CYBERWARFARE
Competency 4028.1.4: Cyberwarfare Actors and Threats – The graduate formulates appropriate strategies for dealing with current cyberwarfare actors and threats from a U.S.-centric viewpoint.
Competency 4028.1.5: The Future of Cyberwarfare – The graduate predicts the future role of cyberwarfare, taking into consideration the evolution of cyber-related capabilities, current threats, and emerging technologies.
Task 3: Mission Assurance
Introduction:
Using the scenarios provided in each task, you will compose each of the three components of a cyberwarfare defense report. The entire defense report should be written for the Department of Defense (DoD) Chief Information Officer (CIO). The defense report has been broken into three tasks; each task should be submitted independently for scoring. Your report should be formatted in Arial 12-point font and double spaced. For this task, you will write the mission assurance portion of the defense report, which should be 2–4 pages long.
Task 1: Cyberwarfare History and APT Profiling (suggested length of 6–9 pages)
Task 2: SCADA Network Evaluation and Defense-in-Depth Strategies (suggested length of 6–9 pages)
Task 3: Safeguards and Systems (suggested length of 2–4 pages)
Scenario:
You are a cybersecurity analyst on the security team at Red Cell 637 Defense, a DoD contractor specializing in cyber operations and defensive strategies.
High-ranking federal government officials informed your team that recent intelligence shows an advanced persistent threat (APT) is looking at exploiting supply chain vulnerabilities against the computers that operate the Western Interconnection power grid. You are to assume that this APT originates from either a well-funded nation state or terrorist group. The APT has been able to probe and map the network over the course of several months. The officials have given your team access to classified intelligence indicating that the currently unidentified group may be planning to install malicious malware within the grid’s computer network that will disrupt power to eleven states.
Your team has been asked to work closely with the DoD, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and other federal stakeholders to strengthen the security and safety of the power grid and its related computer information systems.
The DoD regards mission assurance as the ability to provide continuous operations despite attacks, system failures, or other disruptions. Mission assurance is a vital part of maintaining critical infrastructure protection. The final component of your plan is to develop protection and detection recommendations to secure against future cyber threats to the critical infrastructure services of the Western Interconnection power grid. You will need to clearly explain the safeguards you have selected, providing explicit detail (e.g., graphics, references) to ensure your recommendations are clear. You will explain how applying these safeguards considers the future role of cyberwarfare.
Requirements:
Your submission must be your original work. No more than a combined total of 30% of the submission and no more than a 10% match to any one individual source can be directly quoted or closely paraphrased from sources, even if cited correctly. Use the Turnitin Originality Report available in Taskstream as a guide for this measure of originality.
You must use the rubric to direct the creation of your submission because it provides detailed criteria that will be used to evaluate your work. Each requirement below may be evaluated by more than one rubric aspect. The rubric aspect titles may contain hyperlinks to relevant portions of the course.
A. Recommend specific safeguards to protect the delivery of critical infrastructure services at the Western Interconnection power grid. Be sure to explain how these recommended safeguards will protect the critical infrastructure services.
B. Describe how each safeguard you recommended would need to change over time with the evolution of cyber-related capabilities, changing threats, and emerging technologies.
C. Recommend functions or systems that would enable the timely detection of cybersecurity threats. Be sure to explain how each function or system would detect cybersecurity threats.
D. Describe how each function or system you recommended would need to change over time with the evolution of cyber-related capabilities, changing threats, and emerging technologies.
E. Acknowledge sources, using APA-formatted in-text citations and references, for content that is quoted, paraphrased, or summarized.
CYBERWARFARE (C688) – Task 3
Competency 4028.1.4: Cyberwarfare Actors and Threats -The graduate formulates appropriate strategies for dealing with current cyberwarfare actors and threats from a U.S.-centric viewpoint.,
Competency 4028.1.5: The Future of Cyberwarfare -The graduate predicts the future role of cyberwarfare, taking into consideration the evolution of cyber-related capabilities, current threats, and emerging technologies.
________________________________________
Introduction:,
Using the scenarios provided in each task, you will compose each of the three components of a cyberwarfare defense report. Your report should be formatted in Arial 12-point font and double spaced. The entire defense report should be written for the Department of Defense (DoD) Chief Information Officer (CIO). The defense report has been broken into three tasks; each task should be submitted independently for scoring.
Scenario:
You are a cybersecurity analyst on the security team at Red Cell 637 Defense, a DoD contractor specializing in cyber operations and defensive strategies.
High-ranking federal government officials informed your team that recent intelligence shows an advanced persistent threat (APT) is looking at exploiting supply chain vulnerabilities against the computers that operate the Western Interconnection power grid. You are to assume that this APT originates from either a well-funded nation state or terrorist group. The APT has been able to probe and map the network over the course of several months. The officials have given your team access to classified intelligence indicating that the currently unidentified group may be planning to install malicious malware within the grid’s computer network that will disrupt power to eleven states.
Your team has been asked to work closely with the DoD, Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and other federal stakeholders to strengthen the security and safety of the power grid and its related computer information systems.
