This document outlines 6 projects for a cybersecurity course (CST 610). Project 1 involves assessing an organization's information systems infrastructure and identity management. Project 2 involves evaluating operating system vulnerabilities in Windows and Linux. Project 3 involves assessing vulnerabilities and risks after a security breach at the Office of Personnel Management. Project 4 involves threat analysis and exploitation. Project 5 involves cryptography. Project 6 involves digital forensics analysis. Each project provides details on required deliverables and evaluation criteria.

1. CST 610 All Project (Project 1-6)
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CST 610 Project 1 Information Systems and Identity Management
CST 610 Project 2 Operating Systems Vulnerabilities (Windows and
Linux)
CST 610 Project 3 Assessing Information System Vulnerabilities and
Risk
CST 610 Project 4 Threat Analysis and Exploitation
CST 610 Project 5 Cryptography
CST 610 Project 6 Digital Forensics Analysis
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2. CST 610 Project 1 Information Systems and Identity
Management
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Project 1 Information Systems and Identity Management
Video transcript
CYB 610 Project 1 You are a systems administrator in the IT department
of a major metropolitan hospital. Your duties are to ensure the
confidentiality, availability, and integrity of patient records, as well as
the other files and databases used throughout the hospital. Your work
affects several departments, including Human Resources, Finance,
Billing, Accounting, and Scheduling. You also apply security controls
on passwords for user accounts. Just before clocking out for the day, you
notice something strange in the hospital's computer system. Some
person, or group, has accessed user accounts and conducted
unauthorized activities. Recently, the hospital experienced intrusion into
one of its patient's billing accounts. After validating user profiles in
Active Directory and matching them with user credentials, you suspect
several user's passwords have been compromised to gain access to the
hospital's computer network. You schedule an emergency meeting with

3. the director of IT and the hospital board. In light of this security breach,
they ask you to examine the security posture of the hospital's
information systems infrastructure and implement defense techniques.
This must be done quickly, your director says. The hospital board is less
knowledgeable about information system security. The board makes it
clear that it has a limited cybersecurity budget. However, if you can
make a strong case to the board, it is likely that they will increase your
budget and implement your recommended tool company¬wide. You will
share your findings on the hospital's security posture. Your findings will
be brought to the director of IT in a technical report. You will also
provide a non¬technical assessment of the overall identity management
system of the hospital and define practices to restrict and permit access
to information. You will share this assessment with the hospital board in
the form of a narrated slide show presentation. You know that identity
management will increase the security of the overall information
system's infrastructure for the hospital. You also know that, with a good
identity management system, the security and productivity benefits will
outweigh costs incurred. This is the argument you must make to those
stakeholders.
Daily life requires us to have access to a lot of information, and
information systems help us access that information. Desktop
computers, laptops, and mobile devices keep us connected to the
information we need through processes that work via hardware and
software components. Information systems infrastructure makes this
possible. However, our easy access to communication and information
also creates security and privacy risks. Laws, regulations, policies, and
guidelines exist to protect information and information owners.
Cybersecurity ensures the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of
the information. Identity management is a fundamental practice. Part of
identity management is the governance of access, authorization, and
authentication of users to information systems, Identity management is
one part of a layered security defense strategy within the information
systems infrastructure. Your work in this project will enable you to

4. produce a technical report and nontechnical presentation that addresses
these requirements.
There are five steps that will help you create your final deliverables. The
deliverables for this project are as follows:
1. Nontechnical presentation: This is an 8-10 slide PowerPoint
presentation for business executives and board members.
2. Technical report: Your report should be a 6-7 page double-spaced
Word document with citations in APA format. The page count does not
include figures, diagrams, tables or citations.
3. Executive summary: This should be a 2-3 page double-spaced Word
document.
4. In a Word document, share your lab experience and provide screen
prints to demonstrate that you performed the lab.
When you submit your project, your work will be evaluated using the
competencies listed below. You can use the list below to self-check your
work before submission.
• 1.1: Organize document or presentation clearly in a manner that
promotes understanding and meets the requirements of the assignment.
• 2.3: Evaluate the information in a logical and organized manner to
determine its value and relevance to the problem.
• 6.2: Creating a roadmap for organizations to use in development of an
Identity Access Management program (to address gaps in their current
offerings).
• Step 1: Defining the Information System Infrastructure
Select a hospital or healthcare organization to research. You may choose
an organization you are familiar with or can readily obtain information

