Information And Communication Technologies: Australian Signals Directorate On The Hunt For A Cyber-Partner

Background of the incident

Discuss about the Information and Communication Technologies.

Information and communication Technology is defined as a technology that is used to handle telecommunications, internet building management system and network dependent control and monitoring functions. ICT is commonly used in order to explain the convergence of various technologies and common transmission lines in order to carry different types of data and communication formats.  According to Wakunuma and Stahl (2014), the significance of ICT is less than its ability in order to create larger access to communication and information in undeserved people.  Information and communication technology is very much helpful in reshaping many aspects of the world which includes economies, societies and governments. In modern society, ICT has become accepted as well as integral part of everybody’s life (Wu et al., 2012). It includes a large range of software and hardware devices and programs which includes computer, scanner, multimedia programs and many more. The use of ICT is very much appropriate in education as it adds values in learning by increasing the effectiveness or by adding dimension of learning.

The report discusses a current ICT related scenario which is “Australian Signals Directorate on the hunt for a cyber-partner” (McLean, 2016).   The report covers the background of the incident, emerging issues from the incident. The report also discusses certain solutions for the issues that would be helpful in solving or minimizing the different challenges that have occurred in the incident.

The “Australian Defence Strategic Policy and Intelligence Group” have established an “invitation to register” on behalf of the “Australian Signals Directorate” in order to search for a private sector that would be ready to work with “Australian Signals Directorate” on the program of cyber crime. The ASD remains with the SP&I and it is one of the national agency that is answerable for the analysis, gathering and distribution of different signals of intelligence (McLean, 2016).  It is also one of the national authorities on cyber security and communication.

The ITR wants for a service provider who is interested in creating a long-term relationship with the association so that one can provide a workforce in order to implement or establish the IT infrastructure of ASD. The IT infrastructure of ASD includes network storage, application, databases, operating systems and many more. Additionally the “Australian Signals Directorate” is predicted they need server up to total number of 150 with 20 initially in its place (partners, 2016). The ASD also expects its total requirement of storage in order to sit at 10 petabytes which is initially 100 terabytes. The number of virtual machines also increases that ranges from 100 to 1000. The endpoints needs to grow in the range of 500 to 600 and the total number of user’s account that is needed are around 260 in number.

Emerging issues

It is expected that the infrastructure that is requested consist of a combination of private, hybrid cloud. The cyber program gets involved in virtualzing its storage and processing technologies and it uses the solutions that are cloud based. The cloud based solutions are used in order to increase its scalability, flexibility and it also helps in improving the value of the money from the capabilities of ICT (McLean, 2016).   According to the ITR, it is expected that the provider of service will be able to support environments that are cloud based for developing and securing the solutions. The cloud based solutions are secured by partnering with the providers of the cloud services or by the by using the methods organically.

The ASD has stated that the successful service providers are capable of supporting the current system and they are proficient in an area which includes administration of Linux, Windows, database and network administration (partners, 2016).  It is also expected that the provider’s personal support will be helpful in working with the system developers of the government. The third party will have an unexpected growth in the IT environments of ASD with the help of the service support. It was generally expected by the service support that it consists of approximately three environments at protected classification for the premises of ASD. It was stated by the ITR and an environment consists of IT infrastructure will help in involving the different processes of data, high rates and many more (McLean, 2016).   According to the cyber security mission of the ITR it is very much important to have a support from the capable technical users for conducting different activities of cyber security which are audited, accredited, protected and unclassified at the security levels.

The capability will be helpful in enabling the mission of the cyber security in order to undertake the existing and initial activities for the government mandates and the “Australian national and economic security objectives”. It was declared by ITR that the activities include hosting of different services for the customers of the cyber security. The ITR will close on October 14 in the year 2017 (partners, 2016).  Australian Prime Minister “Malcolm Turnbull” has helped in launching the strategy of cyber security in April and his announcement was going to spend huge amounts of money in order to defend the country from cyber attacks. The project was helpful for the people of Australia as it will provide around 500 jobs (McLean, 2016).   After two weeks from the election of the federal the president was warned against the services of government outsourcing. Turnbull responded by showing the creation of Digital transformation office which was established in the year 2015 when the communication minister does not look into the matter of outsourcing (partners, 2016).  It was explained by the president of Australia that the culture wants startup but the culture is present within the government and it helps in transforming the delivery of government services rather than spending huge amount of money on the outsources and big private firms.

The issues that can arise due to the incident of “Australian Signals Directorate on the hunt for a Cyber partner” includes social issues, technological issues and ethical issues, which are discussed below. All the issues suggest that the “Australian Defense Strategic Policy and Intelligence Group” faces lot of problem in making collaboration with the service providers in order to form long term relationship (Vaishnavi & Kuechler, 2015). 

