Executive Proposal Project for Network Security Auditing

CMIT 321 Executive Proposal Project

The purpose of this project is to evaluate the student’s ability to research and evaluate security testing software and present a proposal for review by executive team members. By completing the document the student will also gain practical knowledge of the security evaluation documentation and proposal writing process. The project will enable the student to identify and understand the required standards in practice, as well as the details that should be covered within a proposal.

Project Deliverable 

• Using the Case Study presented in this document, to complete an executive proposal.


• Provide a three to five page proposal summarizing purpose and benefit of chosen security software to the executive management team.


• The student will evaluate and test security testing software for purposes of testing corporate network security. The purpose of the software is to measure the security posture of the organization by identifying vulnerabilities and help prevent future attacks and deter any real-time unknown threats.


• The proposal should effectively describe the software in a manner that will allow the executive team members to understand the purpose and benefits of the software to approve purchase.

Guidelines

• At least three authoritative, outside references are required (anonymous authors or web pages are not acceptable). These should be listed on the last page titled "References."


• Appropriate citations are required. See the syllabus regarding plagiarism policies.


• This will be graded on quality of research topic, quality of paper information, use of citations, grammar and sentence structure, and creativity.

Project Description

The purpose of project is to write an executive proposal for a fictitious company called Advanced Research. The goal of the proposal is to persuade the executive management team to approve purchase of security testing software that can benefit the company’s corporate network security by testing and identifying vulnerabilities before they are exploited by hackers. The proposal must include a detailed description of the software, its purpose and benefits.

Suggested Approach

1. Determine whether the tool would be beneficial in testing the security of a corporate network.


2. Use the vendor’s website to collect necessary information about the tool to be able to explain its purpose and benefit.


3. Include 3^rd party endorsements and case studies about the tool.


4.  

Company Description

Advanced Research Corporation

Advanced Research is a startup medical research and development company. After five years of extraordinary success in the development of innovative medical and pharmaceutical products, Advanced Research is on its way to becoming a major player in the medical research and development industry. However, due to its success, Advanced Research has also become a major target of cybercriminals. Advanced Research has been the victim of cybercriminal attempts to steal intellectual property and sell it to Advanced Research’s competitors. It is suspected that the corporate network has been infiltrated from unauthorized sources more than once. In 2011, Advanced Research was falsely accused of unethical research and development practices. The false allegations resulted in the defacement of Advanced Research’s public website and several Denial of Service attacks at different times over a 9 month period that brought the corporate network to its knees. These attacks had a major impact on Advanced Research’s ability to conduct business and resulted in undesirable publicity for the company. 

Regardless of its security problems, Advanced Research has continued to grow as a company. Its research and development departments have grown over the years, due to the expansion of the company, in proportion to the increase in its business making up over 40% of the human resources. Advanced Research’s innovative research and development information is paramount to its continued success as a company. Although, no known attacks have occurred in last 18 months, the security of its network and intellectual property is still a major concern for the company. Because Advanced Research is a still fairly young company, management has been hesitant to budget for expensive security projects. However, this point of view is beginning to change. Particularly, because one of Advanced Research’s competitors, a major player in the medical research and development industry for over 40 years, experienced a loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in research data that was stolen from its corporate network by cyber thieves.