Case Scenario The Business & Communication Insurance (B&C Insurance) began business as a private health insurer, established by Gary RT.L & family in 1965 through the Health Insurance Commission....

Case Scenario

The Business & Communication Insurance (B&C Insurance) began business as a private health insurer, established by Gary RT.L & family in 1965 through the Health Insurance Commission. This company was set up to compete with private "for-profit" funds. The company’s headquarters is located in New York and has offices in various other countries including Spain, Australia and Hong Kong. The CEO of the B&C Insurance recently received a ransom email from an unknown company claiming that they have access to the company strategic plans and personal details of 200,000 clients. A sample of personal details of 200 clients was included in the email as a ‘proof’.

Ransom emails are normally sent through unreliable external networks that are outside the company’s security boundary. The CEO consulted the senior management and they acted promptly to investigate and contain the threat with the aid of forensic computer specialists. The first step was to validate the threat. The management team found a discussion on a hacker site in the dark net that had personal information of 200,000 clients of B&C Insurance for sale. This also included the details of the 200 clients, provided in the ransom email as ‘proof’. The investigation also confirmed that the details of the 200 customers are genuine.

The senior management considered the need to identify threats and give practical guidance on how to manage the risks of identity fraud to be of utmost importance. Therefore, a team of consultants was appointed to prepare a series of reports to identify various threats and to develop cybersecurity crisis management plans in order to respond to potential threats/ risks of sophisticated hackers penetrating into the internal systems of the company and accessing client information.

As the cybersecurity specialist in the team, you have been asked to write a report to identify the threat types and key factors involved. In doing so, you are required to identify the most ‘at-risk’ components, create awareness among the staff of such high-risk components and how to manage them. In addition, this report is to help key stakeholders, including the executive managers, to make decisions on what course of actions must be undertaken to mitigate potential threats.

Task Summary

For this assessment, you are required to write a 2500 words mitigation plan for threat report based on knowledge you gained about threat types and key factors in Assessment 2. You are required to use the Assessment 2 case as context to write a report to address or alleviate problems faced by the business and to protect the customers. In doing so, you are required to demonstrate your ability to mitigate threat/risks identified in Assessment 2 through the strategy you recommend (STRIDE).

Context

Cybersecurity help organizations to mitigate threats/risks, reduce financial loss and safety violations, decrease unethical behaviour, improve customer satisfaction, and increase efficiency, as well as to maintain these improved results. Threats can be resolved by Risk Acceptance (doing nothing), Risk Transference (pass risk to an externality), Risk Avoidance (removing the feature/component that causes the risk) and Risk Mitigation (decrease the risk). This assessment gives you an opportunity to demonstrate your understanding of cybersecurity and your capability to explain Risk Mitigation strategies for such threats. Mitigations should be chosen according to the appropriate technology and resolution should be decided according to the risk level and cost of mitigation.

Task Instructions

1. Read the Assessment 2 Case Scenario again to understand the concepts discussed in the case.


2. Review your subject notes to establish the relevant area of investigation that applies to the case. Re- read any relevant readings that have been recommended in the case area in modules. Plan how you will structure your ideas for the mitigation plan for threat report.


3. The mitigation plan for threat report should address the following:

•Setting priorities for risks/threats

·Analyse the case in terms of identified risk categories and scenarios

• Apply standard mitigations


• Discuss specific resolutions for improvement, and justify their significance


• Provide recommendations for mitigating risk based on an assessment of risk appetite, risk

tolerance and current risk levels (Choose techniques to mitigate the threats)

• Make recommendations to the CEO on how to conduct risk management, key issues involving your process improvement model, including a road map, the identification of appropriate technologies

for the identified techniques, communicating the strategy, and a suggested timeline.

4. The report should consist of the following structure:

A title pagewith subject code and name, assignment title, student’s name, student number, and lecturer’s name.

The introductionthat will also serve as your statement of purpose for the report. This means that you will tell the reader what you are going to cover in mitigation plan report. You will need to inform the reader of:

a) Your area of research and its context (how to mitigate or manage threats) b) The key concepts you will be addressing
c) What the reader can expect to find in the body of the report

The body of the reportwill need to respond to the specific requirements of the case study. It is advised that you use the case study to assist you in structuring the report. Set priorities for identified threats from assessment 2, analyse the case in terms of identified risk categories and discuss specific resolutions and recommendations for improvements in the body of the report.

The conclusion(will summarise any findings or recommendations that the report puts forward regarding the concepts covered in the report.

5. Format of the report
The report should use font Arial or Calibri 11 point, be line spaced at 1.5 for ease of reading, and have page numbers on the bottom of each page. If diagrams or tables are used, due attention should be given to pagination to avoid loss of meaning and continuity by unnecessarily splitting information over two pages. Diagrams must carry the appropriate captioning.

6. Referencing