Discussion 1

The problem of cyber-attacks across the world has disrupted many financial institutions’ usual functioning. The challenge of hacking credit card numbers and releasing them to the internet has led to enormous losses for the financial institution targeted. Below are some countermeasures strategies that an organization can implement to prevent future cyber-attacks. Employees must train on various cyber-security principles. In any given financial institution, the employees are the greatest asset but also the company’s weakest link when it comes to cyber-attacks (Shields, 2015). Institutions tend to roll out just one training session and think they are on the right side, but that’s not enough. Organizations need to consistently update their employees concerning the latest security vulnerabilities and show them how to deal with them. Education has always been and will remain critical in addressing issues of cyber-security.

Traditional security countermeasures do not prevent violations against the human element. It describes the current state of cybersecurity attacks, countermeasures, and protection tools related to daily activities online. It can participate in a protection process to identify attacks and to take measures in cybersecurity; because it provides taxonomy and a useful classification for cyberattacks. Most financial institutions continue to depend on outdated technologies to prevent cyber-attacks when criminals are using the latest technologies, making it difficult for institutions to defend themselves. Institutions need to be more anticipatory by taking advantage of new technologies also. They should use artificial intelligence (AI) to strengthen authentication methods (Shields, 2015). One example is using fingerprints to check digital wallet payments like Apple Pay or Google Pay. A combination of AI and Machine Learning (ML) should also be used to detect and avoid possible real-time phishing threats, one of the most common cyber-attacks on banks. Such techniques can detect and monitor a substantially higher number of phishing sources and respond much faster than humans. I also recommend the use of AI and ML for vulnerability management. The technology proactively identifies and neutralizes potential vulnerabilities in organizational information systems before hackers can exploit them (Amoroso, 2012).

Discussion 2

Cyber-attacks have become very common in many organizations today. In the present case, hackers launch a cyber-attack that severely impacts on the nation’s financial infrastructure. The hackers gain access to sensitive credit card processing facilities, releasing information to the internet. The ATM machines fail across the country, and large pension and mutual fund organizations experience computer interruptions. Several steps need to be taken to prevent such cyber-attacks from happening. First, the organizations linked to national infrastructure need to be proactive in developing and implementing a set of written security policies, standards and procedures that should be understood by all staff and contains defined roles and rules (MacKinnon et al., 2013). These policies should address the principle of proper IT governance and should focus on recognizable standards to assure all stakeholder parties.

The next countermeasure is education through providing employee training programs on the types of threat that can occur in these organizations as well as the responsive actions (MacKinnon et al., 2013). This also involves teaching the staff on proper operating procedures, incorporating strong passwords policy, and explaining the classic attack techniques that cannot be controlled by technical controls. Another countermeasure is to implement access control. These access controls are critical to protecting information security and can be implemented separately, giving access privileges to different levels of employees (MacKinnon et al., 2013). Access control for networks can be enforced by installing firewalls on computer networks to restrict and control traffic within the network to prevent intruders from accessing the protected networks. Another strategy to protect national infrastructure involves developing an organizational culture of security protections (Amoroso, 2012). All the organizations engaged in national infrastructure need to establish a culture of security protection. The culture needs to incorporate incentives for best practices and the consequences of negative behavior.

1.Evaluate one pro and con above proposed above discussions

Response Requirements:

1. Be 1 paragraphs in length for each Discussion

2. Your responses to above discussions must be more than a simple “Good job” or “I agree with your post”. They must also not just be “Let me add to your post…” Instead, your responses to each other should do three things:

1. Acknowledge the above discussions with some form of recognition.

2. Relate the discussions to something you have learned or are familiar with

3. Add to the conversation by asking additional questions about the discussion, or discussing the topic further.