What Is The Scope Of A Cyber Attack On The US Power Grid?

* Recommend other IT security policies that can help mitigate all known risks, threats, and

One of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) most important missions is protecting critical infrastructure. Assessing CI vulnerabilities is critical to strengthening their capabilities and ensuring resiliency. Since most of them are privately owned, the Department partners with the private sector in conducting voluntary, non-regulatory vulnerability assessments (“Critical Infrastructure”, 2015). According to Homeland Security (2015), vulnerability assessments are the foundation National Infrastructure Protection Plan (NIPP) which outlines how the government and the private sector work together to manage risks to achieve security and resiliency goals (“Critical Infrastructure”, 2015). Protecting America’s electrical power grid is especially complicated because all of the other CIs depend on the energy sector’s

As such, our company’s people resources pose the greatest risk for security breach. Our way to help mitigate risk in this area is to keep communication lines open in this area and to continually mandate security knowledge training, with mandatory updates on a regular basis. When the employees are informed of company policy when facing a security matter, they are better equipped to act in the best or right way. In this way knowledge is power – or at least empowerment to act in the best interest of the company’s information security.

On March 31, 2016, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) started a nationwide campaign to warn against the dangers faced by the U.S. utilities against the cyberattacks. According to DHS, there were an estimated 331 hacks or physical attacks against the U.S. power grid from 2011 to 2014. As of February 2016, they are occurring at a rate of once every 4 days. “A major cyberattack on the U.S. electric grid could cause over $1 trillion in economic damage, estimates ThreatTrackSecurity.com.” (MacDonald, 2016, pg. 2).

The Initial phase in cyberattack is reconnaissance. In reconnaissance phase, attackers gather information about target’s vulnerabilities which can be exploited further.

Based on the previous design and development of the security awareness program for Advanced Topologies Inc, ATI it is needful to include in a matrix the security topics with the associated awareness materials by target audience in describing how when and with what frequency it will be delivered. The following matrix displays the above details.

The United States is under attack. To be exact, the nation’s power grid is under attack in the form of cyber warfare. On May 21st, 2013 Congressmen Edward J. Markey and Henry A Waxman published a report that provided the findings from information that they had requested from over 150 utility companies (of which 60% responded). More than a dozen utilities reported “daily, constant, or frequent attempted cyber-attacks” (Markey & Waxman) with one utility reporting that they have about 10,000 attempted attacks per month!

This sector is an integral component to your nation’s economy, operations of all businesses, as well as public and government organizations. In addition, this sector is mainly operated by the private sector (Critical Infrastructure Sectors, 2016). These reasons are why I feel this sector is most vulnerable for attack. With the majority of the sector ran by private companies and the critical nature of this sector makes it a prime area for attack. The chaos which would ensue due an attack on this sector could be devastating. With the loss of communication our nation could not function.

The damage of a full-fledged cyber attack would be devastating, the destruction would be unparalleled to any other tragedy that has occurred America. Since technology is responsible for providing America with vital entities and resources, an unadulterated cyber attack would nearly fail the American economy; this is what is known as critical systems failure. Weapons of mass destruction and cyber attacks present imminent threats of critical systems failure. Although currently Americas’ critical infrastructures are coordinated by controlled systems, majority of these systems are indeed connected to the American cyberspace. This exposes one of America’s most vulnerable spot amidst cyber security. Another major vulnerable spot within the nations IT security would be the geographical physical location for each of Americas primary infrastructures, as well as their productivity. Due to the proximal locations, the major infrastructures could very well be infiltrated by one efficient CNA.

Introduction: - for my research project, I would like to explore about the cyber security measures. Cybersecurity covers the fundamental concepts underlying the construction of secure systems from the hardware to the software to the human computer interface, with the use of cryptography to secure interactions. These concepts are easily augmented with hands-on exercises involving relevant tools and techniques. We have different types of computer related crimes, cybercrimes, computer related offenses, federal approaches defenses. The information resources management has the technical matters for which IT are widely known. Cyber resources and cyber power as well as cyber security. We have spent a lot of time talking about many different high level critical infrastructure protection concepts we have general rule stayed away from cyber security explaining the ins and out of how the NIPP and NRF work together to ensure that we can live our daily live in relative comfort.

The Presidential Policy Directive (PPD) on Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience advances a national unity of effort to strengthen and maintain secure, functioning, and resilient critical infrastructure (The White House Office of the Press Secretary, February 2013). It is imperative for every nation to develop a critical infrastructure protection plan that will provide the essential services to its society. To archive this, a government must be proactive and coordinate its efforts that will reinforce and maintain secure, functioning, and

Cyber security is a major concern for every department, business, and citizen of the United States because technology impacts every aspect of our daily lives. The more we use technology the more complacent, we get with the information that is stored within our cyber networks. The more complacent, we get, the more vulnerable we become to cyber-attacks because we fail to update the mechanisms that safeguard our information. Breaches to security networks are detrimental to personal, economic, and national security information. Many countries, like Russia, China, Israel, France, and the United Kingdom, now have the abilities and technology to launch cyber-attacks on the United States. In the last five years there have been several attacks on cyber systems to gain access to information maintained by major businesses and the United States Government. Cyber-attacks cause serious harm to the United States’ economy, community, and the safety, so we need to build stronger cyber security mechanisms. Based on my theoretical analysis, I recommend the following:

If the infrastructure of a network is exposed and accessible to anyone this leaves the network vulnerable to damage both

In 2007 Estonia was one of the most developed nations in Europe in terms of information and communication technology advancement. Estonia had a common practice of relying on the internet for business transactions. In the early weeks of spring, Estonia was hit by a series of politically motivated cyber-attacks. Numerous parties and organisation suffered different forms of denial of service. The main parties included the Estonian government agencies, schools, banks and Internet Service Providers. The motivation for the cyber attack was due to the fact that the Estonian government made the decision to move a Soviet memorial of World War II from its previous or initial location in central Tallinn to a military cemetery. This resulted to an outburst and riots in the Estonian streets, violence towards the Ambassador of Estonia, Russia implementing indirect economic sanctions and the most relevant, politically motivated cyber-attack against Estonia. The Estonian state wasn’t critically affected from the cyber attack of 2007, since to a high extend the state functions and objects of demanding information infrastructure were not interrupted. However, the world received a wake up call on the new and emerging threats of cyber attacks.

The connection between our company’s network security and end users is clear with data that has been reported. We should not only provide antivirus software, but create an education program emphasizing prevention, detection and adopting a “security” way of life. Everyone, at all levels, is responsible for our security.