Impact Of Cyber-Security Challenges On Business And Strategies To Overcome Them

Proposed Research and Project Scope

Questions:

What Is The Impact Of Cyber-Security Challenges On The Business?

What Strategies Can Be Developed To Deal With Cyber-Attacks?

The proposed research is based on the challenges and issues observed in cyber security for the business in the recent time. It has been observed that businesses are now fully depended on the technology, which means that due to the technological advancement, the ways of leading the business in a dynamic environment has become quite easy for the marketers. However, even though, the technology plays a big role in today’s modern business, due to the loophole in the technologies, the businesses often face external threats –such as stealing valuable information, anonymous access to bank accounts or organization’s official sites and other cyber attacks. According to Aloul et al., (2012) ICT devices as well as elements are largely interdependent and disrupt of one could affect many others. The Information Technology experts and the policy makers have expressed their concern regarding the protection of businesses from the cyber attacks. Here, the acts of protecting the ICT system as well as their contents are considered as cyber security.

In this report, a detail about the proposed research has been discussed elaborately. The report presents the idea how the research is going to be conducted. The report provides the project scope, which includes the determining and documenting a list of particular project goals, features, tasks, deadline and other significant factors. Likewise, the report also includes the key objectives of the proposed research. Considering the background to the research, the research questions and objectives have been provided in this report. Furthermore, the research report also includes a set of research techniques that will be applied to the proposed study.

Several studies have been conducted to learn the impact of the issues related to cyber-security on businesses.  The current scenario indicates that the marketers rush to implement all policies related to cyber security to protect their business from the external threats. It is observed that the federal role in cyber security includes both securing federal system as well as assisting in preserving the non-federal systems. A study conducted by Busch and Givens (2012) mentioned that protecting the valuable intellectual property as well as the business information in the digital form against the theft as well as misuse remains as the critical management issue.  Dunn Cavelty (2013) indicated in their study that organization must have to fend off the regular cyber-attacks and the threats of cyber criminal. Dumitras and Neamtiu,  (2011) mentioned that sophisticated organizations have recently endured the public breaches to their technological environment and many incidents went unreported but the marketers are not eager to advertise or describe the vulnerabilities. On the other side, the study conducted by Liu et al.  (2012), mentioned that most large organizations have gradually reinforced their cyber security capabilities over the past few years. Nonetheless, due to this argumentative outcome, the present study observes the importance of conducting an investigation on cyber security challenge and its impact on the businesses.

The Impact of Cyber-Security on Businesses

Understanding the importance of examining the impact of cyber-security on business, the proposed research has been framed with a primary analysis. This will help to conduct the analysis with the practical evidences. The proposed study abandons the secondary analysis because the research might not provide an authentic outcome that is related to the real-world context. In order to conduct a primary analysis, an organization- Australian National Bank will be considered as the case study organization in the proposed study.  Moreover, the proposed study also focuses on the existing studies conducted on the same topic. In order to conduct the literature review, 20 journals have been considered and hence, the analysis will help to find out the gaps in the previous studies. In addition to this, to collect the primary data, a survey and interview will be conducted among the employees and senior executives of Australian National Bank. However, the research is restricted to primary analysis only, any sort thematic and comparative analysis will not be included in the proposed study. Eventually, a research time line has been provided in the following, which shows how the research has been scheduled to be conducted.

The major aim of the study is to examine the impact of cyber-security challenges and issues on the business organizations. The following are the key objectives of the research:

• To critically investigate the impact of cyber security challenges on the business
• To critically understand the importance of protecting the business information from the cyber attacks
• To develop suitable strategies to resolve the cyber-security issues

H₀-Cyber security challenges have no impact on the businesses

H₁– Cyber security challenges have impact on the businesses

Many studies have been conducted on cyber security challenges and their impact on the businesses. Each study has been framed with variety of requirements and techniques; thereby, the outcome of the study came out to be different.  The study conducted by Bonaci et al., (2015) mentioned that as the technology is continuously growing to develop, the opportunities and challenges also come out. However, as the society that runs widely on the technology, the business, as the consequences are dependent on it. The technology also brings the greater threats. According to Wang and Lu (2013), by the very nature of the opportunities, the technology presents, the technology becomes a focal point for the cyber –attacks and threats. Sridhar, Hahn and Govindarasu (2012) particularly focused on the threats of data manipulation, identify theft and cyber-warfare that have a strong impact on the businesses.

Moreover, the studies claim that as the world environment transitions large amount of products and service online, the people in turn depend on them. Protecting this technology infrastructure has now become a fundamental building block for the information system internationally. It is understood that existing studies have focused on the type of threats and attacks occurred in the businesses through the technological adoption but the studies have hardly provided any relevant outcome in terms of the strategies. However, an in-depth literature review will be conducted considering 20 different journals conducted on the present topic.

Research Techniques Applied to Proposed Study

Research methodology determines the outcome of the study, which means the implementation of the techniques determine the result of the study. In order to conduct the proposed study, appropriate primary research techniques will be applied to the study. The type of methods will be applied to the study has been discussed in the following.

The data collection is usually divided into two different categories primary and secondary data collection.

