Cybersecurityhttp://hdl.handle.net/10211.3/1598672024-03-28T17:40:58Z2024-03-28T17:40:58ZACME Managed Services Provider: Internal Cybersecurity InitiativeCarota, Cianhttp://hdl.handle.net/10211.3/2158772020-05-13T19:24:20Z2020-05-13T00:00:00ZACME Managed Services Provider: Internal Cybersecurity Initiative
Carota, Cian
My Semester in Residence project was conducted at ACME MSP in Escondido, CA. The company is an information technology managed services provider (IT MSP). The project was originally to be conducted for six months, from mid-October to mid-April. In mid-March, the project came to a sudden stop as the COVID-19 epidemic shutdown the Californian economy. As a direct result my position at ACME as a junior level IT technician was cut.
The goal of the project was to overhaul and expand the cybersecurity measures of the ACME organization in the wake of cyberattacks against other MSPs. A team of four technicians was assembled to conduct the project. Together we negotiated the project scope with the CEO, established the project roadmap, learned best practices, improved the local network, and crafted new official internal documents. I myself set up test environments, deployed new endpoint protections, launched a phishing awareness campaign, and performed maintenance on the facility security system.
The project was a resounding success. Over the course of five months many new cybersecurity changes were enacted. Negotiations with the CEO were highly effective. Our extensive preliminary planning payed off as we accomplished a large portion of our original objectives. Staff feedback throughout the process made it clear that we were an effective and reliable team. Many of the documents that resulted from our work were adopted as official company policies and procedures.
As a direct result of the team’s efforts, ACME MSP now has a significantly improved cybersecurity stance. Both the organization and its members have all benefited from our work. I recommend that the next step for ACME is a thorough internal review of the initiative to define its priorities for the next six months.
I have composed a thorough report of my experiences with the project. I am available to be contacted with any further questions for clarification on any of the content of this report.
2020-05-13T00:00:00ZHome Intrusion Detection SystemGhalebi, Afrahttp://hdl.handle.net/10211.3/2158642020-05-07T21:17:08Z2020-05-07T00:00:00ZHome Intrusion Detection System
Ghalebi, Afra
My project was to develop an Intrusion Detection System for home networks.
The goal of this Home Intrusion Detection System (IDS) is to provide network security in home and personal networks. The revolution of Internet of Things (IoT) has increased the number of connected devices for residential use. Unfortunately, there has not been a corresponding increase in defense mechanisms to address the vulnerabilities introduced by these IoT devices in the home or local networks. The Home Intrusion Detection System provides insight to the traffic in a home network. Typically, there are many devices connected to a single router and home network. These range from end-user devices such as computes, tablets and phones, to IoT devices such as televisions, thermostats, alarm systems, appliances and so on. The Home IDS will provide an additional layer of protection to find intruders and alert the homeowner by analyzing the home network traffic to identify potentially compromised or vulnerable devices.
The classic main line of defense in home networks has been antivirus applications installed on each personal computer. With the increase of connectivity with all the devices connected to the same internal network such as game consoles, security cameras to baby monitors, more attack surfaces have appeared. Current Intrusion Detection Systems in the industry are designed to be run by network professionals. The Home IDS application’s goal is to target a wider audience for everyday user. Future plans are to continue development based on user feedback and statistical data to develop an intelligent and dynamic growing set of rules to bring monitoring capabilities of the unnoticed traffic to the users. Bringing an intelligent set growing set of rules to target new and most common exploits from a wide variety of sources designed to penetrate a home network.
2020-05-07T00:00:00ZPatch Management and Information Security During a Global PandemicSnyder, Matthewhttp://hdl.handle.net/10211.3/2158282020-05-07T16:30:04Z2020-05-07T00:00:00ZPatch Management and Information Security During a Global Pandemic
Snyder, Matthew
My semester in residence was originally intended to be an in-person internship with California State University San Marcos in the Information Security department. While completing my internship, my primary objective was to create a security metrics program for the IITS department. My focus was going to be two repeatable and actionable areas, patch management and phishing. The plan was to conduct three rounds of interviews with the employees in charge of patch management for Linux and Windows servers, desktops, and Oracle. Following the interviews that material was going to be used to develop security metrics to help the campus determine if their security practices were effective.
After the first round of interviews I was informed the campus was closing and moving to the work from home model due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Once the decision was made to implement a very broad “work from home” model, the entire IT organization shifted to addressing the needs of the employees who would be working from home. Many of the systems which would be analyzed for my internship would be inactivated. This made my original scope obsolete due to being unable to perform my internship duties and the shifting landscape had adjusted the priorities of the IITS staff, understandably making my semester in residence project no longer a priority.
As with most people in the workforce in early March, I had to adapt. Given the times it seemed appropriate to shift my focus to something relevant to the current landscape, Covid-19. The Covid-19 pandemic has caused mass unemployment, an interruption in the global supply chain, and those of us who are fortunate enough to be able to continue to work have had to make some major changes to our day to day. With this change comes a myriad of security concerns. Even for security professionals, we must be more cognizant of the potential issues that come with a work-from-home environment. The truth is that the majority of people who are now forced to work from home are not aware of, or overly concerned with cyber security.
Cyber crime is on the rise, policies and standards that were once airtight have become more relaxed due to the necessity of business continuity, PII and other sensitive data that was once closely protected has become more difficult to protect, just to name a few examples. In this thesis I will dive into how cyber security has changed since this global pandemic has started. I have conducted interviews with information security professionals and employees who are not aware of cybersecurity practices and done an extensive amount of research on the internet. I will discuss the major issues that have arisen out of this once unthinkable predicament we are in and some possible solutions and workarounds that organizations have undertaken or theorized to this point.
2020-05-07T00:00:00ZNonprofits Cybersecurity PlanJousselin, Matthewhttp://hdl.handle.net/10211.3/2157932020-05-06T18:28:23Z2020-05-06T00:00:00ZNonprofits Cybersecurity Plan
Jousselin, Matthew
Company X focuses on providing support and training for individuals with developmental disabilities. The overall cybersecurity posture of the organization does not rank high on their funding priority list. As a rule of thumb, an organization should spend between 7% and 10% of its IT budget on security (Violino, 2019). Company X requires a considerable amount of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) to perform their services. This includes: parents’ address, clients’ Social Security Number, State Identification Number, medical insurance number, medical history, and bank account numbers. Clearly, this is a substantial amount of sensitive information. Such PII should and must be protected by HIPAA law. The cybersecurity resource burden falls hard on nonprofit organizations and cybercriminals have discovered the gold mine that is nonprofit data (Nimishakavi, 2017). Although cybercriminals are equally likely to target nonprofits and major companies, nonprofits struggle to meet the expense of providing adequate protection for the data they collect. In 2019, The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received a total of 467,361 complaints with reported losses exceeding $3.5 billion. The most prevalent crime types reported were Phishing/ Vishing/ Smishing/ Pharming, Non-Payment/Non-Delivery, Extortion, and Personal Data Breach (Gorham, 2019). What makes the issues more troubling is the fact that a considerable amount of that information can be stored on the managers’ and employees’ personal laptops and cell phone. This can increase the risk of a cyber-related events occurring. With that in mind, the purpose of this project is to create a security plan for Company X to protect such confidential information.
2020-05-06T00:00:00Z