Risk Assessment For Versand’s Global Network Infrastructure

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Introduction

Versand is a well-established international shipping firm engaged in various business activities connected with logistics and energy division. Assignments writing help for such cases highlights its main operational base in London and has staff strength of over 70000 employees spread across 100 countries. It has a vast and integrated system for shipping that involves a number of regional facilities based on New York, Seattle, London, Frankfurt, Singapore and Sydney. Some of these are shipment management, container tracking and inventory, and booking systems which are developed on Microsoft Windows servers in SQL database. In June 2017, Versand faced a ransomware attack just like Petya/NotPetya which targeted the companies using unpatched windows systems. 

Risk Assessment For Versand’s Global Network Infrastructure

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Maria Evans 6 Years | PhD

Evaluation of the Network and Data Architecture

Current Design of Regional Data Centers and Connectivity

Versand’s world IT network arrangement is based on six centralised data centers situated in New York, Seattle, London, Frankfurt, Singapore city, and Sydney city. These data centres are fiber-linked regionally, which ensures high frame rate and cross-region data transfer. Every data centre contains materials management applications of shipping orders, container tracing, stock, and video conference equipment and systems all running on Microsoft Window servers with SQL server support (Tasueva and Borisova, 2021).

Data Transmission between Port/Regional Sites and Cloud

In the existing infrastructure, data transmission mainly relies on the VPN connection that ensures the communication of the port offices, regional offices, and data centers. Information traded includes the transactional information, inventory information and the information on the containers.

Suitability of Current Infrastructure

From one perspective of the application, it efficiently addresses the operational demands by enabling real-time data processing and international connection. However, the stabilization of branch office devices with Windows 7 opens doors for cyber threats. There are no set security policies, more so at the port offices with direct linkages to the internet; this is a major vulnerability against advanced cyber threats.

Possible Exploits and Vulnerabilities

Internal Threats

The internal threats that are major risks for Versand include extensive control throughout their large workforce that is located within offices and ports all over the world. Users who have access to such systems are vulnerable to social engineering techniques, for instance, phishing, which involves sending fake emails or even a communication to the user and tricking him or her to reveal credentials or open a link that contains a virus. Since email is crucial to the company’s shipping operations, a phishing attack would grant access to data and internal systems (Odimarha et al., 2024).

External Threats

Versand is clearly a global company and depends on the internet connection which makes it vulnerable to various external risks and threats a worldwide Petya/NotPetya ransomware attack that occurred in 2017 targeted outdated Windows systems and led to a full cessation of operations to prevent the virus’s spread. This exemplifies a primary ransomware attack where the hackers locked the files and demanded payment in cryptocurrency for the key (Symes et al., 2024).

Network and Application Vulnerabilities

There are several issues on both network and application levels within Versand’s System. Windows 7 systems that are present in the port offices are bad as they have reached their end-of-life support meaning that they don’t receive new patches and updates. This research established that there is a patchy implementation of firewalls and IPS in the global offices which are possibly openings that the attackers may exploit (Soner et al., 2024).

Risk Assessment for Exploits and Vulnerabilities

Risk Assessment of Access Points and Systems Components

Versand’s global structure has several main entry points and components that are prone to certain degrees of risk. While regional data centres are very well prepared with good servers and storage boxes, these are vulnerable from outside cyber threats since they have direct connectivity to the cloud and inter-data centres. This is so because misconfigurations within virtual machines or inadequate patching mechanisms are other sources of threats. Regional and port offices are also other areas of weakness in terms of security policies, obsolete operating systems and weak control of local breakouts (Ganin et al., 2020).

Potential Exploits and Consequences

These weaknesses can be potentially exploited by a hostile party in different ways. An adversary may modify a port office device to become a way into the network as it provides further access to other authorized networks hosting critical data centers in the vicinity (Škundrić et al., 2022). So, if there were no network segmentation, the attackers could take control of certain systems and gain access to other essential programs that might be used in container tracking or inventory.

ERD (Entity Relationship Diagram) Representation

The Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD) tries to unveil the existing relationship between the main systems of Versand and to clarify the flow of sensitive information together with the possible security interface points.

The above ER diagram identifies the major data entities involved in the shipping process of Versand. It employs a system of logging into the platform using credentials, and making shipments bookings associated with containers of inventory items.

Recommendations and Mitigation Strategies

Infrastructure Security Improvements

As part of further improvement of network topology for Versand’s global network, it is necessary to ensure strong network segmentation, to localize core processes, including shipment data management and financial databases, from operational areas. This will avoid exposure of important resources in the organization in the event of an attack and prevent lateral movement. The improvement of firewalls at all the port and regional offices will maintain the strategic security perimeter to filter and monitor all traffic in conjunction with the existing security policy (Forguites, 2024). 

Application Security Enhancements

Since Versand is an organization that is very inclined to utilize Microsoft-based systems, it is required to have a strict patch management policy for quick installation of all acquired patches for servers, applications, and endpoints. Any operation that does not prioritize the patching of known vulnerabilities such as the one that happened in the year 2017 makes the company vulnerable to the attacks (Liu et al., 2022).

Social, Legal, and Managerial Security Measures

Continuing education programs to enforce good security habits should be conducted or provided sessions should be mounted continuously at employee level for combating the dangers of phishing, social engineering, and human mistake. Security awareness activities for staff should focus on mimicking attacks and the correct way to handle emails, login credentials and security incidents.

Use Case Diagram for Security Implementation

The following use case for the interactions between the users, systems and the security controls in place in Versand will help in detailing the interactions on the Versand platform.

This use case illustrates how controls such as MFA, FW, IDS, Encryption and Patching manage to address the users, the administrators and the attackers.

