Cis Assignment 2

By Author: Sherry Roberts
Total Articles: 81
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Threats to corporate cyber security that CSO’s should be aware of
Information security is very important in the day to day running of any business and that is why organizations should endeavor to protect their information as much as possible. However, cyber attacks are a concerned for many CSOs as it they are an escalating crime from time to time. To help thwart cyber attacks, companies should employ a solution that can proactively identify malicious applications and recognize the ones that are likely to erode privacy of user data and try to network access (SC Magazine.com, 2013). I will discuss in this paper, three cyber attacks that CSOs need to be aware of. They include espionage, sabotage/vandalism and social engineering.
Espionage
This is a covert and sometimes an illegal practice that of investigating a company’s information without its knowledge. Corporate espionage is a big threat to an organization whose livelihood relies on information (Robinson, 2003). The spies normal look for confidential information such as the client lists, supplier agreements, personal records, prototype plans for a new ...
... product and supplier agreements. The information if stolen can have a devastating financial effect on a company. A company list for instance can have usage by a competitor company or individual; that can then use it to start their own business thus adversely affecting profitability of the victim Company. Competitor companies can use individuals within a company to steal their trade secrets or can use outsiders to spy or hack into the company’s database and website and thus steal their information. To mitigate espionage, companies should encrypt sensitive and critical information about their data and to not store it in a network computer. Companies also should know their employees well and no new employee should have allowance of working on critical company in formation.
Vandalism
This is deliberate damage to the software, hardware and data of a company. Vandalism causes organizations or companies to lose access to vital resources. Even the minor damages to the parts of the company’s system can result in significant effect on the entire organization. The defacing of the website for example can erode the confidence of consumers thus dropping of sales and an organization’s net worth. Vandalism can range from the physical acts of destroying to the damage of software. Corporate networks have a challenge of many malware and viruses that intruders use to damage their software thus making the organizations to lose a lot of resources and funds in the process of recovery.
Social engineering
Is an attack to a corporate network whereby an employee deliberately tries to hack into the organization’s database perhaps to help a friend (The Windows club.com, 2015). That may lead to extraction of vital information from the database and the information may be usable by criminals to advance their attacks against a company. Many criminals have been interacting with and manipulating company employees’ to obtain sensitive data or perform acts that are latently harmful the companies. The information collected includes server names, machine names, passwords and even remote connection settings. They can also make someone to install into a machine, malicious software or make them to visit an unscrupulous website which can be dangerous. Company employees need thorough education on the vice and also to a little bit paranoid. They ought to be very vigilant so as not to give out vital information that should remain confidential.
References
Robinson, S. “Corporate espionage” (2003).
SC Magazine.com “Getting executives on board” (2014).
The Windows club.com “Cyber attacks-Definition, types, prevention” (2015).

Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at Melda Research in best research paper writing service. If you need a similar paper you can place your order for a custom research paper from affordable custom research papers services.