Assignment Instructions
Read the Infosecurity magazine article “Using Information Security to Protect Critical National Infrastructure: Energy Sector is Hackers’ Biggest Target”, located at http://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/view/2310/using-information-security-to-protect-critical-national-infrastructure-energy-sector-is-hackers-biggest-target-/.
Write a two to four (2-4) page paper in which you:
- Explain in your own words the information security concerns that exist in protecting the United States’ national infrastructure.
- Describe why the author of the article says that oil and gas industries are prime targets for cyber criminals more than other infrastructures and state whether or not you agree and why.
- Conclude why there is a need to regulate SCADA and industrial control systems and why there is concern that this is not being dealt with appropriately.
- Use at least three (3) quality resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia and similar Websites do not qualify as quality resources.
Information Security and the National Infrastructure – Sample Paper
The author has revealed some information concerns about the security concerns that have led to the need for using information security for protection. The United States’ national infrastructure has suffered some attacks. According to the author, this was revealed by the senior executive. The attacks are eminently endangering the oil giant sector which is subjected to as many attacks as five hundred in one week. Another most evident concern is internal, attacks from within; the author has mentioned a threat from an insider who is alleged to have selfishly disabled a system that was best at detecting oil leakage (Stuart, 2011).This had a consequential effect of risking the southern California coastline.
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The author has also mentioned the frequent multiple challenges that are subjects due to accessing the information. This has been connected to the factors such as the size of the companies, especially when there is dual ownership of the companies such as the joint ventures, partnerships etc. there is therefore the need to always know who is accessing your data at any set given time.
The author has mentioned that this is very critical. Also, when the author says that cases of informational insecurity had gone much higher that the use of a simple password would not successfully work, as described by the author, ‘it was not an option’ calling for Vopak’s services especially the two factor authentication on the oil and gas industries (Jan et al,2013).
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The author says that the oil and gas company are the most subjects of attacks by the cyber criminals. Well, I don’t agree with the statement, I think being that the energy sector is the backbone to regional as well as international development, a threat to the energy sector would therefore be a consequential threat to the overall productivity of a region. Curbing the threat would therefore be given the utmost priority. Also, the attackers depending on their aim would target the oil and gas industries since they stand to gain much more when they do so to the oil and gas industries that any other industry. This is a belief. When the question was posted about which industry could be the biggest target, a great percentage of people said that oil and gas industry would be the most detrimental could it be attacked, this I agree, this however, does not have a meaning that it is the most attacked. The fear of it being attacked is the driving force towards coming up with security measures to be on the safe side. Some of the measures mentioned by the author are the authentication software- the two-factor authentication software that was regarded as the most essential solution could the attack venture.
I do think there is so much need for regulation of SCADA. The many forms of protection in the various industries are not all essential to the current and modern security requirements by the respective industries. Some of the SCADA systems come with more security risks, especially the integration of the SCADA systems with corporate business systems. Of the many systems of the SCADA, some systems have proven obsolete and therefore cannot successfully offer the required protection needed by the different industries (Michael and Herbert, 2011).
Regulation will therefore come up with the requirements needed to be met by the updated modern SCADA systems sot that the industries do not suffer loses subscribing to the obsolete SCADA systems.
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