1 How did the COVID-19 pandemic impact network security for you personally or for your work? Give examples of at least two ways the pandemic directly affected your security awareness.
Your journal entry must be at least 200 words in length. No references or citations are necessary.
2 You are a networking consultant for a technology support firm in your home. Imagine that you have discovered news about a new form of ransomware coming out of Eastern Europe. Your research shows that the payload for the ransomware is delivered using a phishing email. You also discover that the phishing email can be blocked using a hardware spam filter.
You send out an urgent email to all of your clients urging them to install the hardware spam filter to prevent the ransomware attack. You mark the email as important, and you ask for a receipt from your Outlook when the email is received and read. Only two agree to purchase the spam filter while the others say they will need to budget in the cost next quarter.
Approximately 3 weeks later, two of the noncompliant clients became infected with the ransomware. This cost them tens of thousands of dollars in lost business and in recovery costs. Both filed insurance claims, which were paid, but the insurance company sued your tech firm to recover their losses. Did you do everything you could to prevent the attack within reason? How should your firm respond to the lawsuit?
Your journal entry must be at least 200 words in length. No references or citations are necessary.
3 Think back to a time when you or someone you knew procrastinated in backing up their system only to have their machine lost to a malware or ransomware attack. Explain how the experience impacted your view on the importance of protecting your most important assets—your data.
Your journal entry must be at least 200 words in length. No references or citations are necessary.
4 Have you ever had to deal with a virus? What steps did you take to get rid of the virus? Could you have avoided infection in the first place? What did you learn from the experience? If you have never had to deal with a virus, what have you done to avoid them? What have you learned in this unit that you might apply to future endeavors to avoid viruses?
Your journal entry must be at least 200 words in length. No references or citations are necessary.
5 Have you ever witnessed what you considered to be a violation of your email privacy at work? Have you ever been asked by management to violate someone’s email privacy? Reflect on how you handled or would handle both situations.
Your journal entry must be at least 200 words in length. No references or citations are necessary.
6 Have you ever been told not to patch a legacy operating system because the software program running on the machine would break? As an information technology (IT) auditor, how would you handle such a situation?
Your journal entry must be at least 200 words in length. No references or citations are necessary.
7 Reflect on how the COVID-19 pandemic changed how you view security policies and the effect they have had on how you or someone you know must work securely from home.
Your journal entry must be at least 200 words in length. No references or citations are necessary.
8 Discuss how you can apply the concepts learned in this course to your current or future career. How might the lessons you have learned positively impact your career success?
Your journal entry must be at least 200 words in length. No references or citations are necessary.
