IT Security Risk assesment

1. Title
IT Security Risk Assessment
2. Introduction
You are employed with Government Security Consultants, a subsidiary of Largo Corporation. As a member of IT security consultant team, one of your responsibilities is to ensure the security of assets as well as provide a secure environment for customers, partners and employees. You and the team play a key role in defining, implementing and maintaining the IT security strategy in organizations.

A government agency called the Bureau of Research and Intelligence (BRI) is tasked with gathering and analyzing information to support U.S. diplomats.

In a series of New York Times articles, BRI was exposed as being the victim of several security breaches. As a follow up, the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) conducted a comprehensive review of the agency’s information security controls and identified numerous issues.

The head of the agency has contracted your company to conduct an IT security risk assessment on its operations. This risk assessment was determined to be necessary to address security gaps in the agency’s critical operational areas and to determine actions to close those gaps. It is also meant to ensure that the agency invests time and money in the right areas and does not waste resources. After conducting the assessment, you are to develop a final report that summarizes the findings and provides a set of recommendations. You are to convince the agency to implement your recommendations.

This learning activity focuses on IT security which is an overarching concern that involves practically all facets of an organization’s activities. You will learn about the key steps of preparing for and conducting a security risk assessment and how to present the findings to leaders and convince them into taking appropriate action.

Understanding security capabilities is basic to the core knowledge, skills, and abilities that IT personnel are expected to possess. Information security is a significant concern among every organization and it may spell success or failure of its mission. Effective IT professionals are expected to be up-to-date on trends in IT security, current threats and vulnerabilities, state-of-the-art security safeguards, and security policies and procedures. IT professionals must be able to communicate effectively (oral and written) to executive level management in a non-jargon, executive level manner that convincingly justifies the need to invest in IT security improvements. This learning demonstration is designed to strengthen these essential knowledge, skills, and abilities needed by IT professionals.

3. Steps to Completion
Your instructor will form the teams. Each member is expected to contribute to the team agreement which documents the members’ contact information and sets goals and expectations for the team.
1) Review the Setting and Situation
The primary mission of the Bureau of Research and Intelligence (BRI) is to provide multiple-source intelligence to American diplomats. It must ensure that intelligence activities are consistent with U.S. foreign policy and kept totally confidential. BRI has intelligence analysts who understand U.S. foreign policy concerns as well as the type of information needed by diplomats.
The agency is in a dynamic environment in which events affecting foreign policy occur every day. Also, technology is rapidly changing and therefore new types of security opportunities and threats are emerging which may impact the agency.
Due to Congressional budget restrictions, BRI is forced to be selective in the type of security measures that it will implement. Prioritization of proposed security programs and controls based on a sound risk assessment procedure is necessary for this environment.
The following incidents involving BRI’s systems occurred and reported in the New York Times and other media outlets:

• BRI’s network had been compromised by nation-state-sponsored attackers and that attacks are still continuing. It is believed that the attackers accessed the intelligence data used to support U.S. diplomats.

• The chief of the bureau used his personal e-mail system for both official business purposes and for his own individual use.

• A software defect in BRI’s human resource system – a web application – improperly allowed users to view the personal information of all BRI employees including social security numbers, birthdates, addresses, and bank account numbers (for direct deposit of their paychecks). After the breach, evidence was accidently destroyed so there was no determination of the cause of the incident or of its attackers.

• A teleworker brought home a laptop containing classified intelligence information. It was stolen during a burglary and never recovered.

• A disgruntled employee of a contractor for BRI disclosed classified documents through the media. He provided the media with, among other things, confidential correspondence between U.S. diplomats and the President that were very revealing.

• Malware had infected all of the computers in several foreign embassies causing public embarrassment, security risks for personnel and financial losses to individuals, businesses and government agencies including foreign entities.
These reports prompted the U.S. Government Accountability Office to conduct a comprehensive review of BRI’s information security posture. Using standards and guidance provided by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and other parties, they had the following findings:
Identification and Authentication Controls -Ashley
• Controls over the length of passwords for certain network infrastructure devices were set to less than eight characters.
• User account passwords had no expiration dates.
• Passwords are the sole means for authentication.
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Data Security-Morrello
• BRI does not use any type of data encryption for data-at-rest but protects data-in-transit using VPN.

• A division data manager can independently control all key aspects of the processing of confidential data collected through intelligence activities.

• One employee was able to derive classified information by “aggregating” unclassified databases.

• Hackers infiltrated transactional data located in a single repository and went ahead and corrupted it.

Physical Security-Morrello
Users even in restricted areas are allowed to use social media such as Facebook . The argument used is that is part of the public outreach efforts of the agency.

Users receive a 5-minute briefing on security as part of their orientation session that occurs typically on their first day of work . there is no other mention of security during the course of employment.