Assignment Question: How would you handle the problems presented in the initial post?

PEER POST # 1

A business with no clear boundaries defined for data or systems ownership could cause a plethora of potential issues. The CIA triad confidentiality, integrity, and availability are essential to ensuring a security system has impenetrable and impeccable elements in place that protect a system from potential invaders. For example, imagine a banking center with no true security system. Hundreds of thousands of people use some form of banking and each of those individuals provide sensitive information such as date of birth, social security information and financial information. Should a banking center with no true security system in place fall victim to a breach by an outsider, hundreds of thousands of individuals personal information would be at risk. Without confidentiality in place, sensitive information is at risk of being compromised. Without integrity in place, inauthentic data could find its way into authentic data, and telling the two apart could become difficult. Without availability, the system may not operate or function at optimal performance levels. In conclusion, all three elements of the CIA triad rely on one another for a system to perform at its highest ability (Fortinet, 2023).

PEER POST # 2

A business with no clear boundaries defined for data and system ownership will encounter a myriad of potential problems relating to the security objectives defined in the CIA triad. Without this ownership, there will be either different or no definitions for the individual responsible for the systems. This involves a wide variety of ownership factors, such as financial responsibility or designated maintenance staff. Subsequently, when a system requires maintenance or has an issue, it may be difficult to identify the proper authority to remedy the situation. From this, the availability of the CIA triad will be severely impacted as information will not be perpetually available to authorized users, and system downtime may be exacerbated.

A lack of defined boundaries for data ownership will also encounter potentially severe problems. This is because there is a lack of central authority to ensure specific data is protected properly. Should the data not be protected properly, the essential access policy and user permissions cannot be effectively enforced as it is not clear who has the proper authority to access each document. Subsequently, the other two security objectives, confidentiality and integrity, are likely to be violated by an unauthorized party viewing, and by extension, modifying, data when they do not possess proper access. This issue has further ramifications depending on the sector of the business. For instance, if the business incorporates medical or patient data, the company will face HIPAA violations for improper data ownership and security.

This business, without boundaries for data and system ownership, has the potential to face issues regarding every security objective within the CIA triad. Depending on the nature of the business, these issues can become increasingly severe by violating government policies and improperly handling sensitive user data.