Globally, organizations have significantly embraced technology in performing numerous transactions. These organizations have decided to assume a cyber security program. It is highly essential to address the simple issues that threaten the integrity of information in an organization. Commonly, organizations often hesitate to address the basic concepts of security. The organizations seek out numerous approaches of handling threats that can attack their information. Initially, the organizations should develop an intense comprehension of the vulnerabilities that could exist in the system. Addressing the vulnerabilities of the system should be executed well in order to avoid any complications. Most of the organizations discover the intensity of system vulnerabilities when the situation is detrimental. Analyzing the system offers straightforward results. It is essential to comprehend the security standards needed to be addressed. In the society, computers have become extremely significant. These computers are effective in service such as online banking, stock trading, mutual fund management, and other online financial activities that grant access to accounts for the twenty four hours.
Technology facilitates a wide variety of activities such as social media networking. Interconnectivity has provided people with the opportunity to access a wide range of information. Moreover, organizations and business have gained the capability to employ internet in their daily transactions. In the organizations, activities such as human resource management, sales tracking, emails, and coordinated calendar systems are handled through the computer system. The computer system enables the businesses to perform their activities in real time. Still, the government also employs the computer system to manage certain services such as energy systems, coordinate emergency services, public transportation logistics, and water treatment facilities. Most of the services coordinated by the government are meant to benefit the public. The use of computer systems is highly common in the government, business, and personal sectors. These computer systems are interconnected and are highly prone to detrimental effects caused by malicious activities that are performed by hackers. Hackers access confidential information from the organizations for personal interests. Organizations have trade secrets that are stored in the internal file servers. Hackers access information by downloading it and sell it to the foreign competitors. Vending information to an organization’s competitor threatens its competitiveness. Information technology managers in the firms should highly manage data in order to maintain productivity and effectiveness. The system hackers use the vulnerabilities within the system to gain access to the organization’s data. Commonly, the hackers employ rogue instructions to exploit the computer system. The vulnerabilities that happen in the cyberspace can be caused by people, software, hardware, and connection points. They could provide access to the computer system, thus, causing detrimental effects to the organization. In the USA, certain organizations such as The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team have carried out high level outline of the cyberspace vulnerabilities for the computer systems.
During the outline, the companies detect vulnerabilities such as network access points, feebly configured firewalls, wireless access points, unsecured databases, and interconnected networks with feeble security. The information technology managers in an organization should initiate methods of assessing the networks for any vulnerability. It is also vital to estimate the potential of each of the vulnerabilities and the source of the threats. When initiating recommendations and documentation to counter the vulnerabilities, the IT managers should assess the motivation and actions of the threats to the computer system. The IT managers should assess the cyberspace in order to avoid damaging consequences of an exploited vulnerability. Hackers use different ways of security exploits to attack the cyberspace system. Activities such as fingerprinting, internet protocol address spoofing, sniffing, and buffer overflows are performed by the hackers to access data. In an organization, the human element, software, and hardware convene within a system that the hackers attack in order to take control. The IT managers should involve the security specialists to handle the vulnerabilities in order to disallow unauthorized access. The cyber space system should be regularly assessed to avoid threats and handle the vulnerabilities. IT managers should access information and gain broad knowledge on exploiting the vulnerabilities and countering the exploitations. There are software applications that could be used to counter activities such as sniffing. Certain tools such as Cain and Kerbsniff are employed by the hackers to eavesdrop on a network password swap in the Windows environment. Moreover, hackers can sniff information through the use of applications such as Snort, Wireshark, and Topdump. These applications enable the hackers scrutinize the traffic across a network. They analyze the information through the network in order to gain a clear picture of the organization’s data. Still, these applications can be useful to organization when debugging network problem. On the other hand, the hackers could use the fingerprinting process to invade information from the system. The fingerprinting process is partitioned into two different methods (Swan, 2012). A passive fingerprinting process involves hackers identifying a particular system without injecting packets into the cyberspace system. An active fingerprinting gets the hackers into employing tools to inject particular packets into the network in order to assess the system’s response. Foot printing is also a method of hacking into the cyberspace by accessing data concerning a certain network environment in order to develop ways of interfering with the cyberspace. Hackers use both fingerprinting and foot printing method to seek out accessible software and hardware services in a network. The information that is gathered through these methods offers actionable intelligence on the hardware that is vulnerable to basic hacking activities. The hackers map the simplest method of accessing data and reducing the risk of exposure. They employ a basic cost-benefit analysis in order to determine a vector of attack that is worth the risk. Microsoft offers online education citations that grant general guidance on counteracting the threats in the cyberspace. The Microsoft’s online documentation illustrates the method of filtering received packets that emerge from the internal IP address. The outgoing packets that emerge from a void local IP address should also be filtered. Through filtering, the information technology managers are highly capable of detecting threats within the network environment.
