Posted: November 8th, 2022

Final Project 2 deliverable

Final Project 2 deliverable
Please use this required template for your final Project 2 deliverable, an Incident Response Plan (IRP) with special attention to Identify Theft. Project 2 has three optional ‘milestone’ deliverables. This template also shows the requirements for the three milestone deliverables and how they fit into the final plan. If you want to submit milestone deliverables for feedback, you must submit them by their due dates to get comments from the instructor.
I will be evaluating your deliverables based on this template and what it requires in each section below. Please note that the project instructions and, especially, the documents from the live links in the instructions, provide a lot of useful material to help you, in addition to your independent research.
Your IRP should be organized in following sections:
1. Title Page
2. Executive Summary — appropriate for senior leadership and encompassing the entire project
3. Introduction – what is this IRP? Why are you doing it? Why does it look like this? What is its purpose? You need to express that it gives special attention to identity theft.
4. PII and Identity Theft
4.1 Introduction to PII and identity theft – what are they? etc.
4.2 Potential PII Cyber Incident List (related to step 1): Identify and discuss the types of attacks that could result in denial of access to (or theft of) PII (personally identifiable information). Consider both internal and external incidents and those associated with employees and/or customers. (no requirement for a table)
4.3 Laws and Regulations on PII (related to step 2) Discuss state or federal government laws, regulations, and standards established for the protection of PII, and any laws, regulations, and standards that govern the financial industry. Note: there is no need to align contents of 4.2 and 4.3 with each other in a table.
4.4 Solution Alternatives for PII Incidents (related to steps 3 and 4) Identify and discuss potential solutions for (and ways to address) PII Cyber Incidents (Does not need to be a table.)
5. Breach Management Strategy (related to steps 5-11)
Describe a breach management strategy for the bank to address breaches of PII. Include policies, legal issues, cyberinsurance, and the special considerations given that we are a bank.
6. Incident Response Plan (IRP) (related to steps 12-16)
Describe these three stages in your IRP: (1) PRE-incident requirements (what needs to exist in the bank so it is ready in case of PII breach incidents, (2) requirements for immediate response – what actions does your bank need to take that are triggered by the occurrence of an incident; and (3) POST-incident requirements (what the bank needs to do after an incident)
7. References – integrated across the entire final IRP deliverable
This shows how the four project deliverables relate to each other and what you need to submit if you submit milestone deliverables:
• Potential PII Cyber Incident List (min. 500 words): sections 4.1 and 4.2
• PII Solution Alternatives (min. 500 words): sections 4.3 and 4.4
• Breach Management Strategy (min. 500 words): section 5
• Incident Response Plan (no minimum word count): add sections 1, 2, 3, 6, 7 to three milestone deliverables to complete the IRP

