of records related to the personally identifiable information (PII), and these records are generally targeted by the cyber opponents. Stolen information is used by the cyber criminals for the purpose of identity theft and extorting money from the organizations and individuals by threatening them to release their stolen data.

Unauthorized crypto mining- CERT Australia is very well aware in context of the crypto currency mining malware, as it is used to destroy the processing power of the systems across the globe. Crypto mining software uses the processing system for the purpose of resolving the difficult mathematical problems, which verified the existing digital currency transactions (Webroot, 2018).

The use of the cyber security helps the organizations in preventing cyber-attacks, data breaches, and identity theft. Cyber security also helps in the risk management. Organization holds the strong system of network security, and it is necessary to adopt the measures to prevent and mitigate these attacks. This can be understood through example; end user protection defends the information and also provides protection against the loss or theft, at the time of scanning for malicious code (Tech target, n.d.).

Prevention of the cyber-crime

Cyber resilience is considered as the continuous approach which includes both cyber security and business continuity management, and its main purpose is to safeguard against the cyber-attacks and also ensure the survival of the organization during following attacks. Resilience of organization in terms of cyber-attack will become most important attribute for survival of the organization in future (IT Governance, 2018).  

Following are some good practices which enable the organizations to operate on highly adaptive and responsive processes related to the cyber resilience:

Board management- This practice includes following attributes on part of the board management of the company, as these attributes ensures the effective cyber resilience culture in the organization (ASIC, 2017):

• Board of directors must take the accountability related to the cyber strategy and must review the strategy on period basis for the purpose of evaluating the progress against the success measures determined by the organization.
• Board is accountable to consider the cyber resilience as the critical management tool for the purpose of ensuring effective risk management in the organization and making important decisions related to the cyber risk.
• It is necessary that board management ensure deep understanding of the cyber risk and threats related to the cyber security, so that they resolve the issues of risk and audit committees and also answer their relevant questions.

Governance- This practice includes following attributes on part of the governance of the company:

• Organizations make changes in their traditional governance process for the purpose of ensuring responsive governance. In this changing environment of cyber risk, present policies and regulations are not effective in nature, and these required changes on continuous basis. Therefore, it is necessary that organization must ensure effective responsive governance.
• It is necessary that cyber security governance must clearly and visibly relates to the organizations wide governance procedures and policies. In other words, documented strategies, principles, policies, rules and procedures of the organization must comply with the complete framework of the governance (ASIC, 2017).

Cyber Risk Management- this approach of the risk management is rapidly becomes the intelligence process and moving to the real time process through the automation and using of the risk management tools. Following are the important attributes in context of the cyber risk management:

• Organizations must take the steps for the purpose of establishing the specialist functional groups in the organizations for the purpose of ensuring the monitoring of the process, and these specialist functional groups are known as fusion centers.
• Risk management in terms of the third party is also necessary in the organization, as outsourcing and cloud based services becomes the important part of the organization working. Dependency of the organization on the third-party service providers and partners becomes necessary in context of products and services offered by the organization.

Third party risk management- It is necessary for the organizations to develop the risk-based assessment methods and tools for the purpose of ensuring that third-party suppliers and partners are assessed on regular basis for the purpose of complied with the necessary security standards of the organization. There are number of organizations which are suing the external service providers for carrying out the evaluation of partners and vendors on continuous basis.

Collaborating and information sharing- For the purpose of gathering the intelligence, organizations are generally engaging in the specialist third party organizations for the purpose of undertaking the security monitoring and assessment. For gathering the threat intelligence, organization can employ the services of the specialist individuals and companies operating the jurisdictions of foreign. Organizations also have confidential information, and sharing arrangements in place with the help of the other financial institutions, security agencies and law enforcement (Jerome, Allen & George, 2009).

Asset Management- Following are the most important attributes of the asset management in the organization:

• Organization must ensure the centralized asset management system in the organization, which means this process is used by the organizations for the management of the asset related to the inventories for hardware, and software and data.
• Configuration management is another important approach which is important for ensuring the cyber resilience in the organization, as it ensures the visibility of the critical assets in the organization, and also for managing the software versions and security patches.
• It must be noted that, clear recognition of the effective cyber resilience needs the strong cultural focus which is driven by the board and reflected in the organizations wide-programs for staff awareness, education and random testing, including of third parties (ASIC, 2017).

Following are some key elements which must be considered by the board in terms of cyber resilience before developing the risk management framework in the organization:

• Board must ensure that cyber risk is considered as the important element of the broader risk framework of the organization.
• Periodic reviews of the risk management program must be ensured by the board.
• Board must take measures to identify the cyber threats in the business organizations.
• Experts must be appointed by the management in the board for understanding the cyber risk and its important elements (ASIC, 2017).

