Attack Plan Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Attack Plan - Essay Example One person thousands of miles away can wreak havoc on an entire company. Computer networks are vulnerable attack and it is wise to consider those weak points in order to prevent attacks that can have disastrous consequences. This report will detail an attack plan on Goodwill Industries International. Background on Goodwill Industries International Goodwill Industries International is now a work wide organization that began as a grassroots effort aimed at providing underprivileged individuals with sustainable employment opportunities. Through a series of second hand stores and other facilities worldwide, this goal has been made a reality. Goodwill depends on a done network in the millions worldwide in order to meet its financial obligations and to keep thousands of individuals employed. The organization now largely depends on the Internet for its elaborate system of financial donors, without which it would almost certainly struggle to exist. Possible Attacks As Goodwill must keep a sy stem of donor records, these lists are readily available inside its network. We the donation sites to be shut down, it would debilitate the organization, which in the end would prove quite costs. Financial information that is leaked, or that falls into the wrong hands, would wreak havoc on millions of donors worldwide. An attacker would likely first seek to gain access to donor databases (Bayrak, et al 71). They could also work to take Goodwill Industries International offline. Attackers can also infiltrate donor information with malicious code, which would disable the ability of the organization as a while to access valuable information. Without access to donor records, a charitable organization such as Goodwill would struggle to raise the needed financial capital it needs on a monthly basis. In addition, an attack that threatens the integrity of donor information will also be an attack on the trustworthiness of the organization. If individual donors can no longer feel that their i nformation is safe with Goodwill, they will likely cease to give to the charitable organization. One goal of an attack of this magnitude would be that an individual or group of people simply want to cause harm to the organization. This could be as a result of simple malicious behavior, or because the individual holds a grudge of some sort against the company. In addition, accessing privileged donor information could destroy the integrity of the entire charitable industry concept worldwide. A secondary goal could be to actually use the personal information gained during such an attack to cause individual harm to a particular donor or group of donors. Social Engineering and Physical Security Social engineering could certainly give an attacker an avenue whereby contact with individual donors at Goodwill Industries International, enticing them to give more money to causes that are actually fictitious and non-existent. Phishing is one such strategy that could be utilized to trap users in to giving their password information, after which the attacker could easily gain access to privileged information (Mayur & Richards 69). This is a relatively simply strategy that Goodwill is particularly susceptible to. By creating a mirror image of the actual Goodwill site, donors could be tricked into thinking that the organization is actually asking for information when, in fact, it is the attacker that is seeking to steal their private information. In the end, social engineering