How Operational Routers May Retain Functionality and How Data May Be Safely Transmitted over Them - Research Paper Example

By compromising routers, attackers can inflict substantial, wide-ranging harm upon an organization.  It is, thus, that routers functions as attractive targets, upon which hackers routinely wreak their subversive efforts.  Given the ever-increasing number of operational routers which have been compromised, the imperatives of securitizing networks can hardly be overestimated. As important, however, is ensuring that networks remain operational and data transmission is secure even within the context of an adversarial operational environment. Indeed, ensuring that networks remain available despite adversary presence is the focus of considerable research attention because it implies the capacity not only to detect but to recover from the failures inflicted by adversaries.

The course covered numerous issues related to network security, information assurance, the security vulnerabilities to which systems/data are exposed, and the variant strategies/tools for the maximization of security. Weekly assignments, insofar as they covered single issues, did not simply force us, as students, to engage with the material and to critically examine its implications they but, it gave us an understanding of the topics which we could confidently handle and those which we were less able to.

After identifying those topics which I believed I could handle well and write a good extended research report on, I sought the advice of our Chief Information Security Officer. From my perspective, if the objective of this report was to truly be the provision of a study that could be of use t my place of employment, none was in a better position to direct me towards a research focus than our CISCO. After discussing the topics covered with him, he suggested that rather than focus on securitizing routers against unauthorized infiltration, since much had already been written on the topic and, at the end of the day, it was better left to the experts,' I should research how networks can be kept operational even following an attack.