5. about. To maintain confidentiality, you do not need to mention the name
of the organization. You may also choose a hypothetical/fictitious
healthcare organization.
Others have researched several healthcare organizations, which have
suffered major security breaches, extensively.
1. Describe the organization and structure including the different
business units and their functions. You may use an organizational chart
to provide this information.
2. Choose one or more mission-critical systems of the healthcare
organization. Define the information protection needs for the
organization's mission-critical protected health information (PHI). This
information is stored in database medical records for doctors, nurses,
and insurance claims billing systems, which are used to fulfill the
organizational information needs.
3. Define the workflows and processes for the high-level information
systems that you have just identified that will store PHI. Workflows and
processes for healthcare organizations define how the organization gets
its work done. They describe the movement of patient information to the
business units that have needs to process and manage that information,
from billing to physician care. All these organizations have hardware
and software implementations of their information systems, and it is
critical to understand these components, and how they are connected
(known as their topology), so the appropriate protections can be applied.
Your research may produce instances and examples of how an
information system is connected, to include cybersecurity components
like firewalls, in the information system and network diagram. Be sure
you understand the benefits and weaknesses for the different network
topologies.
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6. CST 610 Project 2 Operating Systems Vulnerabilities (Windows
and Linux)
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CYB 610 Project 2 Congratulations, you are the newly appointed lead
cybersecurity engineer with your company in the oil and natural gas
sector. This is a senior¬level position. You were hired two months ago
based on your successful cybersecurity experience with a previous
employer. Your technical knowledge of cybersecurity is solid. However,
you have a lot to learn about this company's culture, processes, and IT
funding decisions, which are made by higher management. You have
recently come across numerous anomalies and incidents leading to
security breaches. The incidents took place separately, and it has not
been determined if they were caused by a single source or multiple
related sources. First, a month ago, a set of three corporate database
servers crashed suddenly. Then, a week ago, anomalies were found in
the configuration of certain server and router systems of your company.
You immediately recognized that something with your IT resources was
not right. You suspect that someone, or some group, has been regularly
accessing your user account and conducting unauthorized configuration
changes. You meet with your leadership to discuss the vulnerabilities.
They would like you to provide a security assessment report, or SAR, on
the state of the operating systems within the organization. You're also

7. tasked with creating a non-technical narrated presentation summarizing
your thoughts. The organization uses multiple operating systems that are
Microsoft-based and Linux¬based. You will have to understand these
technologies for vulnerability scanning using the tools that work best for
the systems in the corporate network. You know that identity
management will increase the security of the overall information
systems infrastructure for the company. You also know that with a good
identity management system, the security and productivity benefits will
outweigh costs incurred. This is the argument you must make to the
stakeholders
The operating system (OS) of an information system contains the
software that executes the critical functions of the information system.
The OS manages the computer's memory, processes, and all of its
software and hardware. It allows different programs to run
simultaneously and access the computer's memory, central processing
unit, and storage. The OS coordinates all these activities and ensures that
sufficient resources are applied. These are the fundamental processes of
the information system and if they are violated by a security breach or
exploited vulnerability it has the potential to have the biggest impact on
your organization.
Security for operating systems consists of protecting the OS components
from attacks that could cause deletion, modification, or destruction of
the operating system. Threats to an OS could consist of a breach of
confidential information, unauthorized modification of data, or
unauthorized destruction of data. It is the job of the cybersecurity
engineer to understand the operations and vulnerabilities of the OS
(whether it is a Microsoft, Linux, or another type of OS), and to provide
mitigation, remediation, and defense against threats that would expose
those vulnerabilities or attack the OS.
There are six steps that will help you create your final deliverables. The
deliverables for this project are as follows:

