Culminating Assignment

Concept Paper:   Red Team Assessment Strategies in Cybersecurity

Directions:

1.  Read the scenario, access the resources, and review the rubric below to help you understand the assignment.  The final paper will be due in Week 7.  You should begin working on the assignment right away, and you will share your progress in Week 6.  

2.  Write a paper that follows the listed parameters, addresses the important concepts, and includes the required sections:

Parameters:  

• Ranges from 4 – 5 double-spaced pages and use IEEE formatting style. 
• Uses Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides.
• Includes at least three (3) quality resources to support your ideas.  You may use the resources provided and/or others of your choosing.  They must be cited appropriately.

Important Concepts:

• Compare and contrast red teaming versus penetration testing based on the presented case.
• Describe the approach to red team assessment.
• Discuss how different types of organizations are utilizing red teaming.

Required Sections:

• Title 
• Introduction:  Clear description of the topic, including a summary of what is already known about that topic.
• Body:  
  • Address important concepts.  
  • What evidence do you have to support your topic?  
• Conclusion:  Why is it important to study this topic? Why is this worth investigating further?
• Reference Page:  IEEE style

3.  Your paper should enable a casual reader to understand this topic and its importance.  Please make sure the following outcomes are addressed within your paper:

• Explain the common tools and tactics used in red teaming.
• Use technology and information resources to research the evolution of red team assessment techniques.

Due:  In week 7 with the specific date posted in Blackboard.  You will be directed to complete and share parts of this assignment in Week 6.  

Scenario:  A large multinational fintech wanted to conduct a Red Team Assessment to evaluate its ability to detect and respond to a real-world cybersecurity attack.

The read team started their assessment by sending a phishing email that persuaded the victim to log in to a fake portal hosted on a server to obtain valid credentials. While a small number of users clicked on the malicious link sent in the email, none of them submitted their credentials. This could be attributed to the regular social engineering tests and security awareness training delivered to staff.

After the failed phishing campaign, the team went back to the drawing board to come up with a new plan of attack.  Reviewing the company’s Twitter account, the team discovered that they host a monthly community event at one of their buildings. The team registered for the event to deploy a purpose-built device into their internal network. The device will allow the team to gain remote access to the network using either an independent wireless connection or a 3G/4G mobile connection.

Two members of the red team attended the event. They managed to slip away from the main event to see if there were any unlocked offices or conference rooms. Once a room had been found. One team member acted as a lookout while the other plugged the device and checked that he could reach it from his mobile phone. Shortly afterward the testers left the event and joined the rest of the team in a coffee shop down the road.  Once connected to the network, the team started mapping the internal network and gathering additional information. Over the next couple of days, the team captured several password hashes, which were achieved by exploiting a weakness in Windows’ broadcast protocols. However, users appeared to be using strong complex passwords and it was not possible to crack the hashes to recover clear-text passwords. The team then decided to relay a captured hash belonging to a user and use it to log in into a workstation where they had local administrative privileges. This allowed them to extract the clear-text password of the currently logged-in users from memory.

Resources to help you complete this assignment:

• Red Team Exercise. (2019, September 25). Retrieved July 11, 2021, from Sisainfosec.com website: https://www.sisainfosec.com/services/red-team-exercise/ 
• (N.d.). Retrieved July 11, 2021, from Varonis.com website: https://www.varonis.com/blog/red-teaming/ 
• Wood, B. J., & Duggan, R. A. (2002). Red Teaming of advanced information assurance concepts. Proceedings DARPA Information Survivability Conference and Exposition. DISCEX’00. IEEE Comput. Soc.

Rubric:

Points: 

Assignment: Red Team Assessment Strategies in Cybersecurity

Criteria

Needs Improvement

Below 60-70 F

Fair

70-79 C

Proficient

80-89 B

Exemplary

90-100 A

1. Compare and contrast red teaming versus penetration testing based on the presented case. Met outcomes.

Weight: 25%

Did not submit or incompletely compared and contrasted red teaming versus penetration testing based on the presented case.  Did not meet outcomes.

Partially compared and contrasted red teaming versus penetration testing based on the presented case.  Partially met outcomes.

Satisfactorily compared and contrasted red teaming versus penetration testing based on the presented case.  Met outcomes.

Thoroughly compared and contrasted red teaming versus penetration testing based on the presented case. Exceeded outcomes.

2. Describe the approach to red team assessment.

Weight: 30%

Did not submit or incompletely described the approach to red team assessment.

Partially described the approach to red team assessment.

