As you learned in Chapter 13 of your textbook, BCPs help organizations prepare for a major disaster or disruption in their operations. Natural disasters, such as floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes, can cause power outages that could severely impact business operations and IT systems. Unforeseen circumstances, such as a hack, data breach, or poorly planned business change, can also impact operations and a business’s IT infrastructures. For this week’s discussion, you and your peers will have the opportunity to reflect on BCPs.

For your initial post, select one of the scenarios below and answer the questions relating to it. Be sure you state which scenario you have selected in your post.

Scenario One
Imagine you work for an organization that has business liability insurance, asset replacement insurance, and natural disaster insurance. Does your organization still need a BCP? Why or why not?

Scenario Two
Imagine you are conducting a BCP for a small auto-parts supply business. As you are creating the BCP for the organization, you realize that it cannot afford to keep more than seven days’ worth of supplies on site. What would you suggest to the owner of the small business, and why?

In your response to your peers:

• Explain whether you agree or disagree with the initial poster, and with the comments of those who have already responded
• Provide another rationale or suggestion based on the scenario selected

Peers posts:

King Chang posted Oct 18, 2021 11:27 AM

Hello Dr. Rob and Classmates:

Congratulations to those that have made it to this 8th and final week of this class! My choice for this week’s discussion is scenario one. This organization needs business continuity plan (BCP) just like any business needs one if they plan on long-term success in their given field. The amount of insurance that this organization holds will cover certain financial risks with the insurance companies that underwrite the polices, but how the company operates during a time of natural disaster or any disaster is not something an insurance policy can offer but instead the responsibility is left up to the stakeholders in the organization to mitigate a disaster (Gibson,2015 Ch.13). A BCP should be developed to identify critical business functions (CBF), critical process supporting the CBF’s, critical IT assets and the determination of maximum acceptable outage (MAO) of these functions (Gibson,2015 Ch.13). Organization’s that don’t employ a BCP as a part of understanding their total risk exposure are left to create a BCP during a time of crisis which often generates chaos within an organization because tasks are defensive in nature and more effort is made at damage control versus recovery of key systems in order to get CBF’s back to 100%. A BCP is a road map for an organization to identify critical business functions, who’s in charge during a disaster and the support required to get all critical business functions back online, the organization’s that choose to march forward without a business continuity plan (BCP) are usually the ones you read about in the media (Gibson, 2015 Ch. 13). Thank you Dr. Rob for your guidance this term! I wish everyone good luck in the pursuit of your education goals! Have a great day. King Chang

Reference:

Gibson, D. (2015) Managing Risk in Information Systems. Jones & Bartlett Learning. https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/managing-risk-in/9781284055955/02_tit.xhtml

Kiersten Dyer posted Oct 18, 2021 12:43 PM

Hello class! For this discussion I’ve chosen scenario number 1.

Business continuity plans should be used in conjunction with insurance coverage. “Insurance coverage without a BC plan implies that your BC strategy is to hope an event does not occur.” (Long, 2017) A business continuity plan is a guide for crisis situations such as natural disaster or cyber attack. It is not a question of if an organization will encounter a crisis situation, but when. When a crisis does occur, the business will have the BCP as a blueprint to follow to restore critical business functions and to reduce the impact of the event on the organization. Insurance would play a role in the contingency portion of a BCP as one of the tools in restoring normal business functions.

It’s been a pleasure being in class with you all!

References

Long, R. (2017, August 22). The difference between business continuity and insurance. MHA Consulting. https://www.mha-it.com/2017/08/22/business-continuity-and-insurance/

In this discussion, you will reflect on your course experience and think about industry certifications and what they can do for you. In your initial post, make sure that you address at least one reflection question, as well as the certification question.

Course Reflection Questions:

• What is your the biggest course takeaway?
• What do you feel was the most important aspect of the course?
• Is this course what you anticipated or what you thought it would be? Are assumptions you had about the industry or the work different now?

