02 Feb which functional area

Cybersecurity Risk Management COM512

Module 2

Case Scenario Yield More Task 1

Introduction:

In managing risks in an organization, professionals in the information technology (IT) department conduct research to identify threats, vulnerabilities, and threat/vulnerability pairs. Then, the IT professionals determine the likelihood of each threat occurring. The IT professionals present this information to IT management, whose role in risk management is to determine and recommend approaches to manage these risks. IT management then presents these recommendations to the senior management, whose role is to allocate resources, specifically money and employees, to prepare for and respond to identified threats and vulnerabilities appropriately.

This activity allows you to fulfill the role of IT professionals in a small business tasked with identifying threats, vulnerabilities, and threat/vulnerability pairs; estimating the likelihood of these threats occurring; and present this information to IT management.

Scenario:

YieldMore is a small agricultural company, which produces and sells fertilizer products. The company

headquarters is in a small town in Indiana. Outside its headquarters, there are two large production

facilities—one in Nebraska and other in Oklahoma. Furthermore, YieldMore employs salespersons in

every state in the U.S. to serve its customers locally.

The company has three servers located at its headquarters—Active Directory server, a Linux application

server, and an Oracle database server. The application server hosts YieldMore’s primary software

application, which is a proprietary program managing inventory, sales, supply-chain, and customer

information. The database server manages all data stored locally with direct attached storage.

All three major sites use Ethernet cabled local area networks (LANs) to connect the users Windows 7

workstations via industry standard managed switches.

The remote production facilities connect to headquarters via routers T-1 LAN connections provided by an

external Internet service provider (ISP), and share an Internet connection through a firewall at

headquarters.

Individual salespersons throughout the country connect to YieldMore’s network via virtual private network

(VPN) software through their individual Internet connections, typically in a home office.

Case Scenario: YieldMore

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Task 1:

You will be assigned to a team where you need to assume the roles of IT professionals assigned by

YieldMore’s IT management to conduct the following risk management tasks:

1. Some of the possible roles that could be fulfilled by the team members are: server manager,

network manager, database manager, and security manager. You as a team have to decide for

which functional area each of you will be responsible and who will be the team leader.

2. Identify threats to the seven domains of IT within the organization.

3. Identify vulnerabilities in the seven domains of IT within the organization.

4. Identify threat/vulnerability pairs to determine threat actions that could pose risks to the

organization.

5. Estimate the likelihood of each threat action.

6. Prepare a report of your findings for IT management to review