Page 66 - Cyber Defense eMagazine - October 2017

level of protection. The church also should train the staff in its entirety. Any of the
church’s staff with access to their system computer system should be trained for
security threats. This training should be focused on phishing prevention and social
engineering examples. This vector of attacks has been thriving for a few years and has
proven to be present rather significant issues for the targets. If this is not presently
being done, the church’s IT department needs to have a robust and timely patch
management program in place and being used. Patches should be pushed often. These
have been coded for a reason. These have been designed to improve the processing,
fix vulnerabilities, and other options. These are not meant to be an inconvenience, but a
necessity with most patches.

The church needs to ensure the back-ups are done and tested to ensure the back-ups
are done and tested to ensure the back-ups are done and in a retrievable form. This is
useful in many forms and reasons. In the case of ransomware, the church would be
able to restore the systems from the back0up with little loss of data. Without the valid,
viable back-ups in place, the circumstances would be drastically different, creating
stress and taking much time to fix. Without this in place and being actively tested, the
church’s network and system would be susceptible to ransomware, malware, and
simple user error. This is relatively simple to implement.

Spam filters are a valid tool to assist in protecting the system. This is always a good
idea for the members and staff with email accounts when the email is internal. Spam is
sent to virtually every single email address when operating for more than two days.
These would entice the users to click on links, pictures, or to visit a website selling
products or services, or informing them of “fantastic” offers. The adequate spam filter
would remove this issue to a significant level from the users. By extension, this should
also decrease the level of malware experienced by the church. The church should have
their policies regarding computer usage. There should not be an issue with this,
however when this is in a written form, documented for the users, there is a clear line to
cross. The policies would be read, and reviewed by all users on the system and signing
a document reflecting this.

About the Author

Charles Parker, II began coding in the 1980’s. Presently CP is a
Cybersecurity Lab Engineer at a Tier One supplier to the
automobile industry. CP is presently completing the PhD
(Information Assurance and Security) with completing the
dissertation. CP’s interests include cryptography, SCADA,
securing communication channels, and inorganic chemistry. He
has presented at regional InfoSec conferences. Charles Parker,
II can be reached online at [email protected] and
InfoSecPirate (Twitter).

66 Cyber Defense eMagazine – October 2017 Edition
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