University of Maryland, University College CYB 670 Project 3: Lockdown Step 7 Business Continuity Plan Team 1 – United States

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University of Maryland, University College CYB 670 Project 3: Lockdown Step 7 Business Continuity Plan Team 1 – United States CYB 670 Capstone in Cybersecurity Business Continuity Plan for C ... ommunications Systems The goal of a business continuity plan (BCP) is to have the ability to restore full operations of a network of a company though a systematic and predetermined set of processes and procedures with as little impact as possible. The BCP is designed to ensure that communications and the methods of the company are defined clearly and are full defined in case of an attack on the network. Communication planning will be the most intricate part of the BCP process so that information is passed along to employees, damage can be assessed and that information can be passed along, and a recovery strategy can be implemented to get the network back up and running efficiently. Through the use of planning, testing, and exercising the communication procedures that are in place, a company can ensure the continuity and viability of business operations (Technical Response Planning, 2014). The four phases of a BCP will be the notification, verification, stabilization, and recovery stages and each must be completed, updated, and documented to allow quick recovery from an attack. In the notification phase the discovery of the incident has happened and the proper managers have been given the location of the potential impact, the details of what happened in the breach, and the timeline that the incident occurred as well as up to date contact information to allow the dissemination of current information. Also in the notification phase the initial communication procedures and equipment as well as an alternative communication format should be established to allow the company to continue working. The verification phase will consist of the contact information updated on a periodic basis to include the new people of the company via email or telephone. Stabilization will occur once the corrective actions such as initiating proper notification or the established course of action has been implemented. Planners will identify and procure the communication equipment to allow back up processes to allow work to continue during the crisis. And the recovery part of the BCP will begin once the affected area, personnel, company equipment, and the operational flow is all stabilized and running as expected. The communication portion of the recovery phase will consist of damage assessment reporting, interactions of all the personnel involved, and what actions were done to remove the disruptive element and to prevent that from happening again on the network (Technical Response Planning, 2014). Software Development Life Cycle (earlier steps) Operating Procedures The BCP will describe the normal operating procedures, standards, and practices for the operating systems for the company to include the critical systems that are on the network. Included in the standard operating procedures will be system fundamentals, operating system security, patching, and how to implement protections in the Windows 10 environment. Operating System Fundamentals in Windows 10 will control the management of the computer and all applications that are loaded onto the computer systems. The security procedures that will need to be implemented in the operating system will need to include defense against viruses, malware, DDoS, as well as passive and active monitoring of the data that is going across the network and coming from the machines. The main aspects of security for operating systems is the prevention of theft, integrity of data, and availability of resources. For security to ensure that these aspects are being handled, patching of software will need to occur. Patching is a piece of software that is designed to change the code of the operating system or application to make it more secure by fixing certain vulnerably in the software. An operating system is a suite of software with the job of managing the use of processes and resources on a network or computing device. The operating system is unique in that it will function with both the hardware and applications (software) of the system and the job of security is to protect the operating system from unauthorized access and use by attackers. Security breaches occur all of the time and most are caused by the end-user of the device unknowingly to them or others through the clicking of random hyperlinks in email or with deliberate intent. Operating systems can be secured with restricting the access to the operating system directly through the use of role based access control or similar restricted based access. Role based access control limits the ability for the end-user to access and use various resources that are present on the system. The advantages of using a role based access system is that the system is easy to set up and implement on the network with the ability for the company to group various resources and allow users to only have access to the resources that are needed by them. A disadvantage of using the role based access is the administration of implementing this system and will need to have documentation implemented strictly everyone in the company will need to adhere to the system (Carnaghan, 2015). Security Considerations for Wireless Network Wireless network security has a number of basic fundamentals that need to be understood when being deployed for use. Wireless networks will use two basic frequencies when being deployed: 2.4GHz and 5GHz and from a security point of view. Having two frequencies will not affect the risk to the network but will allow the attackers to block a specific frequency to force the device onto a different access point and this can become a security concern. Another wireless concept to understand is how networks identify themselves to devices and that is through the use of a service set identifier (SSID) via the access points through a broadcast. Security that is proven for wireless networks comes in the form of IEEE 802.11i WPA which uses shared keys to communicate between access points and clients before any kind of wireless connection is made to the network (Wilkins, 2011). Attackers are always looking to gain access to wireless networks via security loopholes like rogue access points. [Show More]

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