Case Study #1: Why should businesses invest in cybersecurity?

Case Scenario:

A client company has asked your cybersecurity consulting firm to provide it with a 2 to 3 page white paper which discusses the business need for investments in cybersecurity. The purpose of this white paper is to “fill in the gaps” in a business case that was already prepared by the company’s Chief Information Officer. The target audience for your paper is the company’s C-suite executives. These executives will be meeting later this month to discuss budget requests from department heads. The company has requested that your white paper use the same investment categories as are already in use for the CIO’s business case: people, processes, and technologies.  

Research:

1.       Read / Review the Week 1 readings.

2.       Find three or more additional sources which provide information about best practice recommendations for cybersecurity and other reasons why businesses should invest in people, processes, and technologies related to cybersecurity. These additional sources can include analyst reports (e.g. Gartner, Forrester, Price-Waterhouse, Booz-Allen) and/or news stories about recent attacks / threats, data breaches, cybercrime, cyber terrorism, etc.

Write:

Write a two to three page summary of your research. At a minimum, your summary must include the following:

1.       An introduction or overview of cybersecurity which provides definitions and addresses the business need for cybersecurity. This introduction should be suitable for an executive audience.

2.       A separate section which addresses ethical considerations which drive the business need for investments in cybersecurity.

3.       A review of best practices and recommendations which can be added to the existing business case to provide justification for cybersecurity-focused investments in the three investment categories identified by the company: people, processes, and technologies.

Your white paper should use standard terms and definitions for cybersecurity. See Course Content > Cybersecurity Concepts Review for recommended resources.

Submit For Grading & Discussion

1.       Submit your case study in MS Word format (.docx or .doc file) using the Case Study #1 Assignment in your assignment folder. (Attach the file.)

Formatting Instructions

1.       Use standard APA formatting for the MS Word document that you submit to your assignment folder. Formatting requirements and examples are found under Course Resources > APA Resources.

Throughout this course, you will be working on developing several components of the procedures manual and supporting documents, such as a brochure, a proposal to a potential project sponsor to develop the procedures manual, and PowerPoint training. Additional information and the deliverables for each Individual Project will be provided in the assignment description for this project.

In this Individual Project, you are asked to develop the outline of the sections that will be included in the procedures manual as well as a draft of a proposal to submit to both your instructor and a potential project sponsor. The other information you will include is a high-level description of the business process or set of procedures and the intended audience for the manual.

You will also be setting up the foundation of the procedures manual documentation outline that you will add to each week.

Project Selection

The step will be to build on your project from Unit 1. You will now start building on the sections of your manual.

• Nontrivial: The selected business process or set of procedures should reflect a real-life application.
• Domain knowledge: Students will be applying knowledge of this process or set of procedures to determine the contents of the manual.

Assignment

Your next task in this process will be to research and draft the details in the procedures section of your procedures manual. As you proceed through each project phase, you will add content to each section of the final document to gradually complete the final project deliverable.

The project deliverables are as follows:

The overall project deliverables are as follows:

• Update the procedures manual document title page with the new date and project name.
• Update previously completed sections based on instructor feedback.
• Complete the new content listed below, and copy it under the sections in the procedures manual document called “Procedures Manual Proposal” and “Procedures Manual Brochure.”
  • New content
    • Procedures manual proposal
      • Finalize your proposal to submit to the publisher.
      • Include a letter of explanation for the contents of the proposal to be submitted.
    • Procedures manual brochure
      • Prepare a brochure that is a trifold with 6 pages of content.
      • It should minimally include these components:
        • Graphics
        • Title
        • Overview of the contents in the procedures manual
        • Major procedures
        • Major benefits
        • Author information
• Be sure to update your table of contents before submitting your file.
• Name the document “yourname_ITDI373_IP2.doc.”

“IF and Charts” 

• Explain in your own words the power of the IF function in Excel, and indicate at least one (1) way in which a person could utilize this function in work or personal life. Provide a rationale for your response.
• Go to Microsoft’s Website and read the article titled “Create a chart”, located at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/create-a-chart-HA102809309.aspx. Next, express whether or not you believe Microsoft has made the process of creating charts easy for end users. Indicate whether or not you would have suggestions for improving the process, and where applicable, what those suggestions would be. If not, explain why you believe the process is sufficient as is. Note: Following the listed directions and testing adding a chart is suggested.

Chapter 5, Figure 5.1 is an illustration of the future state of practice of systems modeling and simulation.  With this mind, the adoption of recent, current and expected innovations could result in the future of the art of systems modeling.  From this illustration, we have learned that it would be possible to simultaneously use multiple hypotheses to achieve different goals that could include the search for deeper understanding and policy insights, experimentations in virtual laboratories, future oriented-explorations, robust policy design, and robustness testing under deep uncertainty.  

Q1: From the assessment by the authors, what are the main advantages of using multiple models? Briefly explain.

· Identify and name the advantages of using multiple models

· provide a clear narrative to support your responses.

Case Study 3: Security

A large, fast-food chain unveiled a new touch screen register for its franchises. Each cashier was assigned a user id and password combination to log in to the register. The system allowed the incorrect password to be entered four (4) times before the register would lock and require a manager to unlock it with a key card. To prevent unauthorized access, the registers would lock after three (3) minutes if the screen was not touched. When the register locked, only the cashier who was logged in prior to it locking could unlock it without a system restart. After a few days in operation, restaurant managers started complaining about the amount of time they were spending unlocking the registers. Some cashiers were forgetting their user Id and password, so other cashiers would log in for them. It also seemed that the button layout made it easy for the cashiers to key in the incorrect password. The managers also complained that cashiers would leave for a break or end their shift and forget to log out of the locked register. The managers would have to reboot the system, a three to five (3-5) minute process in order for the next cashier to log in. Additionally, managers noticed that grease was building up on the touch screens, making them less responsive. Write a five to eight (5-8) page paper in which you:  

1. Analyze the new system and determine the design issues with this new system.
2. Describe how you would correct the design issues with the system to make the restaurant managers happy.
3. Create a design plan that: 
   1. Lists and explains the tasks associated with improving this interface. 
   2. Contains at least six (6) tasks.
   3. Includes realistic time estimates for each task to be completed.
   4. Analyzes the development of the system in your plan.
   5. Analyzes the testing of the system in your plan.
   6. Analyzes the implementation of the system in your plan.  
4. Examine how this system balanced security and usability, and explain the challenges of incorporating system security and system usability into a design.
5. Suggest changes that could be made to the security of this system to still meet security objectives but make the system more usable.
6. Use Microsoft Visio or an open source alternative, Dia, to create a graphical representation of your proposed interface. Note: The graphically depicted solution is not included in the required page length.
7. Use at least three (3) quality resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia and similar Websites do not qualify as quality resources. 

Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:

• Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; citations and references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
• Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required assignment page length.
• Include charts or diagrams created in Excel, Visio, MS Project, or one of their equivalents such as Open Project, Dia, and OpenOffice. The completed diagrams/charts must be imported into the Word document before the paper is submitted.