Cyber Strategies - Assignment Example

Cyber Essay-Strategies Introduction Strategy can be viewed as a careful plan or method for achieving a particular goal or purpose usually designed to realize long term objectives in a predefined course of a project. In broader perspective we can analyze strategy as the art and science of employing the political, psychological, military and or economic forces of a nation, a group and/or an organization to realize maximum support for or application of adopted policies; an adaptation to behavior or structure to serve an important function in achieving an evolutionary process. In our case, cyber, or cyberspace as it is commonly referred to, involves all the information structures available and accessible via the internet and beyond territorial boundaries that plays a role of social economic function of improving lifestyles and provision of opportunities. As part of increased connections and interdependence of economies; critical sectors and infrastructure, businesses and citizens of these economies depend on the reliable and functioning information and communication technology and the internet. With this in mind, strategies are required to supplement the national/ organizational information and technology policies; to enhance the smooth running of these policies and achieving the long run objectives of reliable, affordable and safe cyber space (Trauffler & Tschirky, 2012). In this paper shall evaluate strategies; similarities, differences, their strengths, weaknesses and the overall assessment of reliability of each strategy and its conformity with the changing technological advancements. It should be noted that malfunctioning information and technology [IT] products and components, the breakdown of information infrastructures and/or cyber-attacks may have a considerable impact on the administration, businesses and development of technology (Grunig & Kuhn, 2005). Availability of cyberspace, the need for integrity, authenticity and confidentiality of data and information in cyberspace are the main worries of major organization and economies thus the need to come up with strategies that will oversee these measures, and analyzing the cyberspace of economies like Germany and France, will necessitate our evaluation of the best and optimal strategies. Information Systems Defense and Security strategy versus Cloud Computing Strategy The two economies have adopted the information systems defense & security and the cloud computing strategies in a bid to strengthen cyber security of critical national infrastructures, to secure information and technology systems in their respective countries, strengthen the administration and the creation of national/ organizational cyber response centers in a bid to enhance effective crime control in cyberspace and the running of the daily activities of the government or organizations. Similarities Both strategies are formed/ adopted with an aim of maximizing opportunities with respect to limited resources; with an increase in state-sponsored and independent cyber threats, both governments and respective departments have seen the need to lead strong and secure presence in the cyberspace but constrained by the constrains of budget allocation and stricter financial oversights forcing them to acquire transformative ways to acquire, maintain and operate the information technology so as to achieve efficiency, effectiveness and security. Both Strategies are information and technology designed with which detection, alerts and response is convenient to the user. This rules out the duplicative, cumbersome and costly application silos to an end state/ organization; which is cost effective, agile and convenient as the environment of exchange is rapid and accommodative to changing missions or strategy at organization level. The strategies perpetuate scientific, technical, industrial and human capabilities in that in order to bar unintended intrusions and ensure security and operations advancement features, they are based on the mastery technology and knowhow in areas of cryptology and formal methods, and extensive research and development to catch up with technologically advanced nations/organizations (Jacobs, 2010). They are designed to protect/ secure the information and data of states/organizations and operators of critical infrastructure through robust authentication systems base, public- private partnerships and redefinitions of security components in terms of storage and accessibility. They also share aspects of communication to inform, educate, convince and creation of opportunities in that the security information systems relies on personal vigilance on choices and technical measures introduced by companies and actions of governments as well as the cloud computing strategy which assures the availability of technically modeled soft wares and applications to meet the functional need of access to information and implementation of these applications in problem solving such as the accounting and micro-enterprise soft wares. They also share the aspect of development in international collaborations in that the exchange of data and applications require a network of foreign partners to enhance the effective security agreements and incorporation of diversity in design and application as the case of cloud computing. Differences Cloud computing is more of enterprise-wide based strategy with capabilities and services that help eliminate unnecessary duplication whereas information systems defence and security strategy concentrates much on the security aspects of safety of applications, networks, the users, information and data of the respective organizations. The information systems defence and security strategy is subject to constant redesigns and consolidations to accommodate policy and process changes compared to cloud computing which can only be affected/ require redesigns in case of enterprises’ standards changes to enable interoperability across networks and data centers. Cloud computing’s operations are dependent on the majority of the information defense and security strategy actions as the most of the policies that govern it are to the benefits of the users of the cloud computing which are largely covered in the security strategy core actions such as cyber security, continuity and other policies. Information systems defence and security strategy largely pegged on the sovereignty and capabilities necessary for maintenance of strategic political, social and economic autonomy of a nation defined in the national agenda, whereas cloud computing concentrates much on the delivery of services and structure to drive the policy and processes necessary for transformation and transition of an enterprise. Strengths of information systems defence and security strategy It has achieved the objective of enabling France and Germany become world powers in cyberdefence in that the electronic and the technological advancements on the areas of cryptology within this strategy; which has curbed the wide-scale espionage operations by hackers and other malicious elements such that there is no access to information relating to sovereignty and classified national materials such as scientific, technological, financial and assets data of these economies’ strategic sectors. The success of the strategy has streamlined decision making through protection from defragmentation of