Essay Cyber Security Departments

The Internet, as we all know, has rapidly spread around since its commercialization in the 1990s. It is evident that cybersecurity attacks are not going anywhere, and that government will continue to remain a target. In addition, the Internet of Things (IoT) growth will lead to more devices being connected to the networks. Therefore, with technology moving forward and hackers being more motivated as ever, the government finds itself struggling to keep up with effective cybersecurity measures and with filling up the designated positions in the Cybersecurity department.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is Incharge of shielding our country’s crucial infrastructure from physical and cyber dangers. Of the varied kinds of infrastructure, cyberspace is crucial constituting the information regarding the government and business operations, crisis management and readiness information, and our crucial digital and process control systems. Safeguarding these critical resources and infrastructure is

Sophisticated hackers have expanded their threat matrix to include cyber-attacks on the computer systems used to operate the world’s pipelines. Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (“SCADA”) systems are increasingly subject to targeted attacks. Cyber-attacks can be perpetrated over the Internet from anywhere in the world and are capable of disrupting safe pipeline operation causing spills, explosions, or fires. The 2008 explosion on the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline in Turkey was reportedly caused by a cyber-attack.

Moreover, many organizations within the public and private sector heavily relies on technology to carry out their day to day operations. Those cyber technologies help make many difficult or tedious tasks easier to do and technology can also carry out many of those tasks more effectively and efficiently than humans can. However, cyber technologies are at risk of espionage, cyber attacks, or other crimes such as theft and fraud (Ammori & Poellet, 2010).

The Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT ) is part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and their primary goal is “is to build a long-term common vision where effective risk management of control systems security can be realized through successful coordination efforts.” (ics-cert.us-cert.gov) When the Stuxnet threat was identified the ICS-CERT provided onsite incident response and used the NIST SP 800-61 incident response process during the Stuxnet attacks to mitigate the threat.

Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition System Network systems (SCADA), Distributed Control System (DCS) and Industrial Control Systems (ICS) are examples of controlling their Critical Infrastructure. Because once the hackers are able to gain access to the SCADA Network system and sabotage the system, then the Critical Infrastructure would lead to cyberwar and chaos.

1. An audit by Russ Jones’ office claimed 56% of government web applications viewed are not sufficiently protected. Mr Jones gave four recommendations to ensure government cyber security vulnerabilities are overseen (“B.C audit-general warns of cyber threats” 2014). Further, a new strain of computer malware has compromised roughly 700 credit cards in Canada. The viral code JackPOS has infected point-of-sales terminals identical to that which happened to the victims of Target and White Lodging hotel. 400 cards in Vancouver and 280 cards from Longueil were breached through remote access by hackers (“Hundreds of Canadian credit cards hacked by infected terminals, firm warns” 2014). Further, the Moscow-based Kaspersky lab along with Apple and other firms have shut down some of the cyber spying websites. This operation is subbed “The Mask” and has discovered that more countries are adopting the method of Internet spying (“Researcher

Today’s Government is faced with many challenges when it comes down to Information Assurance compliance. The Government is faced with the impossible task of unifying all systems and ensuring that they meet all the mission needs. So this paper will include an analysis of cybersecurity metrics as well a governmental policy framework. I will discuss some cybersecurity strategies, frameworks, workplace threats caused by modern day technology, and at least one governments strategic prospective as it relates to their methodology of what a cybersecurity policy should be.

The author establish her credibility by evaluating many sources and also being very knowledge able on the subject of cybersecurity and government affairs. Also the author cited all the sources she used with in the article to support his point. The author is a lecturer on strategic security management and political affairs, also has various degrees on foreign policies and computer security.

Our society's dependence on the Internet for public and private institutions in the critical sectors of government, defense, emergency services, public health, even the basics of food and water, put us at great risk of cyber terrorism. Telecommunications, transportation, banking, and the like are all conducted via the Internet and this dependence creates a frightening scenario.

The Federal Government needs to create information systems which are more effective shielded systems to protect their assets and resources at home. The foundation of any mandated cybersecurity strategies that secure our nation national security must incorporate worldwide or state local threats whether targeted toward the federal government or the private sector forces. The OPM breach highlighted the insufficient and inconsistence security approaches the federal government has already used in modernizing the existing cybersecurity policies. There is a requirement for the United States government to institute polices that would incorporate and implement new government cybersecurity structures and centralized the protection of their assets to avert future breaches (Source). Examining the inadequacies in the current national cybersecurity policies and regulations is disappointing as OPM choice to implement these mechanisms and the current authoritative propositions to cybersecurity must change immediately. It was reported that OPM only spent $2 million in 2015 to avert pernicious digital assaults, while the Department of Agriculture spent $39 million. The Department of Commerce, Department of Education, and Department of Labor likewise invested more money in cybersecurity resources than the Office of Personnel Management. The Small Business Administration devoted a similar amount into cybersecurity to recognizing, examining, and alleviate any cyber breaches as OPM, however

In the previous five years, cybersecurity has turned into the most looked for after calling around the world. More than 90 percent of respondents to an overview directed by the Ponemon Institute (2011) detailed being a casualty to cyberattacks amid the most recent year, costing all things considered more than $2 million for each association. This number keeps on ascending as the two programmers and security devices progress. As indicated by PwC, roughly 33% of all U.S. organizations are as of now utilizing digital protection (Lindros and Tittel, 2016).

Discovered in June of 2010, a computer worm called Stuxnet was designed to attack programmable-logic controllers or PLCs that are used to control switches and values in industries that operate a specific type of on Siemens PLC device using Step7 software running on a Windows operating system. The worm was successful because it was able to exploit a of four zero-day flaw of Windows operating system. Stuxnet

In today’s world technology has evolved to the point where a large amount of information is stored in cyberspace. It is because of this type of storage people around the world have an easier time at accessing information than ever before. The time before the late 20th century gathering information was long and tedious to get a book that the library did not own would take at least a couple of weeks depending on the time period or it may not have been possible to obtain that book. But now people can access a vast amount of information in a matter of minutes. Example, in modern times if someone wanted to know about a different culture they could simple look up the information on a computer or any device that had access to

A threat agent is the facilitator of an attack however; a threat is a constant danger to an asset.