Satisfactorily described the approach to red team assessment.

Thoroughly described the approach to red team assessment.

3. Discuss how different types of organizations are utilizing red teaming.

Weight: 30%

Did not submit or incompletely discussed how different types of organizations are utilizing red teaming.

Partially discussed how different types of organizations are utilizing red teaming.

Satisfactorily discussed how different types of organizations are utilizing red teaming.

Thoroughly discussed how different types of organizations are utilizing red teaming.

5. 3 References

Weight: 5%

No references were provided.

Does not meet the required number of references; some or all references poor quality choices.

Meets the number of required references; all references high-quality choices.

Exceeds the number of required references; all references high-quality choices.

6. Clarity, writing mechanics,  formatting.

Weight: 10%

More than 6 errors present

Q1. Read Chapter 9 in the textbook: Cluster Analysis

Textbook: Tan, Pang-Ning. Introduction to Data Mining

1. What are the characteristics of anomaly detection? 
2. What are the detection problems and methods?
3. What are the statistical approaches when there is an anomaly found?
4. Compare and contrast proximity and clustering based approaches.

Follow APA7 guidelines and answer in Q&A format.  There should be headings to each of the questions and include an introduction and conclusion.  Ensure there are at least two-peer reviewed sources to support your work. The paper should be at least 2-3 pages of content (this does not include the cover page or reference page).

Q2. Read ch. 8 in the textbook: Annotation

Textbook: Kirk, Andy.  Data Visualization: A Handbook for Data Driven Design

Select any example of a visualization or infographic. The task is to undertake a deep, detailed ‘forensic’ like assessment of the design choices made across each of the five layers of the chosen visualization’s anatomy. In each case your assessment is only concerned with one design layer at a time. For this task, take a close look at the annotation choices:

1. Start by identifying all the annotation features deployed, listing them under the headers of either project or chart annotation.
2. How suitable are the choices and deployment of these annotation features? If they are not, what do you think they should have been?
3. Go through the set of ‘Influencing factors’ from the latter section of the book’s chapter to help shape your assessment and to possibly inform how you might tackle this design layer differently.
4. Also, considering the range of potential annotation features, what would you do differently or additionally?

Be sure to show the visualization first and then thoroughly answer the above questions. 

Answer in a Q&A format in 2-3 pages. Ensure that there are at least two-peer reviewed sources utilized this week to support your work.

 Answer each these questions in a paragraph with at least five sentences: Include the question and number your responses accordingly. Provide a citation for each answer.

1. Describe Digital Literacy (how to know what is real on the web). 

2. None of these people exist. What does this mean to you?

3. Why is Wikipedia more reliable than a paper encyclopedia?

4. How useful are crowd sources answers?

5. What are some drawbacks to crowd sourced answers?

6. Do people generally utilize the diversity of sources on the Internet effectively?

7. How reliant are we and how reliant should we be on getting our news from social media?

8. How do humans remain vigilant when we turn over authority to computers? Have you tried to navigate without gps?

9. If models are simplifications or reality, why do we rely on them?

10. Why was this model, used by Amazon for hiring, wrong?

11. Why did Skynet declare war on the human race?

Week 4 Assignment (Harris, 2021):

Watch:

1. “How to Increase Your Potential With a 30-day Goal Framework” YouTube video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz24KHcwpxI

2. “Setting SMART goals”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKMrWsjUOZQ

Week 4 Assignment Part I:

For Part I create a 1 – 2-page document that contains answers to the following critical thinking questions:

1. My long-term career goal (3-5 years) is to be a (an):

a. Find this job on a company website or job board and include a link to it or copy and paste the job description.

b. To obtain this position, I foresee myself having to:

c. The date I have set to obtain this career goal is:

Week 4 Assignment Part II:

2. My ultimate career goal is to be a (an):

a. Find this job on a company website or job board and include a link to it or copy and paste the job description.

b. In this position, I will perform the following tasks:

c. The date I have set to obtain this career tool is:

Think long-term. Your career is a marathon, not a sprint!

Your submission should be a minimum of one page of content in length. Please type the question as well as your answer. Properly cite any source utilized in APA format.

1. Analyze the four performance measures of cost, quality, duration, and customer satisfaction. What additional metrics or measurement could be important (beyond the additional measurement of size noted in the text)?
2. Compare and contrast quantitative versus qualitative data in evaluating performance of IT systems. Is one data collection methodology better at assessing the overall effectiveness of operations?

Response should be 1-2 pages or at least 500 words.