Ipremier Case Study Answers

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Introduction
On January 12th. 2007 at 4:31am. Bob Turley. CIO of the iPremier Company. received a panicky phone call from his IT operations staff. Their external facing web site was “locked up” and could non be accessed by anyone. including their clients. iPremier is a web-based concern that generates gross through entirely treating on-line orders.

While the web waiter was down. the company could non accept any new orders or let their clients to see their merchandises. An inadequately third-party managed and configured router/firewall allowed hackers to put to death a DOS ( Denial of Service ) onslaught on iPremier. I recommend buying a new firewall solution that will be managed and configured by the Company’s IT staff internally. This degree of control will let the company to orient the degree of security they desire and give them the ability to extenuate menaces consequently.

Ipremier Case Study Answers

Summary of Facts
At 4:31am on January 12th. 2007. Bob Turley ( CIO of iPremier ) received a panicky call from Leon Ledbetter in operations. Leon stated that the Company’s web site was down and that clients could non entree the site. He besides stated electronic mails incorporating the phrase “ha ha” were being received by the mail waiter. The Company’s proficient operations squad leader. Joanne Ripley called Mr. Turley at 4:39am saying she could non entree their equipment from the line to their office and indicated she was driving toward the Qdata co-located installation.

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She confirmed that Qdata ( their hosting company ) claims there was non a connectivity issue in or out of the edifice. Ripley stated the she would seek to re-start the web waiter once she reached the installation and confirmed she had an outdated transcript of exigency processs in her vehicle. Shortly after Mr. Turley hung up with Ripley he received a call from Warren Spangler. VP of concern development. Mr. Spangler was concerned with the affect on the Company’s stock monetary value. naming the constabulary or FBI. and basic PR issues ensuing from the incident. After Mr. Turley hung up with Spangler. he received a call from Ripley saying that Leon from operations notified Mr. Spangler of the incident. Turley so proceeded to name Tim Mandel. the Company’s CTO. Mandel advised Turley non to draw the Internet connexion so farther logging could be obtained. He besides disclosed advanced farinaceous logging would non be available due to infinite restraints from finance issues.

He besides received a call from Peter Stewart. the Company’s legal advocate. reding him to draw the stopper on the Internet connexion. Stewart advised that Jack Samuelson. the Company’s CEO. asked him to supply legal advice on the affair. Ripley besides called in and reported she could non entree the NOC due to knowledge and staffing issues at the Qdata installation. At this point Samuelson called Turley straight and advised that his chief concern was acquiring the Company back online and reiterated that Turley should non worry about any PR issues at this minute in clip. Shortly after. Ripley obtained entree to the hosted firewall and determined the closure was due to a SYN inundation type of DOS onslaught. A SYN inundation occurs when “external hosts attempt to overpower the waiter machine by directing a changeless watercourse of TCP connexion petitions. coercing the waiter to apportion resources for each new connexion until all resources are exhausted ( Lemon. 2002 ) .

Ripley attempted to barricade entree from the arising IP reference but rapidly learned that living dead machines were being used in the onslaught. rendering this attack useless. He hung up with Ripley so received another call from her at 5:46am saying that the onslaught all of a sudden stopped. Ripley confirmed the web site was back on-line and the concern was running every bit usual.

This DOS onslaught prevented iPremier from selling merchandises. and allowing clients position merchandises. on their web site. This is the exclusive presence of the concern. and when the web site is down. the company can non bring forth gross. All responsible parties and directors were rapidly involved and attempted to extenuate negative effects to the company. There appeared to be a little gulf between the legal and functional leading advice across the board. The web site was merely down for a small over an hr and iPremier provinces there was no significant impact to the concern at this clip. Problem and Options

This denial of service onslaught occurred due to inadequate firewall constellation and direction. This job was farther amplified by the fact that the firewall service was hosted by a third-party seller. Qdata. iPremier recognized staffing and general IT cognition and direction issues with Qdata in the past. but chose non to move upon their finds. iPremier did non hold any active monitoring of the firewall and merely knew there was a series concern runing issue merely when the web waiter was to the full unapproachable and unresponsive.

One solution is for iPremier to buy their ain firewall where they can use the proper constellation to forestall farther onslaughts. This degree of direction will besides supply them with advantages where they could to the full supervise the device and to setup dismaies bespeaking when there is a possible issue. iPremier will hold full control over the device leting them to custom-make the degree of security they desire. The drawback is the cognition necessary to adequately configure and keep the device.

Another solution is to go on their firewall service with Qdata after a complete audit was performed. Any failings in the security design would hold to be addressed and some type of warrant of service would hold to be put in authorship. I would besides urge that iPremier obtains some type of service degree understanding from Qdata to guarantee a prompt response clip during an incident. Some type of eventuality program must besides be put into topographic point leting them to instantly entree the device locally and remotely during a serious issue.

The advantage here is maintaining the current supplier which would non necessitate them to do any web or equipment alterations. The obvious disadvantage would be go oning service with a company who has already failed them in the past screening hapless credibleness.

A 3rd solution would be for iPremier to exchange to a firewall and security supplier who would supply a high degree of service for a fee they would experience comfy with. The same type of entree demands would be required during a serious issue to let iPremier entree when deemed necessary. “Shopping” around for a seller would let them to to a great extent research best in industry suppliers with a proved path record. The advantage here is obtaining a top-level service supplier with the right “know how” but finally iPremier would hold to reconfigure some equipment and do web alterations. Harmonizing to Allen. Gabbard. May. Hayes. & A ; Sledge ( 2003 ) . utilizing a managed service supplier is a feasible solution for administering security operations and duties where the organisation still owns the associated hazards. but allows sharing and extenuation of the hazards. Decision and Decision

Regardless of which solution iPremier chooses to implement. they must execute a full audit to bring out precisely what let this DOS onslaught to happen. We know the failing was in the firewall. but cognizing the root cause will let iPremier to utilize this calamity as a larning experience to construct upon in the hereafter. Joanne Ripley seems competent and willing to implement a “better” solution and I recommend prosecuting her in all treatments affecting this incident traveling frontward. Internal control of a firewall solution will let iPremier direction to acquire every bit involved as they want to be. The CTO and CIO could besides potentially pull studies from the device leting them to do future security planning determinations. Harmonizing to Applegate. Austin. & A ; Soule. ( 2009 ) . exchanging IT systems can go hard and dearly-won once it is ingrained into daily activities.

This facet of the security solution should decidedly be examined and taken into consideration. Allowing direction and IT staff to be involved in the Company’s security solution will assist maintain up security consciousness in the workplace every bit good. One individual may lose a possible menace that another staff member could acknowledge. Person as plugged in and competent as Ripley should merely be allowed to do alterations to the device. Staff should merely hold adequate entree to execute the necessary undertaking at manus. This would typically merely affect read-only entree to the security devices. iPremier conducts all of its concern through their web site and they can non afford for it to be down for any sum of clip. Mentions

Allen. J. . Gabbard. D. . May. C. . Hayes. E. . & A ; Sledge. C. ( 2003 ) . Outsourcing managed security services ( No. CMU/SEI-SIM-012 ) . CARNEGIE-MELLON UNIV PITTSBURGH PA SOFTWARE ENGINEERING INST.

Applegate. L. M. . Austin. R. D. . & A ; Soule. D. L. ( 2009 ) . Corporate information scheme and direction: Text and instances. Boston: McGraw-Hill Irwin.

Lemon. J. ( 2002. February ) . Defying SYN Flood DoS Attacks with a SYN Cache. In BSDCon ( Vol. 2002. pp. 89-97 ) .