Certification Question:

• Now that you have thought about your career aspirations in Module One and learned about certifications here in Module Eight, what certifications are targeted toward your desired job role?

Ryan Taylor posted Oct 18, 2021 7:21 AM

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Howdy,

My biggest course takeaway was learning about the CIA Triad and the fundamental security design principles. These two concepts are the cornerstones of cybersecurity. We focused a lot of time on learning these and going over different scenarios that we will see in our future of cybersecurity. These principles and concepts are powerful mental tools for approaching security that never go out of date.

I’m already working in my field of study at Los Alamos National Laboratory but wanted to further my education in the field as technology is always changing, oh yeah and a raise in pay, ha. Some of the certifications that I would like to obtain would be Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), Certified Authorization Professional (CAP), Certified Cyber Forensics (CCFP), Certified Cloud Security Professional (CCSP), and an ISSEP. I have been really looking into working with the NSA for a long time now, have even had the opportunity to work with them at the lab on a couple of things. I find I have been leaning towards forensics and National security accepts of my career and want to get more involved in those.

It has been great learning with all of you this term and looking forward to next term! Good luck with your future endeavors!!

Cheers,

Ryan

Works Cited

Kim and Solomon. (2016, October). Fundamentals of Information System Security, 3Rd Edition. https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/fundamentals-of-information/9781284116465/

Mason Voorhees posted Oct 18, 2021 10:02 AM

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Hey Class,

When taking this course my biggest take away was understanding threat actors, I think it is very important to know about each type of threat so when I am working, I can keep this in mind, My work uses key cards and other security methods but I never new about a tailgator which is someone who does not have access gains access by someone holding the door open for them. I do this all the time which freaked me out ot know this was a real issue.
I feel this whole course is so important. At work I needed to take cybersecurity trainign which was alot like this course. The main difference between the course at work and this class was the amount of depth. I think my work did a great job on training me though because I leard about many types of attacks like phishing, defense in depth, principles like principle of least privilage. All of this course was very infomative and needed.
This class was not what I thought it was, I thought it was going to invovle programming or creating a security system. After taking the course Im very happy that it was the way it was, it taught me so much about cybersecurity.
For certifications, for my career I dont think I require any of these certifactions needed to become a full stack developer. But a certificaton that strikes my interest has to be a CISM certification. This stands for Certified Information Security Manager. I would want this certification because of how desireable it is by employers and also because it shows how devoted I am to making sure I know the most about security. This would mean I have the mind set of someone who wants to keep there data secure.
Cybersecurity is a topic that needs to be taught to anyone in the techinical field because of how serious attack can get. I recently had a phishing attack on my companies emails which was a pretty serious attack to obtain passwords and usernames of employees. 

Solve 3.4.1 (z*=1576.9) 3.8.6 (z*=$10,400) and 3.8.9 (z*=130,000).

Make certain that you:

1) Define all the variables
2) Write out an algebraic formulation of the model
3) Include the appropriate computer output
4) Summarize your decisions

2. Question I – The appellate court decides that the trial court committed reversible error by including evidence found by law enforcement. Law enforcement discovered this evidence when committing a Fourth Amendment violation, which should have been excluded at trial. This inadmissible evidence was the lynchpin of the prosecutor’s case, which resulted in a conviction. Where does the case go from here? Is the Defendant free to go? Does it go back to the trial court? Does it go all the way up to the Supreme Court?
   Question II – Lonnie dies while working on a barge. Lonnie’s widow sues the barge company in state court. The Parties agree on the facts and cause of Lonnie’s death; however, they do not agree whether the Longshoreman Act should apply to this case. Lonnie’s widow has already received a remedy in a separate administrative action as part of a workers’ compensation claim. The Longshoreman Act would allow the decedent’s family to pursue an action in court, even if the family has agreed to a settlement as part of the worker’s compensation action. If the Longshoreman Act does not apply, then the decedent’s family will have no remedy in court. Prior to trial, what motion should the barge company’s attorney make? What must this attorney prove in order for her motion to be successful?