8. 1. Security Assessment Report (SAR): This report should be a 7-8 page
double-spaced Word document with citations in APA format. The page
count does not include figures, diagrams, tables, or citations.
2. Nontechnical presentation: This is a set of 8-10 PowerPoint slides for
upper management that summarizes your thoughts regarding the
findings in your SAR.
3. In a Word document, share your lab experience and provide screen
prints to demonstrate that you performed the lab.
When you submit your project, your work will be evaluated using the
competencies listed below. You can use the list below to self-check your
work before submission.
• 1.1: Organize document or presentation clearly in a manner that
promotes understanding and meets the requirements of the assignment.
• 2.3: Evaluate the information in a logical and organized manner to
determine its value and relevance to the problem.
• 5.4: Identify potential threats to operating systems and the security
features necessary to guard against them.
Step 1: Defining the OS
The audience for your security assessment report (SAR) is the leadership
of your organization, which is made up of technical and nontechnical
staff. Some of your audience will be unfamiliar with operating systems
(OS). As such, you will begin your report with a brief explanation of
operating systems fundamentals and the types of information systems.
Click on and read the following resources that provide essential
information you need to know before creating a thorough and accurate
OS explanation:
• operating systems fundamentals

9. • the applications of the OS
• The Embedded OS
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CST 610 Project 3 Assessing Information System
Vulnerabilities and Risk
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Project 3 Assessing Information System Vulnerabilities and Risk
CYB 610 Project 3 You are an Information Assurance Management
Officer, IAMO, at an organization of your choosing. One morning, as
you're getting ready for work, you see an email from Karen, your
manager. She asks you to come to her office as soon as you get in. When
you arrive to your work, you head straight to Karen's office. “Sorry for
the impromptu meeting,” she says, “but we have a bit of an emergency.
There's been a security breach at the Office of Personnel Management.”
We don't know how this happened, but we need to make sure it doesn't
happen again, says Karen. You'll be receiving an email with more
information on the security breach. Use this info to assess the
information system vulnerabilities of the Office of Personnel
Management. At your desk, you open Karen's email. She's given you an

10. OPM report from the Office of the Inspector General, or OIG. You have
studied the OPM OIG report and found that the hackers were able to
gain access through compromised credentials. The security breach could
have been prevented, if the Office of Personnel Management, or OPM,
had abided by previous auditing reports and security findings. In
addition, access to the databases could have been prevented by
implementing various encryption schemas and could have been
identified after running regularly scheduled scans of the systems. Karen
and the rest of the leadership team want you to compile your findings
into a Security Assessment Report or SAR. You will also create a Risk
Assessment Report, or RAR, in which you identify threats,
vulnerabilities, risks, and likelihood of exploitation and suggested
remediation
The security posture of the information systems infrastructure of an
organization should be regularly monitored and assessed (including
software, hardware, firmware components, governance policies, and
implementation of security controls). The monitoring and assessment of
the infrastructure and its components, policies, and processes should also
account for changes and new procurements that are sure to follow in
order to stay in step with ever-changing information system
technologies.
The data breach at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is one of
the largest in US government history. It provides a series of lessons
learned for other organizations in industry and the public sector. Some
critical security practices, such as lack of diligence to security controls
and management of changes to the information systems infrastructure
were cited as contributors to the massive data breach in the OPM Office
of the Inspector General's (OIG) Final Audit Report, which can be found
in open source searches. Some of the findings in the report include:
weak authentication mechanisms; lack of a plan for life-cycle
management of the information systems; lack of a configuration
management and change management plan; lack of inventory of
systems, servers, databases, and network devices; lack of mature

