Lecture 1

Overview of Cybersecurity and Information Assurance

Some of the key issues in cybersecurity and information assurance are identify access management, real-time activity monitoring, auditing, and vulnerability management. Cybersecurity security should support the mission on the organization, have explicit responsibilies, require a comprehensive and integrated approach, be periodically reassessed, and be constrained by societal factors.

Common threats:

• Errors and omissions
• Fraud and theft
• Employee sabotage
• Loss of physical and infrastructure support
• Malicious hackers
• Industrial espionage
• Malicious code
• Foreign government espionage
• Threats to personal privacy

Some controls for these threats:

Management Controls

• Policies - program policies, issue-specific and system-specific policies, cost considerations, interdependencies
• Program Management - structure of a computer security program, system-level computer security programs, interdependencies, cost considerations
• Risk Management - risk assessment, risk mitigation, uncertainty analysis, interdependcies, cost considerations
• Life Cycle Planning - benefetis of integrating security in the system life cycle planning, overview of the information security life cycle, computer security act issues for Federal systems
• Assurance - accreditation, planning, design and implementation, operational assurance

Operational Controls

• Personnel / User Issues - staffing, user administration
• Preparing for Contingencies and Disasters - Buiness Plan, BCP, DRP
• Incident Reporting and Handling - benefits of an incident handling capability, technical support for incident handling, incident response plans and procedures
• Security Awareness Training - behavior, accountability, awareness, training, education, implementation
• Security Considerations: Support and Operations - user support, software support, configuration management, backups, media controls, documentation, maintenance
• Physical and Environmental Security - physical access controls, fire safety factors, interception of data, mobile and portable systems, failure of supporting utilities, structural collapse, plumbing leaks

Technical Controls

• Identification and Authenication - identification, authenication, passwords, dual factor
• Logical Access Control - access criteria, access control policies
• Audit Trails - benefits, audit trails and logs, audit trail reviews
• Cryptography - basic cryptographic technologies, interdependencies