01 May Your team is a Cybersecurity consulting firm called WeSecure, LLC. You have been hired by Acme, Inc to recommend methods and solutions to improve the perimeter security of Acme, Inc, a publicly traded multi-national Acme, Inc

 

Scenario:  Your team is a Cybersecurity consulting firm called WeSecure, LLC. You have been hired by Acme, Inc to recommend methods and solutions to improve the perimeter security of Acme, Inc, a publicly traded multi-national Acme, Inc.

Acme, Inc has five (5) locations:

• New York City, NY

• Los Angeles, CA

• Chicago, IL

• Olympia, WA

• Paris, France

Using the background information provided below (and in the “Final Project Supplemental Info.xlsx” spreadsheet) prepare a fully detailed proposal on methods and solutions to improve Acme, Inc’s perimeter security. Your proposal must include:

• Any new devices (e.g. firewalls) or services (e.g. Managed Security Service) you are proposing

• Summary pricing for a 5-year term of usage

• Any applicable services you are proposing (e.g. penetration test)

• Installation activities/costs

• Training activities/costs

• Justification for your proposed solutions

• Any other information you feel is valuable

 

 

Report Details:

• The APA formatted report must be at least 8 pages long not including title page, table of contents, references, and/or appendices.

• Team Project must include the following sections:

o Cover Page

o Table of Contents

o Executive Summary (no more than 2 pages*) – this will take the place of the APA Introduction/Abstract

o Detailed descriptions and narrative of proposed solutions or systems

o Conclusion

o Assumptions

o References

o Appendices

 Product Brochures

 Applicable Drawings/Diagrams

• Microsoft Word Document

• APA Format

 

Note (*): An Executive Summary is not an APA requirement, but an instructor requirement.  Keep in mind an Executive Summary is NOT an introduction. It is literally a high-level summary of the issues and recommendations covered in the paper for senior management. Incorrectly submitted Executive Summaries will be penalized.

 

 

 

Background Information:

 Here is some additional information regarding Acme, Inc to help you better understand the problems you are trying to solve.

 General Info:

• Acme, Inc is a publicly traded multi-national corporation.

• Acme, Inc sells software to higher education companies. This software runs in geographically dispersed data centers. They must be highly available (99.99%) to support their customer’s uptime requirements.

• Acme, Inc has a history of acquiring different firms over time, however, these firms often have different security solutions employed and different levels of security readiness. Acme, Inc typically has left these acquiring firms IT infrastructure in place as opposed to integrating them w/ the broader Acme, Inc IT systems. Acme, Inc is open to reconsidering this strategy. In fact, the Acme, Inc CIO has been considering implementing a centralized IT governance program which it might use to consolidate and streamline how it supports IT throughout the company.

• Acme, Inc is open to reducing the number of vendors and products it must be trained on. This is costing the Acme, Inc a significant amount of money in training and support.

• Acme, Inc has a mostly Cisco routing/switching infrastructure, however, it does have several sites that leverage Juniper switching/routing equipment.

• Acme, Inc is open to suggestions on new perimeter-based security technologies it has not implemented in the past. They are also open to Managed Services models.

• Acme, Inc always buys full support and maintenance from vendors for at least five (5) years.

• Acme, Inc employs eight (8) Cisco CCNPs or higher, and 15 CCNA’s or higher, as well as one (1) Juniper JNCIE, and nine (9) JNCIA’s who have been with the Acme, Inc for more than 20 years. 

 Recent Problems:

• Acme, Inc believes it may be recently had one of its data centers penetrated but is unable to confirm this occurred. Acme, Inc is highly concerned this will happen again.

• Acme, Inc is severely concerned about increase in spam recently

• Acme, Inc has employed a variety of different desktop-based antivirus solutions but still seems to get infected many times each month – many times at recently acquired firms.  

• Acme, Inc has employed Web Filtering software at the Los Angeles and Paris locations but is not happy with the current web filtering products it has employed (Websense).

• Remote users have complained about it taking a long time to setup and authenticate their remote access sessions via VPN. Remote Users includes those who work from home (non-mobile), a mobile sales force, and remote IT. All remote connections must be fully secure.