Cyber resilience strategy means that organizations must adopt the holistic approaches in terms of their defenses, an also implement the email- security system that not only helps the organization in blocking the spams and viruses, but also provide protection to the organization from the wide range of threats. By developing the strategy, organizations ensure best chance to stay protected against the ransom ware attacks.

Cyber Resilience

Cyber resilience can be achieved by the organization only with the help of effective policy, and such policy must comply with national and international best practices recognized by the relevant authorities. Organization must ensure the building of skills and competencies and also the leading expertise, tools, publications for the purpose of implementing the strategy in the complete organization (Lennon, 2017). Following are the important requirements to develop the effective cyber resilience strategy in the organization:

• Development of the skills, understanding and competency required for the management and their team in terms of planning and delivering the effective cyber resilience strategy in the organization.
• Development of the skills in terms of public training courses which mainly includes the guidelines developed by the ISO27001 and ISO22301, risk management training, and cyber security qualifications which include CISA, CISM, CRISC and CISSP.

• Risk management framework of the organization.
• National and international guidelines related to the best practices in cyber resilience.
• Guidelines provided by the ISO27001 and ISO22301.
• Strategy of the organization for achieving the organization objectives (IT Governance, 2018).

Following are the most important key recommendations which must be considered by the organization while developing the cyber-resilience strategy of the organization:

• Organization must consider the broader objectives of the business and also the manner through which strategy developed by the management in terms of cyber resilience help the management in achieving these overall objectives of the organization.
• Burden must be taken away from the IT and imposed in the leaders across the organization. It is necessary to understand that cyber resilience is not only the issue of IT but also the issue for complete business organizations.
• Planning related to the strategy must be communicated to all the members of the staff, and must ensure that employees and other staff members get adequate understanding related to the cyber resilience and they must be engaged on regular basis. Education to the staff in this context is necessary for the purpose of ensuring that they deal with the potential attacks in effective manner (Grieco, 2017).

Conclusion:

After considering the elements of this report, it is clear that Cyber security includes the controlling physical access in terms of system hardware, and also provides protection against the harm.

Cyber resilience is considered as the continuous approach which includes both cyber security and business continuity management, and its main purpose is to safeguard against the cyber-attacks and also ensure the survival of the organization during following attacks.

References:

ASIC, (2017). Cyber resilience good practices. Available at: https://asic.gov.au/regulatory-resources/digital-transformation/cyber-resilience/cyber-resilience-good-practices/. Accessed on 30^th June 2018.

ASIC, (2017). Cyber resilience in Australia’s financial markets. Available at: https://asic.gov.au/regulatory-resources/markets/resources/markets-articles-by-asic/cyber-resilience-in-australia-s-financial-markets/. Accessed on 30^th June 2018.

ASIC, (2017). Cyber resilience. Available at: https://asic.gov.au/regulatory-resources/digital-transformation/cyber-resilience/. Accessed on 30^th June 2018.

ASIC, (2017). Key questions for an organization’s board of directors. Available at: https://asic.gov.au/regulatory-resources/digital-transformation/cyber-resilience/key-questions-for-an-organisation-s-board-of-directors/. Accessed on 30^th June 2018.

Axelos, (2015). Cyber Resilience Best Practices. Available at: https://www.axelos.com/resilia. Accessed on 30^th June 2018.

Bjorck, F. Henkel, M. Stirna, J. & Zdravkovic, J. (2015). Cyber Resilience – Fundamentals for a Definition. Maturity, Benefits and Project Management Shaping Project Success, Pp 311-316.

CERT, (2018). Common threats. Available at: https://www.cert.gov.au/threats/common-threats. Accessed on 30^th June 2018.

Grieco, A. (2017). Three Essential Elements of a Reliable Cyber Resilience Strategy. Available at: https://blogs.cisco.com/security/three-essential-elements-of-a-reliable-cyber-resilience-strategy. Accessed on 30^th June 2018.

IT Governance, (2018). Cyber Resilience. Available at: https://www.itgovernance.co.uk/cyber-resilience. Accessed on 30^th June 2018.

IT Governance, (2018). Put a Cyber Resilience Strategy in place. Available at: https://www.itgovernance.asia/put-a-cyber-resilience-strategy-in-place. Accessed on 30^th June 2018.

Jerome H. Allen, A. & George. J. (2009). “An operational framework for resilience.” Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, Volume, 6(1), Pp- 10.

Lennon, N. (2017). Developing an effective cyber resilience strategy to deal with the threat of ransom ware. Available at: https://www.cso.com.au/article/627356/developing-an-effective-cyber-resilience-strategy-deal-threat-ransomware/. Accessed on 30^th June 2018.

Tech target. cyber security. Available at: https://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/definition/cybersecurity. Accessed on 30^th June 2018.

Webroot, (2018). Types of Computer Security Threats and How to Avoid Them. Available at: https://www.webroot.com/us/en/resources/tips-articles/computer-security-threats. Accessed on 30^th June 2018.