SCENARIO
Tom looked forward to starting his new position with a U.S ---based automobile leasing company (New Company), now operating in 32 states. New Company was recently formed through the merger of two prominent players, one from the eastern region (East Company) and one from the western region (West Company). Tom, a Certified Information Privacy Technologist (CIPT), is New Company's first Information Privacy and Security Officer. He met today with Dick from East Company, and Harry, from West Company. Dick and Harry are veteran senior information privacy and security professionals at their respective companies, and continue to lead the east and west divisions of New Company. The purpose of the meeting was to conduct a SWOT (strengths/weaknesses/opportunities/threats) analysis for New Company. Their SWOT analysis conclusions are summarized below.
Dick was enthusiastic about an opportunity for the New Company to reduce costs and increase computing power and flexibility through cloud services. East Company had been contemplating moving to the cloud, but West Company already had a vendor that was providing it with software-as-a-service (SaaS). Dick was looking forward to extending this service to the eastern region. Harry noted that this was a threat as well, because West Company had to rely on the third party to protect its data.
Tom mentioned that neither of the legacy companies had sufficient data storage space to meet the projected growth of New Company, which he saw as a weakness. Tom stated that one of the team's first projects would be to construct a consolidated New Company data warehouse. Tom would personally lead this project and would be held accountable if information was modified during transmission to or during storage in the new data warehouse.
Tom, Dick and Harry agreed that employee network access could be considered both a strength and a weakness. East Company and West Company had strong performance records in this regard; both had robust network access controls that were working as designed. However, during a projected year-long transition period, New Company employees would need to be able to connect to a New Company network while retaining access to the East Company and West Company networks.
When employees are working remotely, they usually connect to a Wi-Fi network. What should Harry advise for maintaining company security in this situation?
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Correct Answer:
A
In the scenario, New Company needs to maintain security for employees connecting remotely, primarily over Wi-Fi networks.
Detailed Explanation:
Option A (Hiding SSID): Hiding the SSID (Service Set Identifier) can provide a basic level of security by making the network less visible to casual users. While not foolproof, it can deter unauthorized access to some extent.
Option B (Retaining assigned password): Retaining the default or assigned password is not advisable as these are often well-known and can easily be breached. Changing to strong, unique passwords is crucial.
Option C (WEP Encryption): Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) is outdated and has significant security vulnerabilities. It is not recommended for securing modern networks.
Option D (Tokens through HTTP): Using tokens for verification is important, but sending them through HTTP (an unsecured protocol) is not safe. HTTPS should be used instead.
Best practices for Wi-Fi security, including the use of WPA2 or WPA3 encryption, which offer much stronger security compared to WEP.
The importance of using strong, unique passwords for network security.
Recommendations for network security from organizations such as NIST and ISO.
Conclusion: Hiding the wireless SSID (Option A) is a basic security measure that can help improve the security of Wi-Fi networks used by employees connecting remotely, though it should be complemented with stronger measures such as WPA2/WPA3 encryption.