11. vulnerability scanning tools; lack of valid authorizations for many
systems, and lack of plans of action to remedy the findings of previous
audits.
The breach ultimately resulted in removal of OPM's top leadership. The
impact of the breach on the livelihoods of millions of people is ongoing
and may never be fully known. There is a critical need for security
programs that can assess vulnerabilities and provide mitigations.
There are nine steps that will help you create your final deliverables. The
deliverables for this project are as follows:
1. Security Assessment Report (SAR): This should be an 8-10 page
double-spaced Word document with citations in APA format. The page
count does not include figures, diagrams, tables, or citations.
2. Risk Assessment Report (RAR): This report should be a 5-6 page
double-spaced Word document with citations in APA format. The page
count does not include figures, diagrams, tables, or citations.
3. In a Word document, share your lab experience and provide screen
prints to demonstrate that you performed the lab.
When you submit your project, your work will be evaluated using the
competencies listed below. You can use the list below to self-check your
work before submission.
• 1.1: Organize document or presentation clearly in a manner that
promotes understanding and meets the requirements of the assignment.
• 1.2: Develop coherent paragraphs or points so that each is internally
unified and so that each functions as part of the whole document or
presentation.
• 1.3: Provide sufficient, correctly cited support that substantiates the
writer’s ideas.

12. • 1.4: Tailor communications to the audience.
• 1.5: Use sentence structure appropriate to the task, message and
audience.
• 1.6: Follow conventions of Standard Written English.
• 5.2: Knowledge of architectural methodologies used in the design and
development of information systems and knowledge of standards that
either are compliant with or derived from established standards or
guidelines.
• 5.6: Explore and address cybersecurity concerns, promote awareness,
best practice, and emerging technology.
• 7.3: Knowledge of methods and tools used for risk management and
mitigation of risk.
• 8.1: Demonstrate the abilities to detect, identify, and resolve host and
network intrusion incidents.
• 8.2: Possess knowledge and skills to categorize, characterize, and
prioritize an incident as well as to handle relevant digital evidence
appropriately.
Step 1: Enterprise Network Diagram
During Project One, you researched a hypothetical or actual organization
of your choice. You had to understand the goals of the organization and
the types of systems that would fulfill those goals. You will now
research and learn about types of networks and their secure constructs
that may be used in organizations to accomplish the functions of the
organization’s mission. You will propose a local area network (LAN)
and a wide area network (WAN) for the organization, define the systems

13. environment, and incorporate this information in a network diagram.
Discuss the security benefits of your chosen network design.
Read about the following computing platforms available for networks
and discuss how these platforms could be implemented in your
organization. Include the rationale for all platforms you choose to
include in your network design.
• common computing platforms
• cloud computing
• distributed computing
• centralized computing
• secure programming fundamentals
• Step 2: Enterprise Threats
• Review the OIG report on the OPM breach that you were asked to
research and read about at the beginning of the project. The OIG report
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CST 610 Project 4 Threat Analysis and Exploitation
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14. Project 4 Threat Analysis and Exploitation
CYB610 Project 4 You are part of a collaborative team that was created
to address cyber threats and exploitation of US financial systems critical
infrastructure. Your team has been assembled by the White House Cyber
National security staff to provide situational awareness about a current
network breach and cyber attack against several financial service
institutions. Your team consists of four roles, a representative from the
financial services sector who has discovered the network breach and the
cyber attacks. These attacks include distributed denial of service attacks,
DDOS, web defacements, sensitive data exfiltration, and other attack
vectors typical of this nation state actor. A representative from law
enforcement who has provided additional evidence of network attacks
found using network defense tools. A representative from the
intelligence agency who has identified the nation state actor from
numerous public and government provided threat intelligence reports.
This representative will provide threat intelligence on the tools,
techniques, and procedures of this nation state actor. A representative
from the Department of Homeland Security who will provide the risk,
response, and recovery actions taken as a result of this cyber threat.
Your team will have to provide education and security awareness to the
financial services sector about the threats, vulnerabilities, risks, and risk
mitigation and remediation procedures to be implemented to maintain a
robust security posture. Finally, your team will take the lessons learned
from this cyber incident and share that knowledge with the rest of the
cyber threat analysis community. At the end of the response to this cyber
incident, your team will provide two deliverables, a situational analysis
report, or SAR, to the White House Cyber National security staff and an
After Action Report and lesson learned to the cyber threat analyst
community.