 In order to work collaboratively with ASD the ITR wants certain technological characteristics of the service providers (Stahl et al., 2013). If the service providers are capable in meeting the needs of the ITR, then they can work for a longer period of time with ASD. It will be helpful for both the ASD and the service provider (Vaishnavi & Kuechler, 2015).  This is because with the help of the service provider the ASD is capable of establishing a strategic partnership with the service provider which will be helpful in minimizing the workforce load of ASD and it will also be helpful in increasing the infrastructure growth (van Weert et al., 2013). It is beneficial for the service provider as it provides them the opportunity for reshaping their IT infrastructure. This raises a lot of technological problems.

The services that are provided by the service provider are cloud services and therefore there are many issues that are associated with it. The services that are provided by the cloud are very much cost-effective as well as flexible for the ASD but the lack of data safeguards creates security issues which are the largest hurdle to leap (Shin, 2015).  It is very much difficult to access the costs that are involved with the on-demand nature of cloud services. Budgeting of cost is very much helpful in providing good as well as comparable benchmark. The service level agreements are not enough for providing assurance to the scalability as well as availability.

Business will face reluctance for switching the cloud without having any assurance with the quality that is provided. ASD will face problem in leveraging as well as migrating providers from one place to another and there is absence of any lock- in period (Samak & Tawfik 2016). The cloud computing services must have the capability so that they can integrate smoothly with the on-Premise IT. The main challenges that the ASD faces due to the cloud services providers are the security issue. The main challenges for the ASD are that how the service providers handle the challenge of security and privacy (Sampson & Makela, 2014).  The fact that the important data of the enterprises will reside outside the firewall raises concerns. Various attacks and the cases of hacking can arise due to the cloud infrastructure that will affect the multiple numbers of clients even if the number of sites that are attacked is only one (Sarkar, 2012).  All the issues or challenges should not be considered as road block for searching cloud computing. It is very much important to provide serious consideration issues that will be possible way before adopting the technology of the service providers.

 It is specified by the ASD that successful service provider must be able to support the existing system and therefore it must have to be proficient in regions which includes administration of Linux, database management and administration of network. It was also expected by the ASD that the providers must provide or support the personnel which will be helpful for working closely with the system developers of the governments (Rice & Leonardi, 2013). It will raise a lot of social issues.  If the data of the ASD is stored by the service provider and if it is leaked then the information or private data faces is lost or hacked. The private data may include personal information or financial data (Samak & Tawfik 2016).  If those data gets hacked or lost then the ASD will face a lot of financial as well as social issues. If proper authentication security is not provided by the service provider then anyone can make changes in the cloud system of ASD, and as a result its features and characteristics gets affected.

The cloud computing or cyber security services provided by the service provider also faces social issues to the unaffordable cost. The cloud computing resources needs security, network bandwidth which will require a large amount of money (Nijboer et al., 2013). Depending on the resources needed by the ASD the service provider faces problems due to unaffordable cost of the cloud computing services. The Australian Prime minister Turnbull has launched a cyber security strategy which also cost a large amount of money (Peeraer & Van Petegem, 2012).  This project was started in order to save the people of Australia from cyber attacks that are occurring from the different countries. But the social issue that is related with this project is that there is no assurance the project will be helpful in saving the people of Australia from cyber-attacks (Pratt et al., 2014). The money that was spent by the government provides no guarantee that it will create a positive impact on the people of Australia (Rashid, 2016).  The government also forms an outsourcing strategy in the creation of “Digital Transformation Issue” which was established by the earlier government. It also arises social issues as it acted as a proof that the previous government of Australia did not look into the matter of outsourcing for solving the challenges that the people of Australia was facing.

The cyber program that is formed by the ASD are in the mission of undertaking new and existing activities for supporting the mandates of the government and the “Australia’s national and security objectives” which arises a lot of ethical issues as theses activities require cyber security and hosting of services for the customers of the cyber security (McMenemy et al., 2014). If the service providers are unable to work properly in collaboration with the ASD then lot of ethical issues that can affect the well- functioning of the cyber program. The ASD will shortlist those service providers that fulfill the needs of the ASD which also have ethical issue (Lundberg, 2014).  The service providers provide cloud services in order to run the program of cyber security that is formed by the ASD.  Due to the long term joint collaboration of the service providers and ASD, they sometimes face difficulty in maintaining their moral as well as legal behavior. Sometimes the authorities of ASD and service providers have a conflict over their professional duty (Lindberg et al., 2013). For example: a faulty rules made by the ASD will create unethical behavior among the service provider as they faces problems in working collaboratively with the ASD.

The service provider performs or provides most of the services to the ASD by using cloud services. It is very important for the service providers to understand the operational keys that they are assuming for the ASD (Jarle et al., 2014).Providers became conscious about the data of the customers, risk management and functional operation. The service providers have the responsibility to provide services to ASD by their own. The ASD is worried as there is no law that can protect their private or personal information from the service providers. So that if any authentication error in the information and data security occurs then ASD’s data does not get affected (Kaba & Touré, 2014).  The transferring of data through the cloud services by the service providers will cause the data to travel to the jurisdiction of other countries where data is not secure. All this problems created a lot of ethical issues for the ASD‘s decision of working collaboratively with any of the service provider that have sufficient capability as per the need (Kauppi et al., 2014). Other ethical issues that can arise due to the ITR technology are due to the different types of data that is loaded into the ownership of the data and the cloud. Cloud is very much huge and therefore the chances of data lose is large.

