Please note the following:
• Solutions must be clear and presented in the order assigned. Please describe using at least 1 paragraph per question or section. Written answers should be concise, but sufficiently complete to answer the question. Graphics and diagrams are acceptable where needed. Your final solution for each problem must be easily identified.
• At the top of the first page, include: your name, your email address, and the assignment name.
• Homework must be submitted as a PDF (.pdf) file with the file name lastname_firstname_HW1.pdf.
• Submit your assignment in this same module.
• You will be given 2 weeks to complete the assignment.
• Please use citations where applicable.
Questions:
1. Find one real-world example of a cybersecurity attack that happened recently that violates the cybersecurity principles.
In your own words, state:
a) What was the specific phases? (e.g. chain of events)
b) Who was the adversary? (e.g. Hacker)
c) What was the external resources? (e.g. knowledge, access)
d) What was the capability? (e.g. Tools/Techniques, Vulnerability, Exploit)
e) What was the infrastructure? (e.g. IP, domain names, email)
f) Who was the victim? (e.g. org, person ,email, ip ,domain)
g) What was the result? (e.g. post-condition)
h) What mitigation strategy was used?
2. In your own words, describe the network control functions. E.g. Identify, Protect, Detect, Response and Recover. Give real-world examples of network security solutions for each function.
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Analysis of Blue leaks Cyber Attack
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Analysis of Blue leaks Cyber Attack
Cybersecurity threats are persistently on the rise with the increase in internet usage. Everyone is susceptible to an attack, be it individual, organization or government agency. In July 2020, the Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDOS) published 269GB of high profile and sensitive data from the police and law enforcement departments in the United States. However, the hackers of the data are the hacktivist group, the infamous Anonymous the attack has been duped Blue leaks. This is considered one of the largest hacks against the law enforcement agencies in America. The security breach occurred at the Netsential, a web development firm based in Texas, responsible for maintaining state law enforcement data (Jones, 2020). According to the national fusion center association, through its spokesperson, it confirmed that the data compromised was a compilation from August 1996 to June 2020. This being one of the most recent real-world cyber-attacks Blue leaks (June 2020).
The security breach resulted from an external threat through a legitimate user’s account that was compromised accessing the portal, thus interfering with the upload feature. They further introduced a jeopardized software that enabled the hackers to infiltrate into the Netsential database and access the information. The DDOSecrets published the data in a searchable format easily accessible by the public. They claimed that they disseminated the information publicly to ensure that it was received by the people that needed it the most (Jones, 2020).
Contents of the files
According to the Blue leak portals, the stolen data contents comprise over one million files. They include videos, emails, audio files, scanned documents from the federal bureau of statistics, police departments, etc. Additionally, sensitive personal information such as international bank account number (IBANs), addresses, names, and even phone numbers and images of suspects, notably ACH routing numbers. The stolen digital assets comprised 24 years of data from fusion centers, police guides and training manuals, and 200 police department contents. Additionally, FBI and police reports, guides bulletins were included amongst other Blue leaks (June 2020).
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Consequences of leak
The consequences of thee leaks will be two-sided. The anonymous group clams there main intention of leaking the data was to expose law enforcement and government activities. They wanted to expose police misconduct; however, the sensitive data is likely to intricate the livelihoods of victims. The hacking has been linked as a response to the recent nationwide protest against police profiling. However, the inadvertent consequences will be detrimental, including the possible murder of witnesses, direct attack and target of police officers involved in the cases and notably other innocent civilians. Blue leaks (June 2020). The lives of criminals who have been acquitted in the past and that wittiness under state protection by helping convict dangerous perpetrators are at stake. Additionally, this will affect law enforcement’s performance will be compromised, thus exposing the streets to street crime and violence.
