Identify risks/threats and countermeasures in given scenarios - Essay Example

It is only the administrator and may be his assistant who has the password to the organization’s data. Considerations are made on the availability, confidentiality and integrity of the data. Regular change of passwords is required so as to ensure maximum security of the data. The change of passwords eliminates the likelihood of anybody cracking them. Encryption of the passwords serves to add to the security of the data (Mahmood 2014, p.105). Cloud storage promises high data availability and reduced infrastructure but, on the other hand, it poses a problem of security of the stored data.

This has made the adoption of cloud data storage quite slow among users. ABC Company has developed a data security system that uses password encryption. A single password protects an encrypted file, which stores a bunch of user passwords. This kind of password management involves quite a number of vulnerabilities and risks. For instance, the single password is only five alphabetic characters. In computer security, such a password is very weak and vulnerable to easy cracking by unauthorized persons who can gain access to all the other passwords.

A strong and secure password should comprise of alphabetic, numbers, and special characters, bringing to zero any chances of unauthorized access. A password should contain at least 10 bit entropy (Fischer-Hübner, Duquenoy, Hansen, Leenes, & Zhang 2011, p.135). Moreover, there is a need for a frequent change of passwords. The administrator of the ABC Company is currently changing the password once a month. This is not secure enough. Waiting for the whole month to change the password can create a room for other persons to guess the passwords and access the system.

Delegation of change of passwords to a colleague by the administrator is another risk posed to the security of ABC Company’s data. The colleague cannot always be trusted. The colleague can leak the password to other colleagues, leaving the system at stake. The