military, scientific and economic information which allows freedom of collection and connection of the data sources as preservation of independent strategies are subject to mastering the cryptology (Amoroso, 2007). It has improved security in the cyberspace for both the governments and the citizens through the identification, anticipation and effective analysis of the crimes. Weaknesses of the information systems defence and security strategy The strategy fails to acknowledge the contribution of individuals in relation to control on what to be accessed privately and the much they may want to access or availed in the public domain especially to address the issues of transparency in the governments’ institutions. The strategy is also faced with multiple flaws in case the appropriate organs and departments are not abreast on the security threat trends and vulnerabilities thus putting the citizens and the government’s information and data at risk in cases of unforeseen attacks. Strengths of cloud computing strategy Cloud computing has led to improved assets utilization especially on these governments crucial sectors such as defence, planning and development. The incorporation of different customization of cloud technologies has aggregated demand and accelerated systems consolidation improving productivity in application development and management, network and end- user devices enabling convenience (Velte A. & Velte T.J, 2010). In areas of agility there is an improvement on response to urgency needs, increase of near- instantaneous applications and results, and the overall reductions in capacity intake. On the innovations perspectives, cloud computing has strengths in shifting focus from asset ownership to service management, increased opportunities by tapping into private innovations and encouragement of entrepreneurial culture and the overall ease to link to emerging technologies and operating systems (Sosinsky, 2011). It has also enhanced cyber security, increased mission or the set enterprise goal’s effectiveness and the overall reduction of costs of maintenance and operations as it maintains operational efficiencies. This has been achieved through the use of effective pricing models, leveraging on availability and mitigation of redundancy, enabling data to be captured, processed and stored almost simultaneously and its customization that allows creation and exploitation of massive large data sets. Weaknesses of cloud computing strategy The strategy fails to provide real time continuous handling, intrusion detection, and provision of diagnosis and response implementation procedures. In some cases, depending on the network and the tactical edge, it fails to deliver reliable and remote information to restricted tactical environments thus affecting convenience and eliminates the investments of underutilized and underperforming services. It fails to streamline the procedural mechanisms of incentivizing entrepreneurial innovations in the face of maintaining adequate services in monitoring and response. In funding acquisition and funding sustainment, if fails to define a framework on an acquisition and consumption of cloud services and ensuring data ownership and transportability from one cloud to another especially when dealing with the small scale individual or enterprises with weak investments (Tajts, 2012). Personally, I would choose the Information systems defence and security strategy as applied in France to have more success due to its tactical approach to solving the entire cyber problems. For instance, effective anticipation and analysis of environment approach will provide ample time for evaluation and incorporation of diversity in decision making so as to come up with the effective soft wares or applications. This will provide a room for consideration of user’s preferences and consultative analysis of available technical hitches and probable solutions. The provision of detection, blocking attacks, alerts and support of the potential victims serves further in critical analysis of the problems at hand, especially the cyber- attacks and crimes, and provides effective ground for further studies and /or research and development more so in the current era of scientific malice and intrusions (Giaglis & Kourouthanassis, 2008). Despite cyber security being the priority and/or the challenge that the first world and the economically emerging nations are facing, strategies and/or policies have failed to halt or diminish threats posed by cyber security due to lack of a flexible policy approach in that they fail to understand that internet community is a dynamic environment where technologies, usage and markets, evolve in unpredictable manner for the benefit of economic growth and innovations whereby threats are also in permanent evolution (Quigley, 2008). In addition, lack of information and lag in research and development, undermines the level of attention especially on the development of situational awareness and real time monitoring provisions in these strategies; failure to identify economic drivers and incentives such as data breach notification frameworks in the strategies and policies thus affecting the overall preparedness of tackling the ever emerging threats. Also, the economies lack capacity growth and development policies and strategies to support robust cyber security sector, they fail to constantly conduct cyber security exercises including across the boarders and development of digital identity frameworks. Institutionally, these economies lack both the legal and social framework to govern the activities in these sites and policies to govern on the issues of age and protection compromising on the vulnerability of these threats (Himma & Tavani, 2008). Conclusion Cyberspace as evident in the above discussion avails lots of opportunities to both the governments and the citizens ranging from educative, planning to decision making. With the scientific and innovative evolutions, cyberspace is a hub of social, economic, political, and ideological threats which necessitate effective and efficient strategies and/or policies so as to strengthen the objectives of the cyberspace. This can only be achieved by holistically evaluating and critically analyzing the human and phenomenal perspectives without any kind of bias. References Amoroso, E. G. Cyber security. Summit, NJ: Silicon Press., 2007. Grünig, R. and Kühn, R. Process-based strategic planning. Berlin: Springer.2005. Himma, K. E. and Tavani, H. T. The handbook of information and computer ethics. Hoboken, N.J: Wiley, 2008. Jacobs, M. C. The scientific revolution: A brief history with documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's., 2010. Kourouthanassis, P. E., & Giaglis, G. M. Pervasive information systems. Armonk, N.Y: M.E. Sharpe., 2008. Quigley, M. Encyclopedia of information ethics and security. Hershey [Pa.: Information Science Reference., 2008. Sosinsky, B. A. Cloud computing bible. Indianapolis, IN: Wiley., 2011. Tajts, T. Cloud computing security. Lexington, KY: Createspace., 2012 Trauffler, G.and Tschirky, H. Sustained innovation management: Assimilating radical and incremental innovation management. Basingstoke [England: Palgrave Macmillan in association with the European Institute for Technology and Innovation Management., 2012. Velte, A. T. and Velte, T. J. Cloud computing: A practical approach. New York: McGraw-Hill., 2010. Read More