Final Project 2 deliverable
2. Executive Summary
The exposure of Personal identification (PII) information to third such as cybercriminals, can result in irredeemable losses to victims or organizations holding such confidential and sensitive data. Cybercriminals holding PII are able to exploit it through identity theft to commit fraud and related crimes at the expense of the legitimate owners of such information. In this regard, there is a need to adopt the best practices, approaches, and solutions in the form of incident response plans to eliminate or reduce the impacts of such attacks or incidences.
3. Introduction
Organizations and individuals need to be alert in their projects and programs to identify challenges and barriers that counter their productivity, thus making it possible to adapt effectively incident response plans to prevent eventualities such as identity theft. Projects and program management operations are meant to run smoothly and seamlessly in achieving the different goals and objectives they were designed for. On the contrary, barriers, challenges, and incidences arise to counter the process of achieving the set goals and objectives, and thus there is a need to adopt the best practices and approaches to eliminate or neutralize the challenges and barriers. Consequently, in cyber-related projects, there are different incidences that derail or hinder the achievement of the set goals, such as identity theft and other cyber-related threats and risks. Identity theft entails the fraudulent activity of obtaining personal information such as financial information of another party with the intention to assume that person’s identity and name to implement transactions or other purposes. Identity thieves are able to access other people’s bank accounts, credit card statements, accessing corporate databases to access customer and employee confidential information. Identity thieves commit fraudulent activities as they hold confidential information and details at the expense of the victims. Identity theft operations in the course of individual and personal operation introduce a barrier or fraud; thus, there is a need to adopt incidence response plans to counter identity theft incidences.
4. PII and Identity Theft
4.1 Introduction to PII and identity theft
The identity theft and the theft of personally identifiable information (PII) incidences are challenges that affect the cyber world and organization since they increase fraudulent operations. Personally identifiable information (PII) entails data or numbers that can identify a person and link them to a person. Examples of PII include social security number, full names of a person, bank account numbers, driver’s license number email address, or passport numbers (Al-Fedaghi, 2018). The stated data and number are identical meaning that they are every persons have a unique data or number that is different from that of any other person. Therefore having the data or the number means that one can perfectly link it to the person owning the number. The PII can be used alone or together with other relevant data to identify a person. The PII needs to be protected as they are essential for information security, information security, data protection data privacy and personal privacy. The PII can be used inappropriately by malicious parties to create false accounts in a person’s name, selling a personal identity to a criminal, creation of falsified passports, or incur debts. It is vital to note that personal data on biometric scans, facial recognition, and fingerprints are recorded and used in different operations such as unlocking devices, and thus there is a need to protect the personal identity or other identification information pieces to prevent them from being misused. The PII alone or together with other secondary PII can be used to reveal the identity of a person, and thus criminals can use PII to commit fraud at the expense of the victim, and thus, they should be protected and safeguarded.
On the other hand, identity theft entails the case where one person steals the personal information of another to commit fraud. Criminals steal personal information that includes passwords, online logins, full names, social security numbers, email addresses, bank numbers, passport numbers, and driver’s license numbers (Romanosky, Telang, and Acquisti, 2011). The criminals use this information to conduct fraud. There are different forms of financial, medical, child and criminal identity theft used to implement different types and forms of fraud. Consequently, criminals access personal information through fraudulent means such as phishing, skimming, insecure web connections, dumpster driving, data breaches, and phone scams. When the criminal gain the personal information they are able to log in to different accounts or as if it was the victim gaining access to the accounts. This makes it possible for criminals to commit different crimes and fraud, such as using the victim’s bank accounts fraudulently, using medical insurance, using the victim’s credit card fraudulently. Therefore, personal and sensitive information needs to be safeguarded and protected to prevent incidences of identity theft.
4.2 Potential PII Cyber Incident List
Cybercriminals and other interested parties exploit ride on potential PII to commit cyber fraud to their different victims. The information used to conduct cyber fraud can be sourced internally or externally until it lands on the hands of the criminals. First, the man in the middle attack as an external attack can be adopted in the gathering and mining of personal information (Al-Fedaghi, 2018). The attacker, in this case, disrupts the connection between the secure source and the user making it possible to eavesdrop. The user is tricked or driven to connect to the hacker computer as opposed to the intended server, thus leading to a denial of access and retrieval of PII that are used in committing different cyber-related crimes. Consequently, the buffer overflow can be used in the mining of PII. Under the buffer overflow entails the situation where too much data is sent to the server amounting it to shutting down or slowing down to the point of denial of access or the attacker pings the system leading to its death or slowing down to the point of utilizing vulnerabilities memory allocations thus gaining admin privileges that make it possible to access PII.
4.3 Laws and Regulations on PII
Personal Identifiable Information is a sensitive aspect in cybersecurity since it can result in fraud and other crimes, and thus there is a need to have sufficient laws and regulations on controlling personal information. First, the PII is protected through the Privacy Act of 1988. The Privacy Act was established in the interest of promoting and protecting the privacy of the people as well are regulating the government and its agencies in handling personal information (Schwartz, Paul, and Solove, 2012). The Act provides the directives and policies on the handling of PII consequences and corrective action that can be taken in the case of a breach.
It is important to note that there are no federal laws controlling the protection of PII, but there is a significant patchwork system of federal laws, state laws, common law principles, sector-specific regulations, and self-regulatory programs (Schwartz, Paul, and Solove, 2012). There are various federal laws that control the use, collection, and disclosure, and processing of PII are different based on the differences in the field. First, there is the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTC) that prevents unfair and deceptive trade practices concerning the collection, protection, and disclosure of PII.
There are other laws in other professions and fields to ensure different parties’ PII is protected. In this regard, there is the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) that ensures that the PII in financial institutions is protected. This Act assures the customers and other related parties of the financial institution that their data and information is secure (Schwartz, Paul, and Solove, 2012). The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) apply in medical institutions or health care, and health plan information is regulated and protected. Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) ensures that PII and other sensitive information in telemarketing activities are protected. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), prevents and regulates the online gathering of information from children that are below the age of thirteen.
4.4 Solution Alternatives for PII Incidents
The solution alternative for PII incidences entails preventing the misuse of PII by organizations, individuals, and cyber criminals holding such information. First, there are privacy principles that that guide persons holding PII to ensure that such information does not land on the wrong hand since their exploitation can result in irredeemable rights (Cecil, Ishakian, and Felten, 2011). In this regard, the client is notified of the PII required and the use to be employed. The collection of consent ensures that organizations allow the client to complete authorization forms to enhance the regulation of the PII. Other principles to enhance the protection of PII include security and confidentiality, accountability, setting storage limits, honoring individual rights, maintaining high levels of accuracy, and incorporation of the privacy policy and openness in matters related to the collection, disclosure, and use and processing of PII.
The PII can be safeguarded through the adoption of the best practices and approaches in handling personal and sensitive information. First, organizations should only collect the information needed, especially in verification (Cecil, Ishakian, and Felten, 2011). This ensures that few sensitive information is given, thus reducing the chances of misuse of the information. Consequently, one needs to develop the scale for PII sensitivity and impact levels to ensure that personal information can be given with caution. Additionally, the users and clients need to adopt state, federal, and international compliance based on protection legislation, thus improving the safety of PII.
5. Breach Management Strategy
Banks experienced incidences data breach for their clients or the bank itself, and thus there is a need to adopt an effective breach management strategy to the PII exposure damage is reduced or completely eliminated. Banks have increasingly used emerging technologies, and thus criminals have, in turn, adopted the use of advanced tools to steal data from then at the expense of the banks and their clients. In this regard, the banks and any other financial institution need to be sufficiently prepared to handle such breaches through breach management strategies.
The bank needs to have sufficient policies to ensure that breach incidences are prevented, and in the case, they occur, they can be effectively acted on to reduce the damage. The policies should feature on the access control to prevent breaches from occurring. First, access to sensitive data should only be accessed by a few persons and only to persons that need it for official use (Bloogood, 2012). This policy decreases the number to access sensitive data and reduces the chances of PII misuse. Furthermore, the personae in the bank should be subjected to sophisticated access tools such as multi-factor authentication procedures to ensure they can get through the set security walls, thus enhancing the security of PII.
Legal issues
Client data breach attracts a wide range of legal issues as clients protest the misuse of their personal data or exposure to third parties. The issues that arise in data breach management include private lawsuits and regulatory penalties (Bloogood, 2012). The private lawsuit arises from the client to the bank for failure to protect their PII or other confidential information. On the regulatory penalties, the bank is obligated to adhere to state, federal, and international compliances in handling PII, and thus failed to comply with attracts penalties. Consequently, law enforcement investigations arise as the bank is exposed to law enforcement agencies to evaluate and access the incidences leading to the data breach. In this case, the persons or parties found to have violated the set laws and regulations are presented to the criminal justice system for prosecution. Additionally, there is potential employee liability or employment that can affect different parties in the banking due to error of omission or commission.
Cyber-insurance
Cyber insurance is a vital aspect in the banking industry to enable it to hedge against potentially devastating impacts of cybercrimes such as breaches, distributed denial of service, ransomware, and malware attacks. The breaches results in losses through litigation or legal issues raise, losses from the issues of data, and thus the cyber insurance can help in covering the losses arising from the breach. The cyber insurance enables the bank to continue with its operations even after the losses from cyber-crimes.

