United States Federal cyber-attack policies

What is a cyber-attack?

Cyber-attacks are a form of cybercrime, at which point an external attacker attacks a computer system intending to steal, destroy, gain access, or compromise a computer system or a network of multiple computers. These attacks are often backed by the intention of stealing important data or to compromise the computer systems.

Cybersecurity of federal network policy

The federal executive branch operates Information Technology (IT) practices on behalf of the American citizens. The data secured inside its systems should be secured using all the resources of the United States. In case of any data breach, the secretary of homeland security in coordination with the director of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), director of national intelligence, and all other appropriate agency heads, shall identify the authorities and capabilities, that can be employed to assist the cybersecurity attempts to thwart the attacks, evaluate the security measures undertaken, and provide a detailed report to the president, which can be classified partly or fully. Within two hundred and forty days of issuing this order, the secretary of homeland defense should issue a preliminary report stating these efforts made by the department towards eliminating the effects of the attack, which should be made publicly available.

Within one year, the secretary shall submit a detailed report to the president (ORDER, 2017).

Handling the given cyber attack situation

In the given situation, the DHS needs to handle the situation from various tiers and through various dimensions (White, 2017). The legalities of the procedure should be followed up only after resolution against any possible suspected parties are attained. Suitable responses should be adopted, and more efficient security measures should be enforced. The DHS should be focused on solving the situation with appropriate response processes. The possible suspected networks must be isolated from others, and an attempt must be made to find out the source of the attack. This applies to both public and federal networks.

In the given case, a large scale cyber-attack is perpetrated by a foreign country. For this, system threats should be removed by hiring adequately trained professionals (Torten, Reaiche, & Boyle, 2018). under the authority of the secretary of defense and head of DHS. Also, the system should be scanned regularly, and networks should be monitored remotely to avoid such incidences in the future. Checks should be conducted in other departments as well, to ensure that they have implemented the necessary protocols. For the future, threat monitoring teams should be set up and trained appropriately so that any future instances can be avoided. If not, the firms should be instructed to adopt necessary safety protocols.

Different firms and organizations may have a different set of cyber protection laws, which might not be sufficient. To eliminate these problems, national-level cybersecurity standards must be implemented so that the isolated failures (and the security bottlenecks that come with it) can be avoided or, at the very least, can be minimized. Users all over the country should be made aware of these external threats by the federal departments by the use of publicly accessible domains such as official websites and information brochures.

 

 

 

 

References:

ORDER, E. (2017). Presidential executive order on strengthening the cybersecurity of federal networks and critical infrastructure.

Torten, R., Reaiche, C., & Boyle, S. (2018). The impact of security awarness on information technology professionals’ behavior. Computers & Security, 79, 68-79.

White, R. (2017). Homeland Security and Cybersecurity. J Socialomics, 6(202), 2167-0358.