project 1 operating systems vulnerabilities windows and linux
Operating Systems Vulnerabilities
Congratulations. You are the newly appointed lead cybersecurity engineer with your company in the oil and natural gas sector. This is a senior-level position.
You were hired two months ago based on your successful cybersecurity experience with a previous employer. Your technical knowledge of cybersecurity is solid. However, you have a lot to learn about this company’s culture, processes, and IT funding decisions, which are made by higher management.
You have recently come across numerous anomalies and incidents leading to security breaches. The incidents took place separately, and it has not been determined if they were caused by a single source or multiple related sources.
First, a month ago, a set of three corporate database servers crashed suddenly. Then, a week ago, anomalies were found in the configuration of certain server and router systems of your company. You immediately recognized that something with your IT resources was not right. You suspect that someone, or some group, has been regularly accessing your user account and conducting unauthorized configuration changes.
You meet with your leadership to discuss the vulnerabilities. They would like you to provide a security assessment report, or SAR, on the state of the operating systems within the organization.
You’re also tasked with creating a nonÂtechnical narrated presentation summarizing your thoughts. The organization uses multiple operating systems that are Microsoft-Âbased and LinuxÂ-based. You will have to understand these technologies for vulnerability scanning using the tools that work best for the systems in the corporate network.
You know that identity management will increase the security of the overall information systems infrastructure for the company. You also know that with a good identity management system, the security and productivity benefits will outweigh costs incurred. This is the argument you must make to the stakeholders.
the operating system (OS) of an information system contains the software that executes the critical functions of the information system. The OS manages the computer’s memory, processes, and all of its software and hardware. It allows different programs to run simultaneously and access the computer’s memory, central processing unit, and storage.
The OS coordinates all of these activities and ensures that sufficient resources are allocated. These are the fundamental processes of the information system, and if they are violated by a security breach or exploited vulnerability, that could have a significant impact on the organization.
Security for operating systems means protecting the OS components from attacks that could cause deletion, modification, or destruction of the operating system. Threats to an OS could include a breach of confidential information, unauthorized modification of data, or unauthorized destruction of data.
It is the job of the cybersecurity engineer to understand the operations and vulnerabilities of the OS (for any type of OS), and to provide mitigation, remediation, and defense against threats that would expose those vulnerabilities or attack the OS.
As you assess your company’s systems, you will likely uncover gaps and errors. These may reveal mistakes that people at the company have made which might embarrass or anger those involved. However, the trust placed in you means that you have a responsibility to report your findings fully and accurately so that you can reduce or eliminate the risk of future unauthorized access. So be fair and follow industry standards, but have the courage to be a force for positive change in your company’s cybersecurity efforts.
There are six steps that will help you create your final deliverables. The deliverables for this project are as follows:
- Security Assessment Report (SAR): This report should be a seven- to eight-page double-spaced Word document with citations in APA format. The page count does not include figures, diagrams, tables, or citations.
- Nontechnical presentation: This is a set of eight to 10 PowerPoint slides for upper management that summarizes your thoughts regarding the findings in your SAR.
- In a Word document, share your lab experience and provide screenshots to demonstrate that you performed the lab.