Special consideration
The bank holds sensitive PII that can result in irredeemable losses, and thus there is a need to have special consideration to achieve sufficient measures to safeguard personal and sensitive information and data (Bloogood, 2012). The bank needs to conduct a comprehensive employee training to ensure that they can effectively handle customer and sensitive bank information. Additionally, the bank needs to access professional data security services to ensure they can adopt the current and advanced cyber-crime countermeasures, thus attracting the highest level of security and safety.
6. Incident Response Plan (IRP)
The bank needs to adopt the three stages of Incident response plan to ensure that all the activities and operations related to completely covered and secured from cyber activities that can end up exposing sensitive and personal data. The first phase IRP entails the preparation stage that handles and receives the PII breach incidences (Whiteman, Mattord, and Green, 2013). In this regard, the bank has sufficiently trained professionals to handle breach incidents as well as detection and intrusion software. The software establishes the attacks in terms of type and level of the attack prompting the trained professional to take the relaxant measures and approaches.
The second stage is the action or the containment, eradication, and recovery stage. This stage entails adopting the necessary measures, best practices, and approaches to contain the breach attack by preventing damage or reducing the extent of the damage (Whiteman, Mattord and Green, 2013). The activities at this state entail blocking IPs, closing ports, gathering and preserving evidence, blocking the attackers and attacks then restoring the systems to its normal functionality.
The third stage in the post-incident requirement adopted to prevent current and future attacks (Whiteman, Mattord, and Green, 2013). The bank needs to establish the lesson to learn from the incident to ensure they can answer major questions to strengthen the systems and network. The bank can adopt policy and procedural changes to enhance safety. Finally, the bank de3cided the action to take based on the evidence collected, such as presenting it to the criminal justice system for the start of prosecution proceedings.

References
Al-Fedaghi, S. (2018). Privacy things: Systematic approach to privacy and personal identifiable information. International Journal of Computer Science and Information Security (IJCSIS), 16(2).
Bloodgood, J. M. (2012). Organizational routine breach response and knowledge management. Business Process Management Journal.
Cecil, J., Ishakian, M., & Felten, E. (2011). Panel Three: Implementation—What Methods, If Any, Can Be Employed To Promote the Existing Rules’ Attempts to Protect Private Identifier Information From Internet Access?. Fordham Law Review, 79(1), 45.
Romanosky, S., Telang, R., & Acquisti, A. (2011). Do data breach disclosure laws reduce identity theft?. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 30(2), 256-286.
Schwartz, P. M., & Solove, D. J. (2012). Pii 2.0: Privacy and a new approach to personal information. Privacy and Security Law Report.
Whitman, M. E., Mattord, H. J., & Green, A. (2013). Principles of incident response and disaster recovery. Cengage Learning.