Computer Security Principles In Telecommunications Company

Introduction

Inmarsat is a telecommunications company. Inmarsat was set up in 1979 by the International Maritime Organization to allow ships to stay in constant contact with shore or to call for help in an emergency, no matter the distance out in sea. Inmarsat, s business has grown strongly since 1999 when they became the 1st intergovernmental organisation to change into a private company, later floating on the London Stock Exchange in 2005. Global sales and marketing activities are operated through five market-facing business units. Inmarsat Maritime, Inmarsat U. S. Government, Inmarsat Global Government, Inmarsat Enterprise, Inmarsat Aviation.

Threats and worries

Telecommunication companies have a very high chance of getting exposed as most of them are hiding classified information. its a gateway to attack several other companies linked and confidential information.

The company I am analysing is Inmarsat it is a telecommunications company there is 3 different business units in this company which is Inmarsat Maritime, Inmarsat U. S. Government, Inmarsat Global Government, Inmarsat Enterprise, Inmarsat Aviation. Inmarsat maritime and Inmarsat aviation could be affected by there GPS being hacked as these are naval and flying company within Inmarsat this could cause loss of planes and submarines which could even lead to death.

Inmarsat U. S. Government and Inmarsat global government is in very high threat of cyber threats/hacking which would be very dangerous for anyone to get their hands on their classified information. Inmarsat enterprise provides the widest portfolio of global voice and broadband data which would leave this in threat to be disconnected which would be a real problem for the company.

Crown jewels

The crown jewels I found for inmarsat are.

1. Exposure of classified information.
2. Customers details.
3. Exposure of depots.

Threats

DDOS: threat=high

Ddos is being disconnected from a server and unable to use it this happens when ip addresses are exposed to a hacker he can shut down a whole operation. you can prevent ddos by buying ddos vendors and user reviews for ddos solutions.

Worm: threat=high

Computer worms are a computer program that replicates itself in order to spread to other computers a lot of the time it uses a computer network to spread itself relying on security failures on the target computer to access it. u can use a personal fire wall the block worms from getting external access to network services.

Rootkit: threat=High

Rootkit is a computer program to provide a continue privilege access to a computer while actively hiding its presence. Direct action virus: this a virus that gets to work right away and starts attacking immediately this can include non-violent and less often violent activities which target persons, groups, or property deemed offensive to the direct action participants.

Browser hijacker: threat=low

Browser hijacking is unwanted software that modifies a web browsers without users permission to inject unwanted advertising into the users browser.

Polymorphic virus: threat=low

This virus effects data types and functions it is a self encrypted infection it duplicates itself creating usable copies.

Malware: threat=high

Malicious software, is any program or file that is harmful to a computer user. installing antivirus systems will help remove malware threats but u are not entirely protected because there are so many ways to attack a computer system, it's clear that the cyber threats mentioned earlier apply to Inmarsat.

There are many ways to prevent such threats from happening. My opinions about what could or should be done about a situation to the company is as follows: They would need to put money into security. They're valuable things should be protected by many layers of security. This would mean having antivirus antimalware and anti-ransomware would be of great benefit as they can also identify where the flaws of the business are. Once the security systems are in place they should be regularly updated and maintained. They should also be watched/supervised daily. Patches and updates are regularly needed/demanded as there's constantly new attacks and computer criminals never rest at finding new ways to control/move around/mislead servers and websites.

Physical protection and security of the business should also be a huge area of focus. This means trusting all engineers and everybody that works at the production factories not to steal hard drives, laptops and even USB keys. These can cause some serious illegal computer break-ins even if everything online is protected. This is where turning messages into secret code also comes in. All these valuable things should be greatly turned into secret code as it makes them useful to computer criminals. Page 7Inmarsat needs to invest in ddos vendors these are used to protect ip addresses to keep the company being shut down by a hacker trying to ddos them which would be very unfortunate for this to happen to Inmarsat as it is a well known private telecommunications company. The ddos vendor will detect the threat before it happens and will prepare for the volume of attack.

The company could use more verification methods to slow down or even stop the hacker from proceeding into there classified information. If this is done some hackers would give up on trying to hack the company as it would take too long and company could fire back while they are in the hack. Inmarsat should really sanitise there website to stop XSS attacks if a hacker was to get control of this website could be dangerous as they are linked to militaries. Sanitising it should be combined escaping and validating input this would make the website free from XSS attacks which is what Inmarsat would need to stop hackers.

Footprinting

Footprinting: is the method taken for gathering information about computer systems and the entities they belong to. To get this information a hacker might use different tools and technologies. This info is very useful to a hacker who is trying to crack a whole system.

Google hacking

Google hacking refers to collecting info using google dorks by making search queries which in result in finding sensitive information. Details consumed introduce compromised passwords default credentials competitor information related to a particular topic etc.

Examing HTML and Cookies

Html codes of a web app van give an understanding of the application functionality hidden fields comments variable names etc. cookies are use to identify a user in his session. These cookies may be stored in the browser or passed in the url or in the HTTP header.

Email footprinting

Email header reveals information about the mail server original senders email id internal IP addressing scheme as well as the possible architecture of the target network Competitive intelligence: this is the process of gathering info about the competitors from resources like the internet.