The DoD regards mission assurance as the ability to provide continuous operations despite attacks, system failures, or other disruptions. Mission assurance is a vital part of maintaining critical infrastructure protection. The final component of your plan is to develop protection and detection recommendations to secure against future cyber threats to the critical infrastructure services of the Western Interconnection power grid. You will need to clearly explain the safeguards you have selected, providing explicit detail (e.g., graphics, references) to ensure your recommendations are clear. You will explain how applying these safeguards considers the future role of cyberwarfare.
Requirements:
Your submission must be your original work. No more than a combined total of 30% of the submission and no more than a 10% match to any one individual source can be directly quoted or closely paraphrased from sources, even if cited correctly. Use the Turnitin Originality Report available in Taskstream as a guide for this measure of originality.
You must use the rubric to direct the creation of your submission because it provides detailed criteria that will be used to evaluate your work. Each requirement below may be evaluated by more than one rubric aspect. The rubric aspect titles may contain hyperlinks to relevant portions of the course.
A. Recommend specific safeguards to protect the delivery of critical infrastructure services at the Western Interconnection power grid. Be sure to explain how these recommended safeguards will protect the critical infrastructure services.Use NIST SP 800-82.
B. Describe how each safeguard you recommended would need to change over time with the evolution of cyber-related capabilities, changing threats, and emerging technologies.
C. Recommend functions or systems that would enable the timely detection of cybersecurity threats. Be sure to explain how each function or system would detect cybersecurity threats.
• A supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system performs the following major functions: Human-machine interface (HMI), Electrical communication, Data acquisition (DAQ), Monitoring, Control, Data collection, storage and retrieval Calculation, Report Generation.
D. Describe how each function or system you recommended would need to change over time with the evolution of cyber-related capabilities, changing threats, and emerging technologies.
E. Acknowledge sources, using APA-formatted in-text citations and references, for content that is quoted, paraphrased, or summarized.
• Refer to Chapter 9 – Defense-in-Depth Strategies
• Refer to Chapter 11 – Defending Endpoints
• Refer to Chapter 15 – Pandora’s Box: The Future of Cyberwarfare
• http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-82/SP800-82-final.pdf
• https://www.cpni.gov.uk/advice/cyber/Security-for-Industrial-Control-Systems/
• https://www.cpni.gov.uk/Documents/Publications/2015/12-May-2015-3.%20Manage%20ICS%20Lifecycle%20Final%20v1.0.pdf
•
BWP2 Task 3 (0116)
value: 1.00 value: 2.00 value: 3.00 Score/Level
Articulation of Response (clarity, organization, mechanics) Responses are unstructured or disjointed. Vocabulary and tone are unprofessional or distract from the topic. Responses contain pervasive errors in mechanics, usage, or grammar. Responses are poorly organized or difficult to follow. Terminology is misused or ineffective. Responses contain errors in mechanics, usage, or grammar that cause confusion. Responses are organized and focus on the main ideas presented in the assessment. Word choice is pertinent and clearly conveys the intended meaning to the audience. Responses reflect attention to detail. Mechanics, usage, and grammar promote understanding and readability.
A. Recommended Safeguards Specific recommended safeguards are not provided, or the specific recommended safeguards do not protect the delivery of critical infrastructure services at the Western Interconnection power grid. The specific recommended safeguards protect the delivery of critical infrastructure services at the Western Interconnection power grid, but an explanation is not provided for how these recommended safeguards will protect the critical infrastructure services, or the information provided contains inaccuracies. The specific recommended safeguards protect the delivery of critical infrastructure services at the Western Interconnection power grid, and an explanation is provided for how these recommended safeguards will protect the critical infrastructure services.
B. Evolution of Safeguards A description is not provided, or the description does not contain changes that would be needed over time with the evolution of cyber-related capabilities, changing threats, and emerging technologies. The description contains changes that would be needed over time with the evolution of cyber-related capabilities, changing threats, and emerging technologies but does not address all safeguards, or the described changes are not plausible. The description contains plausible changes that would be needed over time for each safeguard with the evolution of cyber-related capabilities, changing threats, and emerging technologies.
C. Recommended Functions or Systems Recommended functions or systems are not provided, or the recommended functions or systems do not enable timely detection of cybersecurity threats. The recommended functions or systems would enable timely detection of cybersecurity threats, but the explanation is not provided for how each function or system would detect cybersecurity threats or contains inaccuracies. The recommended functions or systems would enable timely detection of cybersecurity threats, and an accurate explanation is provided for how each function or system would detect cybersecurity threats.
D. Evolution of Functions or Systems A description is not provided, or the description does not contain changes that would be needed over time with the evolution of cyber-related capabilities, changing threats, and emerging technologies. The description contains changes that would be needed over time with the evolution of cyber-related capabilities, changing threats, and emerging technologies but does not address allfunctions or systems, or the described changes are not plausible. The description contains plausible changes that would be needed over time for each function or system with the evolution of cyber-related capabilities, changing threats, and emerging technologies.
E. Sources The submission does not provide in-text citations and references according to APA style. The submission includes in-text citations and references but does not demonstrate a consistent application of APA style. The submission includes in-text citations and references and demonstrates a consistent application of APA style.