Information technology managers also have to handle IP spoofing which is one of malicious attacks by the hackers. There are numerous forms of IP spoofing that share a common denominator. Commonly, the hackers gain illegal access to the computer through introducing a malevolent message and making it appear like it originated from an authentic machine in the organization. The hackers spoof the IP address f the computer when sabotaging the cyberspace. There are various attacks performed by the hackers through spoofing such as Nonblind spoofing, blind spoofing, Denial-of-service attack, and Man-in-the-middle attack. The hackers perform the Non-blind spoofing by being within the subnet. The hackers snivel out the current transmission and attack the sessions when viewing the sequence numbers. In blind spoofing, the hackers are usually blind on how the transmissions are taking place within the network. They perform this attack from outside the network environment. The hackers obtain the sequence numbers from the cyberspace and forge their identity by instilling information into the stream of packets. Through this process, the hackers do not require to authenticate themselves when the connection commences. When performing the Denial-of-service attacks, the hackers usually employ several hosts that send continuous streams of packets to the computer system. The continuous flow of information overwhelms the cyberspace and makes its use terminal. Nevertheless, the man-in-the-middle attack involves the interception of data during transmission. The hackers access the data that is being sent from an authorized user to the receiver. Both parties do not realize the interception during communication. In this situation, no one recognizes the interception of data except the hackers. The IT managers may not physically discern these attacks within the cyberspace.
In the history of technology, the buffer overflows are most common form of vulnerability. Basically, the buffer overflows have gained popularity because they can be performed tenuously and cause complete jeopardy of the target. Most of the services that are performed at the executive level in the organization are prone to buffer overflow. The hackers exploit the cyberspace by sending extra packets of data to the target during communication. They are fully aware that more information than is expected is being conveyed to the cyberspace. The superfluous data being handled distinctively by different users could either crash the system or be ignored. The cyberspace could be prone to this type of vulnerability making a particular service employ the extra data created by the hacker. The hacker could use the extra packets of data to run the executive-level cryptogram allowing him to control the cyberspace system. The IT managers should ensure that all the servers in the organization are patched to avoid vulnerability. Commonly, the human element is employed to manage the cyberspace system in the organizations. People grant physical access to the computer systems that are interconnected. Most of the activities involving the cyberspace are performed by human beings. It is the responsibility of the IT managers in the organization to perform activities such as setting the security procedures are well maintained and adhered to, positioning the internet protocols employed in web connections, developing temporary passwords to access vital data, and coding the back-end server integration. In the organization, there are certain activities performed by people that jeopardize the security of information. The employee could end an email and fail to patch a particular vulnerability. Moreover, certain employees access confidential financial information and send it to the highest bidder. The human element in an organization I highly vital in maintaining the authenticity of the cyberspace, but it is commonly overlooked. It is more significant than the network connection or the hardware in maintaining the security of the computer system. Today, most of the hackers are people working in an organization. Many people hold the assumption that hackers are solely outsiders who are not employed and exhibit poor social behavior. In the modern world, an individual that holds a white collar job in an organization could be the criminal accessing confidential data for personal interests. Therefore, the IT managers in an organization should also highly scrutinize the behavior of the employees. Ironically, some IT managers in an organization could aid in hacking information.
In many companies and businesses, the workers act as the greatest risk to the privacy of information. Several studies have illustrated that many people that are current or former workers in a particular firm hold skills of accessing the cyberspace system. They employ these skills to access confidential information from the system for personal interests. Some of the former employees attack the systems because they are in the criminal careers. Others hack the cyberspace system without any particular reason or for malicious purposes. They are just intrigued with snooping around the cyberspace system. Therefore, the IT managers should not only concentrate on countering external threats to the cyberspace, but also internal sources of threats. Globally, there have been many cases of hacking that involve aggressive attacks on the cyberspace system. In the USA, these publicized attacks have been taken as case studies for the information technology sector. The high rate of security breach information has become a reality and has turned out as advantage to the technology sector. It has become an advantage because the IT managers have exploited the opportunity to update the cyberspace system thus preventing future threats. They have intensified their knowledge on the uprising attack vectors. It is quite unfortunate that organizations and governments evade reporting invasions for fear of public scrutiny. They also avoid reporting invasions and exploitations for fear that their clients may flee and destroy their stoke price. It is common that many organizations fail to report security breaches for various reasons. It is evident that these companies ignore the security breaches and hide them from the law enforcement. Currently, the organizations are obliged to report intrusion cases because they could be prosecuted due to failure of publicly reporting invasions and exploitations of vital financial and personal data. The businesses and companies find it challenging to disclose security breaches because they do not provide any incentives in the market. The companies experience disincentives after disclosing the security breaches. Commonly, most of their clients abandon their services. The disclosure prosecutions have changed the norm of hiding the invasions and exploitations of sensitive data. The IT managers in the organizations should realize that publicizing their security breaches could save other companies from the attacks.
Sharing information among the companies regarding the cyberspace attacks could aid in curbing some of the invasions. The companies gain collective intelligence and the IT managers acquire information that could help in closing holes within the cyberspace. The companies could gain significant information through disclosure for handling certain vulnerabilities that could cause detrimental effects. In reference to the common attacks to the system, the IT managers should continually remain vigilant. Certain countermeasures are developed and are constantly updated as new threats emerge. The IT managers should employ countermeasures such as employing sturdy authentication, using encrypted data as passwords to store vital information, employing tamper-resistant protocols, validating network inputs, and updating the software and hardware. The IT managers could also enlighten the workers on the suitable security protocols. In the organization, a sturdy physical security could be developed to protect the sensitive devices and system access locations. The IT managers should determine the budget and other variables that should be invested on when implementing countermeasures that protect the cyberspace.