Primary data collection- The primary data collection method is categorized into two different groups such quantitative and qualitative data collection.  It is observed that quantitative data collection techniques are based in mathematical calculation in different formats.  In the proposed study, the primary data collection techniques include the questionnaire with the close-ended questions such as the method of correlation, mean, mode, median and others. On the contrary, the qualitative research method does not consist of number and mathematical calculation and this method is rather related to emotion, sounds, voices and other relevant elements. This research methodology focuses on the level of depth of understanding. In the proposed study, the quantitative data collection involves the survey method, which will be conducted among the employees of Australian National Bank. Conversely, for collecting qualitative data, interview method will be applied to the proposed study.  However, for conducting the survey and interview, a particular sampling method will be applied, which is discussed in the following.

Secondary data- The secondary data will be used for conducting the literature review in the proposed study. Almost 20 journals have been selected for conducting the literature review.  The secondary data will be collected from the journals, books, blogs, newsletter, annual report and other reliable secondary sources.  Apart from the collection of data, reliability and validity of the papers will also be checked.

As put forward by Babbie (2010), sampling can be described as the particular principle applied to make the choices of members of population to be included in the research. It is also appropriately noted that as many population interest are very large to work directly. It can be mentioned that because of the brad size of target population, the studies do not have any choices besides to research a number of case elements in the population to present the population and reach the population. For the proposed study, the sampling has been categorized into two different categories such as probability and non-probability sampling. In probability sampling, every individual of the population has less or zero chance of being involved in the study. On the other side, non-probability samplings are chosen on a non-random manner; thereby, not each population member has a chance to take part in the study.

Literature Review and Recognized Gaps

However, in the present study, both probability and non-probability sampling method will be applied. The probability sampling method will include the general employees of Australian National Bank. Hence, the employees are eligible for the survey because they do not need much knowledge about the occurrence of cyber threats and challenges and their impact on the businesses. Conversely, the non-probability sampling method will include IT executives and managers of Australian National Bank; certainly, they have much knowledge about the type of threats, attacks, thefts and other relevant technological attacks.   Thereby, the managers and the executives are the perfect the suitable individuals among all type of population. This means, the proposed study will include a mixed sampling method. The sample size for the proposed survey and interview is 100 employees and 5 managers respectively.  It is identified that reliability and validity should be tested and clarified before applying the methods to the study.

As put forward by Wilson (2010) the reliability is referred to the extent to which the same response can be derived with the help of the same instruments many a time. The outcome of the proposed study will be reliable because if the analysis is made using the same interview and survey method. Therefore, in future when other researchers will conduct the research on the same topic, they could derive the same result with interview and survey methods.  In this context, Babbie (2010) mentioned that reliability revolves around the source and it is mostly associated with the subjectivity. On the contrary, the data that will be collected for analysis is validity because to conduct the research, appropriate time scale of the research along with appropriate research method will be selected. In addition, to conduct the study, the most suitable method for the research will be selected. Whenever, the study will be conducted with such similar methods, the same response will come out. Moreover, it is not possible to eliminate the threats to study’s reliability and validity but it is ensured that much effort will be put to minimize as much risk as possible.

The proposed study is limited to primary analysis only; this means that no thematic and comparative analysis will be conducted in the proposed study. In addition to this, sample size for the proposed study is very constrained. The study will be conducted considering one single organization only, but the study would be more intensive, if a comparative is conducted.

Main activities/ stages	Month Aug-	Month Sep-Dec-	Month Jan-march-	Month April-July-	Month August-September-	Month October
Topic Selection	ü
Data collection from secondary sources	ü	ü
Framing layout of the research		ü
Literature review		ü	ü	ü
Formation of the research Plan			ü	ü
Selection of the Appropriate Research Techniques				ü	ü
Primary data collection					ü	ü
Analysis & Interpretation of Data Collection					ü	ü
Conclusion of the Study						ü
Formation of Rough Draft						ü
Submission of Final Work						ü

Table 1: Research Timeline

Conclusion

In conclusion, it can be mentioned that the proposed study will provide a desired result because all relevant methods will be applied to the study. In addition to this, the literature review will help to focus on the relevant areas as previous studies have missed out several relevant factors. However, in the proposed study, those factors will be covered

References

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Babbie, E. R. (2010) The Practice of Social Research, Cengage Learning

Bonaci, T., Herron, J., Yusuf, T., Yan, J., Kohno, T., & Chizeck, H. J. (2015). To make a robot secure: An experimental analysis of cyber security threats against teleoperated surgical robots. arXiv preprint arXiv:1504.04339.

Busch, N. E., & Givens, A. D. (2012). Public-private partnerships in homeland security: Opportunities and challenges. Homeland Security Affairs, 8(1).

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Dumitras, T., & Neamtiu, I. (2011). Experimental Challenges in Cyber Security: A Story of Provenance and Lineage for Malware. CSET, 11, 2011-9.

Dunn Cavelty, M. (2013). From cyber-bombs to political fallout: Threat representations with an impact in the cyber-security discourse. International Studies Review, 15(1), 105-122.

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Liu, J., Xiao, Y., Li, S., Liang, W., & Chen, C. P. (2012). Cyber security and privacy issues in smart grids. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 14(4), 981-997.

O’Connell, M. E. (2012). Cyber security without cyber war. Journal of Conflict and Security Law, 17(2), 187-209.

Sridhar, S., Hahn, A., & Govindarasu, M. (2012). Cyber–physical system security for the electric power grid. Proceedings of the IEEE, 100(1), 210-224.

Wang, W., & Lu, Z. (2013). Cyber security in the Smart Grid: Survey and challenges. Computer Networks, 57(5), 1344-1371.

Wilson, J. (2010) “Essentials of Business Research: A Guide to Doing Your Research Project” SAGE Publications