Risk management - Assignment Example

Hacking is the term, which refers to intrusion in a computer system or a whole computer network in order to exploit the data or information for any possible purpose. Hacking is an illegal activity in which a computer system or network is being accessed by external sources. Hackers have several prominent reasons for which the activity of hacking occurs. These reasons include financial benefits, industrial espionage, and online extortion and challenge (Pankaj, 2005). There are several categories of hacking which are listed below: White Hat: Hackers attempts to break security systems for testing purposes, which are non-malicious (Graves, 2007).

Blue Hat: hackers are external intruders who aim to test a security system before its launch (Graves, 2007). Black Hat: hackers are intruders who break security for personal reasons or gain (Graves, 2007). Grey Hat: hackers voluntarily breech the network security to inform about the weaknesses to the host (Graves, 2007). Elite Hacker: is considered to be the most skilled hackers (Graves, 2007). Hacktivist: aims to announce a political, social or religious proposal through hacking (Graves, 2007).

Nation State: are official hackers who are officials of intelligence or cyber warfare operatives (Graves, 2007). Introduction As the overall background and description of hacking has been stated in the previous paragraph, the aim of this report will be stated in this heading. The potential risk of hacking is intrinsically associated with any organization, which is based upon computer networking. In contemporary times, all of the organizations utilize the technology of networking in any industry or business, but there are several businesses, which are entirely based upon computer networking.

Most of these organizations are service providers and most of the official occurrences for these organizations are dealt online. From all of these organizations, Sony is a prominent corporation, which do not only provide services, but it has produced several electronic products for entertainment. Out of this vast range of products, which have been produced by Sony, PlayStation is one of the most successful products. However, in 2011, Sony had to come across with an intensely grave IT problem, which was caused by external intrusion, by hackers.

This incident caused a great loss to the company, not only in monetary terms, but also in terms of popularity and reputation. The incident is known as Sony Network Outage in which Sony had to turn off the whole PlayStation network for several days. This report is aimed to analyse the Sony Network Outage with respect to the seven stages risk management cycle. It will also present a brief explication of each step regarding the problem faced by Sony. Sony Network Outage 2011 It was in April 2011 when Sony Playstation Network got down.

Approximately 77 million user s’ accounts of Sony Network got hacked. The accounts were actually seized, preventing the users to access Sony’s online web services (Peckham, 2011). The accounts were stolen and the hackers retrieved the personal identification information of the users. It was an attack of three days and after that Sony shutdown its network on April 20, 2011. The attack lasted for 24 days keeping Sony network under the control of the hackers. The risk assessors claimed out that it is one the largest security breaches the company has ever faced.

It was something, which really brought