15. US critical infrastructure-power—water, oil and natural gas, military
systems, financial systems—have become the target of cyber and
physical attacks as more critical infrastructure systems are integrated
with the Internet and other digital controls systems. The lesson learned
in defending and mitigating cyberattacks is that no entity can prevent or
resolve cyberattacks on its own. Collaboration and information sharing
is key for success and survival.
This is a group exercise, representing collaboration across all sectors, to
support and defend US critical infrastructure. In the working world, a
team like this would include some agencies, some industrial partners,
and some private sector corporations. Each organization has different
strengths and skills, different access to information, and different
authorities to report to. When the sectors work together and leverage
resources and skills, the result is that everyone benefits from the defense
and protection of US IT infrastructure. In your teams, you can model the
same collaboration, leveraging each other's expertise, sharing each
other's knowledge, teaching each other, and providing contributions
specific to your role in the scenario.
• Financial Services Representative: special task in Step 3
• Law Enforcement Representative: special task in Step 4
• Intelligence Agency Representative: special task in Step 5
• Homeland Security Representative: special task in Step 6
There are seven steps that will help you create your final deliverables.
The deliverables for this project are as follows:
1. Security Assessment Report (SAR): This report should be a 14-15
page double-spaced Word document with citations in APA format. The
page count does not include figures, diagrams, tables, or citations.

16. 2. After Action Report (AAR): This report should be a 10-15 page
double-spaced Word document with citations in APA format. The page
count does not include figures, diagrams, tables, or citations.
3. This is a 5-8 slide PowerPoint presentation for executives along with a
narrated or In-Class Presentation summarizing your SAR and AAR
report.
When you submit your project, your work will be evaluated using the
competencies listed below. You can use the list below to self-check your
work before submission.
• 1.1: Organize document or presentation clearly in a manner that
promotes understanding and meets the requirements of the assignment.
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CST 610 Project 5 Cryptography
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Project 5 Cryptography

17. CYB610 Project 5 You are an enterprise security architect for a
company in a semiconductor manufacturing industry where maintaining
competitive advantage and protecting intellectual property is vital.
You're in charge of security operations and strategic security planning.
Your responsibilities include devising the security protocols for
identification, access, and authorization management. You recently
implemented cryptography algorithms to protect the information
organization. Leadership is pleased with your efforts and would like you
to take protection methods even further. They've asked you to study
cyber-attacks against different cryptography mechanisms and deploy
access control programs to prevent those types of attacks. We'd like you
to create plans for future security technology deployments, says one
senior manager. And provide documentation so that others can carry out
the deployments. A director chimes in, but you should also devise a
method for ensuring the identification, integrity, and non-repudiation of
information in transit at rest and in use within the organization. As the
enterprise security architect, you are responsible for providing the
following deliverables. Create a network security vulnerability and
threat table in which you outline the security architecture of the
organization, the cryptographic means of protecting the assets of the
organizations, the types of known attacks against those protections, and
means to ward off the attacks. This document will help you manage the
current configuration of the security architecture. Create a Common
Access Card, CAC deployment strategy, in which you describe the CAC
implementation and deployment and encryption methodology for
information security professionals. Create an email security strategy in
which you provide the public key, private key hashing methodology to
determine the best key management system for your organization. These
documents will provide a security overview for the leadership in your
company
Encryption uses cryptographic algorithms to obfuscate data. These
complex algorithms transform data from human readable plaintext into
encrypted cipher text. Encryption uses the principles of substitution and
permutation to ensure that data is transformed in a non-deterministic