Mitigation strategies
Following the ongoing distribution of this information online, mitigating the spread has been so challenging. However, allot pf social media platforms such as Twitter have banned groups distributing the information and any other links relating to Blue leaks data. Additionally, DDOSecrets account has been removed, and warning pages added on links with existing data contain the spread of the data. Additionally, reforms are underway to secure a safer means of storing sensitive and classified data, while many people are critiquing the use of third party contractors such as Netsential to safeguard sensitive data m. moreover, by reviewing security measures, ensuring regular updates on the systems is done to detect any anomalous activity (Heyszl, 2020).
Network cybersecurity
Network cybersecurity is imperative in protecting an organization from cybersecurity threats and attacks. An example of a prominent network framework, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) framework, works with organizations to enhance their ability to detect, prevent and respond to cyber-attacks and threats. It has five core functions. Herein are the functions in there different area framework (Jones, 2020)
Identify
It is imperative to understand an organizational setup to understand better the cybersecurity risks it is susceptible to, be it the data, asses or systems. To be able to comply with this provision, every player in an organization should understand the digital and physical assets and how they are integrated, their stipulated in role to understand the threats they are likely to face. Thus, policies will be enacted to mitigate these potential risks (Jones, 2020).
Protect
Every organization susceptible to cyber-attack must comply with this function. For essence, it is imperative to Montour and control assess of assets, create awareness of the appropriate measures to be undertaken to protect oneself and organization from a possible security breach, and technical know-how relating to the processes of data security, network configuration and system repairs procedures to enhance cyber resilience. This limits the possibility of a potential cyber-attacks (Jones, 2020).
Detect
Organizations must adopt appropriate measures to detect cybersecurity breaches promptly. By adopting an up to date monitoring solutions to detect anomalous happenings to enable early response. The organization must comply with this function by having up-to-date visibility on its network in readiness for any impending incidents, being well equipped with information to facilitate quick response (Jones, 2020).
Respond
In the event of a cyber-attack, an organization must be able to respond and mitigate the incident. Thus, having a response plan is critical. In addition, enhancing open communication with the participants to report any anomalous activity is essential to prompt a response. Regular review of response strategies, as well as the incorporation of recovery lessons, is important. The efficiency of response directly impacts the organizational recovery plans (Jones, 2020).
Recover
In the unlikely event of a cybersecurity attack, organization, effective measures need to be implemented to speed the recovery of services impaired due to the incident. Implementing a recovery strategy is a form of preparedness for impending attacks, which is not an organization’s anticipation. Furthermore, prioritizing the action plans of the system recovery sequence ensures that the organization is up and running in the shortest period possible (Jones, 2020).
Thus, implementing the NIST security framework helps an organization be ready to battle cyber threats or attacks. By complying with the functions facilitates the easy running of operations.
Conclusion
With the advent of technology, cybersecurity threats are continually on the rise. Hackers are becoming more innovative by the day, bypassing the security measures adopted to by individual, organization or government agencies to protect digital assets, the everyone internet user is susceptible to a cyber-attack; thus, safety measures ought to adopted to protect the individual, the organization, or government from these malicious attacks. Moreover, network security is essential as most hackers target the network system to cause a breach. Adopting the network cybersecurity framework, and complying with the provisions will help combat the rampant cases of cyber-attack upsurge globally.
References
Park, T., Kim, Y., Park, J., Suh, H., Hong, B., & Shin, S. (2016, May). QoSE: Quality of security a network security framework with distributed NFV. In 2016 IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
Heyszl, J., Miller, K., Unterstein, F., Schink, M., Wagner, A., Gieser, H., … & Kügler, D. (2020). Investigating Profiled Side-Channel Attacks Against the DES Key Schedule. IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems, 22-72
Jones, K., Nurse, J. R., & Li, S. (2020, June). Behind the Mask: A Computational Study of Anonymous’ Presence on Twitter. In Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (Vol. 14, pp. 327-338).
Blue leaks 22, June 2020 https://www.salon.com/2020/06/22/inside-blue-leaks-a-trove-of-hacked-police-documents-released-by-anonymous/
