Assignment task:
Overview
One of the three focus projects for this course is creating a technical brief based on the research you've conducted. The audience for this brief is the security or IT director for the fictional organization for which you work. This technical brief will serve as the basis for a proactive adversarial detection plan that your director will be creating. The final product represents an authentic demonstration of competency because, as a security analyst, you must develop skills that use a variety of methods and tools to detect, characterize, and counter cyber threat actors. Your work will contribute to larger team projects across your organization. This project will also help you develop an important mindset: thinking responsibly and proactively about what threat actors would do to attack organizational assets.
The project incorporates one milestone, which will be submitted in Module Five. The project will be submitted in Module Seven.
In this assignment, you will demonstrate your mastery of the following course competency:
Develop reliable, ethical methods to detect, characterize, and counter cyber threat actors
Scenario:
In a course announcement, your instructor will provide some scenarios for you to choose from. In your chosen scenario, you are a security analyst, creating a technical brief for the security or
IT director explaining how the situation informs the larger proactive adversarial detection plan they are writing for the organization. The specific technical information, results, or determinations you need are supplied within the scenario. Your brief should address each critical element in the Project Three prompt, discussing your best-practice tactics or methods recommendations based on your research from the decision aid you completed as the milestone for this project. The Conclusion section of this activity requires you to expand on all the research you did for the decision aid.
Prompt:
In your technical brief, you must address the critical elements listed below.
I. Introduction
A. Identify your threat actors and characterize their motivations or desired outcomes. Use research from the Project Three resource guide or decision aid to support your response.
For example, is the threat actor gathering information for financial gain?
II. Analysis
A. Describe best practices or methods for detecting the threat actors from the scenario. Use research from the Project Three resource guide or decision aid to support your response.
B. Describe ethical and legal factors that should be considered and their significance in terms of the company for which you are employed in the scenario. Use research from the Project Three resource guide or decision aid to support your response.
C. Describe at least one tactic or method that is important in responding to and countering this threat actor. Use research from the Project Three resource guide or decision aid to support your response.
D. Describe at least one tactic or method that would be employed to reduce the likelihood of the same situation happening again. Use research from the Project Three resource guide or decision aid to support your response.
III. Conclusion:
A. Explain the potential ramifications of the tactics or methods you have suggested. Use research from the resource guide or decision aid to support your response.