18. manner by allowing the user to select the password or a key to encrypt a
message. The recipient must know the key in order to decrypt the
message, translating it back into the human readable plaintext.
There are six steps that will lead you through this project. After
beginning with the workplace scenario, continue to Step 1: "IT Systems
Architecture."
The deliverables for this project are as follows:
1. Create a single report in Word document format. This report should
be about 10 pages long, double-spaced, with citations in APA format.
Page count does not include diagrams or tables. The report must cover
the following:
o network security and threat table
o Common Access Card deployment strategy
o e-mail security strategy
2. In a Word document, share your lab experience and provide
screenshots to demonstrate that you performed the lab.
When you submit your project, your work will be evaluated using the
competencies listed below. You can use the list below to self-check your
work before submission.
• 1.5: Use sentence structure appropriate to the task, message and
audience.
• 1.6: Follow conventions of Standard Written English.
• 1.7: Create neat and professional looking documents appropriate for
the project or presentation.
• 2.1: Identify and clearly explain the issue, question, or problem under
critical consideration.

19. • 2.2: Locate and access sufficient information to investigate the issue or
problem.
• 2.3: Evaluate the information in a logical and organized manner to
determine its value and relevance to the problem.
• 2.4: Consider and analyze information in context to the issue or
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CST 610 Project 6 Digital Forensics Analysis
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• Project 6 Digital Forensics Analysis
Project 6 Start Here
This project will provide an introduction to digital forensic analysis.
Digital forensic analysis is used to review and investigate data collected
through digital communications and computer networks. The National
Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) has defined four
fundamental phases for forensic analysis: collection, examination,
analysis, and reporting. You will learn more about these concepts as you

20. navigate throughout the steps of this project and read the literature and
links found in each step.
There are four steps that will lead you through this project. Begin with
Step 1: “Methodology. The deliverables for this project are as follows:
1. Digital Forensic Research Paper: This should be a five-page double-
spaced Word document with citations in APA format. The page count
does not include diagrams or tables.
2. In a Word document, share your lab experience and provide
screenshots to demonstrate that you completed the lab.
When you submit your project, your work will be evaluated using the
competencies listed below. You can use the list below to self-check your
work before submission.
• 5.3: Uses defensive measures and information collected from a variety
of sources to identify, analyze, and report events that occur or might
occur within the network in order to protect information, information
systems, and networks from threats.
• 8.6: Provides professional preparation for computer digital forensics,
investigation of crime, and preservation of digital evidence in criminal
and civil investigations and information security incident response.
• 8.7: Provide theoretical basis and practical assistance for all aspects of
digital investigation and the use of computer evidence in forensics and
law enforcement.
Step 1: Methodology
The methodology includes following a systems process. Identify the
requirements, purpose, and objectives of the investigation. Click the
links below to review information that will aid in conducting and
documenting an investigation:

21. • secure programming fundamentals
• forensics fundamentals
Learn about the investigation methodology. Consider secure
programming fundamentals. Define the digital forensics analysis
methodology, and the phases of the digital forensics fundamentals and
methodology, including the following:
1. preparation
2. extraction
3. identification
4. analysis
This information will help you understand the process you will use
during an investigation.
Step 2: Tools and Techniques
Select the following links to learn about forensics analysis tools,
methods, and techniques:
1. forensics analysis tools
2. web log and session analysis
3. hash analysis
Step 3: Exploring Forensic Tools
Note: You will utilize the tools in Workspace for this step. If you need
help outside the classroom, you can register for the CLAB 699 Cyber
Computing Lab Assistance (go to the Discussions List for registration

22. information). Primary lab assistance is available from a team of lab
assistants. Lab assistants are professionals and are trained to help you.
Click here to access the instructions for Navigating the Workspace and
the Lab Setup.
Select the following link to enter Workspace. Complete the forensic
tools exercise provided in this lab. Explore the tutorials and user guides
to learn more about various types of digital forensic tools.
Click here to access the Project 6 Workspace Exercise Instructions.
You will learn about the different types of tools, techniques, and
analyses.
Step 4: Digital Forensics Research Paper
Now that you have learned basics of digital forensics analyses and
methodology, and have experienced one of the common forensic tools,
use the material presented in this project as well as research you've
conducted outside of the course materials to write a research paper that
addresses the following:
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