Kudler Fine Foods IT Security Report and Presentation – Top Threats

Kudler Fine Foods IT Security Report and Presentation – Top Threats Team B has been commissioned to examine the Kudler Fine Foods’ (KFF), frequent shopper, Customer Loyalty Program that is currently in development. The team has also been asked to direct the system development team to ensure the system is established securely so that it properly protects company data and customer information throughout all stages of the system development process. In week 2, the team will examine the Customer Loyalty Program for vulnerabilities in different areas of the system. The study will define the possible threats that exist to the security of the organization’s and the customers’ data and information, the potential vulnerabilities each threat may exploit, and area of the system affected by the threats. Additionally, a summary of the most critical threats to Kudler’s Customer Loyalty Program will be provided. The following table presents the possible threats, the potential vulnerabilities each threat may exploit, and area of the system effected by the threats: Area of Systems
Threat
Potential Vulnerability

Networks
Unauthorized access
Unsecured equipment room
Confidentiality breach
E-mail that doesn’t employ scanning of messages
Denial of Service
Lack of inside firewall can lead to worm spread
Natural Disaster
Potential issues from lack of redundancy
Sniffing
Network infiltration via wireless access point
Workstations
Unauthorized access
Patches not current
Sniffing
Old software versions
Natural Disaster
Firewall not active
Servers
Unauthorized access
Patches not current
Sniffing
Old software versions
Natural Disaster
Firewall not active
Employees
Social Engineering
Training not current
Corruption
Unhappy
Malicious behavior
poor work ethic
Data
Corruption
Non secured
Deletion
Unencrypted data
Software
Corruption
Non-secured
Deletion
Software that does not employee authorized user access
Building
Tailgating
Front door that doesn’t have employee security guard
Unauthorized access
Compromised key card access
Of the possible threats to Kudler Fine Foods’ Customer Loyalty Program there are two critical threats discovered during our assessment that warrents Kudler’s immediate attention. The first of these threats is Social Engineering. Social Engineering according to Social-Engineer.org (2013), is “the act of influencing a person to accomplish goals that may or may not be in the ‘target’s’ best interest. This may include obtaining information, gaining access, or getting the target to take certain action.” The employees themselves are the area of the system affected by this threat. Social Engineering exploits their naivety. General lack of experience in recognizing this type of attack is a major reason for its success. Education on what Social Engineering is and how to recognize attacks coupled with company policies written, put into place, and enforced to prevent individuals from divulging or even having access to certain information no matter the scenario is the recommended course of action.
Next is Denial of Service. According to Conklin, White, Williams, Davis, and Cothren (2012), a Denial of Service (DoS) attack is an attack intended to disrupt a system or service from operating normally. The attacker will attempt, through means of crashing the system, closing out a logged on session, or overwhelming a machine with multiple requests that causes the machine to freeze up or as stated crash. Kudler’s Customer Loyalty Program information could be affected because the program that accesses customer information could be made unavailable by such a DoS attack.
This could cause events such as slow terminal responses, systems going offline while updating customer files, and causing system reboots to return to normal operation. This type of attack exploits the weakness of either not having a firewall running in the terminal or server background or a poorly set up firewall allowing too many network requests to be handled by the system. Kudler’s IT department should be aware of this and conduct a system check to ensure that the firewall allows requests from only internal or authorized external sources.
As requested by Kudler Fine Foods, Team B has conducted an examination of the Customer Loyalty Program concerning the possible threats and vulnerabilities to their system. A table presenting these threats and vulnerabilities as well as the areas of the system affected has been made available for review. In addition, a summary of the top two critical threats that must be addressed by Kudler Fine Foods has been provided.