Cmgt 441 Homeland Security Research Paper

Homeland Security Today’s Attack Prevention: Effective for Businesses?
CMGT/441 Introduction to Information Systems Management

A cyber-attack is a deliberate exploitation of computer systems, technology-dependent enterprises, and networks (Janssen, n.d.). There are 11 potential security threats thought to be the top security threats for 2013; targeted attacks and cyber-espionage, hacktivism, nation-state-sponsored cyber-attacks, legal surveillance tools, clouds and malware, privacy threats, fake security certificates, ransomeware spreading globally, MAC OS malware, mobile malware, and vulnerabilities and exploits (Davis, 2013). Symantec’s 2013 Internet Security Threat report finds that there was a 42% increase in targeted attacks in 2012
The review results were positive with a suggestion for an improvement. The team found that RedSeal product provides the intelligence necessary to improve defenses, maintain continuous compliance and mitigate real-world risks by identifying the available paths of access and exposed vulnerabilities present across a network (Stephenson, 2012). The RedSeal solution is either a hardware appliance or software product and is architected for a fast and efficient means of implementing the system (Stephenson, 2012). The design will provide the most secure, scalable, and dependable deployment possible (Stephenson, 2012). Continuous monitoring focuses on correlating IT, network, and vulnerability feeds (Stephenson, 2012). The system identifies risk associated with the business’s security effectiveness as opposed to policy and compliance driven tools (Stephenson, 2012). RedSeal provides a large library of supported vendor products, allowing security and vulnerability data to be quickly and easily imported into the system. The system automatically builds network maps and correlates the map data with configuration and vulnerability data, which creates a threat reference library. RedSeal finds and eliminates gaps in businesses security controls and prioritizes the impact of those gaps. RedSeal is not an assessment or audit tool, but it does correlate risk to various controls for compliance regulations, creating reports that show gaps in deployed configurations/controls (Stephenson, 2012). The team would have liked to have seen more integration with governance, risk, and compliance solutions (Stephenson, 2012). The product only provided a piece of the risk picture. The piece is important, and one that a number of assessment and audit driven tools do not deliver and could leverage (Stephenson,