In order to reduce the emerging issues such as technological issues, social issues and ethical issues it is very much important for ASD to follow some rules and regulations (Greenhalgh et al., 2014). The ASD uses ITR for providing information about the needs of the ASD to the service providers. The service provider will mainly use cloud services for working collaboratively with the ASD. There are different types of issues that are raised which include technological, ethical and social issues. In order to reduce those issues it is very much important for the service provider to maintain the referential integrity (Daniel, 2016).  It helps in preserving the format related encryption which in turn helps in retaining the initial structure of the format that is related with the data set. Encryption of data while ensuring the structure helps in fitting the data into the existing system without requiring the changes in infrastructure of IT.

High performance will occur after eliminating the manual encryption as well as decryption process wen the data gets moved through the enterprise which helps in moving the performance if the databases to bottlenecks (Bloom et al., 2014). A strategy that is related with data protection helps in tokenization and encryption which can be performed locally and thus it helps in allowing an organization to dynamically protect the data without facing any problems related with the complex procedures, current processes of business and additional technology (Buabeng-Andoh, 2012). It is very significant for the service providers of ASD to clearly recognize the processing of data and operations which are accepted to the cloud. For each type of handling, the service provider must create the type of data in order to differentiate them on the basis of individual, planned and the data that are used in the business applications (Chander et al., 2012). In order to provide the users or the applications the permission to decrypting, a link enterprise data is very much necessary for the rules and regulations.

It also needs extension from the ASD to control the services provided by the cloud. Improvement work and the equipment do not have the same requirements (Bilbao-Osorio et al., 2013). It is very much important to make sure that when the service providers cooperate with the ASD, all the necessary information that are linked with the knowledge should be substituted as well as explained as per the needs and outlooks of the ASD (Bannister & Connolly, 2014).  Every ICT device is desired to be seen as the essential part of the already current ecosystem in ASD. The instrument affects the way it is used and applied. It also helps in motivation the culture of the facility provider and thus the whole project gets complicated or inserted

For minimizing the risks that are raised due to the emerging issues, a number of recommendation. The recommendations are beneficial for both the service providers and the ASD. The recommendation for improving the technology of ASD the recommendations include:

Proper Communication: Clear communication is very much required about the requirements of ASD so that the different service providers who aimed to work collaboratively with the ASD will does not face any issues.

Proper exchange of information: Development work and the related technology do not have the same needs or requirements. It is very much significant to make sure that when the service providers collaborate with the ASD, all the essential information that are related with the technology should be exchanged as well as clarified as per the needs and expectations of the ASD.

Use of ICT tool: Every ICT tool is needed to be seen as the integral part of the already existing ecosystem in ASD. The tool affects the way it is used and implemented. It also helps in influencing the culture of the service provider and thus the entire project gets involved or inserted.

Processing data operations: It is very important for the service providers of ASD to clearly identify and processing and data operations which are passed to the cloud. For each type of processing, the service provider must establish the type of data in order to distinguish them on the basis of personal, strategic and the data that are used in the business applications. Certain types of data are subjected to different regulations and therefore it is very much important to check the data whether the data that are transferred to cloud are subjected to those obligations.

Authentication security: Security is a prior need before the ASD for securing the important data and information. The only measure that needs to implement is that the amount of investment on security must be done on a larger scale.  The security is needed in order to maintain the integrity, confidentiality and the services that are offered by the provide

Referential integrity: In order to minimize the problems it is very much significant for the service provider to preserve the referential integrity. It helps in conserving the setup related encryption which in turn benefits in recollecting the original configuration of the format that is associated with the data set.

Conclusion

It is concluded that the IT infrastructure of ASD that is built with the collaboration of service providers is beneficial in order to reduce cyber-attacks but there are number of issues that are related with the incident. Business will face unwillingness for interchanging the cloud without having any assurance with the superiority that is delivered. ASD will face problem in leveraging as well as transferring providers from one place to another and there is absence of any lock- in period. The cloud computing services must have the competence so that they can assimilate smoothly with the on-Premise IT. The main challenges that the ASD faces due to the cloud services providers are the security issue. The main tests for the ASD are that how the facility providers grip the challenge of safekeeping and privacy. It was analyzed that the money that was expended by the government delivers no assurance that it will generate a confident impact on the people of Australia. The government also forms an outsourcing strategy in the creation of “Digital Transformation Issue” which was recognized by the earlier administration. It also arises social matters as it acted as a resistant that the earlier government of Australia did not look into the stuff of subcontracting for solving the challenges that the persons of Australia was facing. There are number of recommendation as well as services are provided for managing the emerging issues. Security is a former necessity before the ASD for safeguarding the essential data and material. The only amount that needs to tool is that the amount of deal on safety must be done on a larger scale.  The security is required in order to preserve the honesty, privacy and the services that are provided. It is concluded that the solutions are useful in minimizing the emerging issues that are related with the incident. Recommendations are also provided in this assignment in order to reduce the issues and challenges.

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