Plan for Penetration Testing

Internal Penetration Testing Approach

A proper internal penetration testing plan should be developed to determine Versand’s internal network security weakness with specific focus in regional data centres, ports offices as well as employee workstations. The internal test will then act like there is an attacker from inside the trusted network where the firewall, an intrusion detection device, or people’s access privileges will be evaluated (Alkhurayyif and Almarshdy, 2024). Much attention will be paid to systems with the Windows 7 operating system as such systems remain vulnerable to malware extension and privilege escalation.

External Penetration Testing Strategy

External penetration testing will concern issues that are within a system that can be attacked from beyond the network boundaries with the external firewall as a barrier, some of which are VPN gateways, web-based shipment booking and cloud-connected services. This realistic skills-based test will bring out shortcomings such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and the lack of or wayward validation and will help address them as well (Odimarha et al., 2024).

Comparison against Industry Standards

Current Security State vs. Industry Benchmarks

The findings, though, show that Versand has current cybersecurity vulnerabilities that may be assessed against the principles of the NIST, ISO 27001, and CIS Controls. Despite these preventive measures such as VPN connection and anti-virus, the organization has not applied the firewall consistently while still using Windows 7 which is not supported in the market contrary to the standards set by these frameworks (Korsvik, 2023).

Expected Improvements after Implementation

The strategies recommended would go a long way in improving Versand’s levels of conformity to the existing practices in industries. The enhancements made to the legacy systems, implementation of proper network segmentation policy, and the use of modern intrusion detection systems will go a long way in fulfilling the requirements of SC of the NIST while at the same time addressing the technical controlling objectives of the ISO 27001.

Conclusion

The results further show internal threats including human mistakes and phishing in addition to external threats like ransomware and DDoS that comprise information and halt activities. Additionally, there is no clear formulation of the firewall deployment and unrestricted WLAN access, coupled with utilization of nonprofessional systems.

References

Journals

• Alkhurayyif, Y. and Almarshdy, Y.S., 2024. Adopting automated penetration testing tools: A cost-effective approach to enhancing cybersecurity in small organizations.
• Blackhurst, J., Rungtusanatham, M.J., Scheibe, K. and Ambulkar, S., 2018. Supply chain vulnerability assessment: A network based visualization and clustering analysis approach. Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management, 24(1), pp.21-30.
• Forguites, J., 2024. Network segmentation boosts performance, protection: reduce network cybersecurity risk and optimize network performance by following these 5 steps to leverage best practices of network design. Control Engineering, 61(11), pp.38-41.
• Ganin, A.A., Quach, P., Panwar, M., Collier, Z.A., Keisler, J.M., Marchese, D. and Linkov, I., 2020. Multicriteria decision framework for cybersecurity risk assessment and management. Risk Analysis, 40(1), pp.183-199.
• Hunter, R. and Weiss, J., 2021. Cybersecurity and data centers. Data center handbook: Plan, design, build, and operations of a smart data center, pp.349-358.
• Korsvik, V.P.I., 2023. Cyber security Risk perception and Mitigation Strategies within the Maritime Shipping Industry (Master's thesis, University of South-Eastern Norway).
• Liu, W., Xu, X., Wu, L., Qi, L., Jolfaei, A., Ding, W. and Khosravi, M.R., 2022. Intrusion detection for maritime transportation systems with batch federated aggregation. IEEE transactions on intelligent transportation systems, 24(2), pp.2503-2514.
• Odimarha, A.C., Ayodeji, S.A. and Abaku, E.A., 2024. Securing the digital supply chain: Cybersecurity best practices for logistics and shipping companies,'. World Journal of Advanced Science and Technology, 5(1), pp.026-030.
• Odimarha, A.C., Ayodeji, S.A. and Abaku, E.A., 2024. Securing the digital supply chain: Cybersecurity best practices for logistics and shipping companies,'. World Journal of Advanced Science and Technology, 5(1), pp.026-030.
• Odimarha, A.C., Ayodeji, S.A. and Abaku, E.A., 2024. Securing the digital supply chain: Cybersecurity best practices for logistics and shipping companies,'. World Journal of Advanced Science and Technology, 5(1), pp.026-030.
• Sindiramutty, S.R., Jhanjhi, N.Z., Tan, C.E., Khan, N.A., Shah, B. and Manchuri, A.R., 2024. Cybersecurity measures for logistics industry. In Navigating Cyber Threats and Cybersecurity in the Logistics Industry (pp. 1-58). IGI Global.
• Sindiramutty, S.R., Jhanjhi, N.Z., Tan, C.E., Khan, N.A., Shah, B. and Manchuri, A.R., 2024. Cybersecurity measures for logistics industry. In Navigating Cyber Threats and Cybersecurity in the Logistics Industry (pp. 1-58). IGI Global.
• Sindiramutty, S.R., Jhanjhi, N.Z., Tan, C.E., Khan, N.A., Shah, B. and Manchuri, A.R., 2024. Cybersecurity measures for logistics industry. In Navigating Cyber Threats and Cybersecurity in the Logistics Industry (pp. 1-58). IGI Global.
• Škundrić, P., Korać, V. and Davidovac, Z., 2022. EU CYBER INITIATIVES AND INTERNATIONAL CYBERSECURITY STANDARDS–AN OVERVIEW. Archaeology & Science/Arheologija i Prirodne Nauke, 18.
• Soner, O., Kayisoglu, G., Bolat, P. and Tam, K., 2024. An investigation of ransomware incidents in the maritime industry: Exploring the key risk factors. Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part O: Journal of Risk and Reliability, p.1748006X241283093.
• Symes, S., Blanco-Davis, E., Graham, T., Wang, J. and Shaw, E., 2024. Cyberattacks on the Maritime Sector: A Literature Review. Journal of Marine Science and Application, 23(4), pp.689-706.
• Tasueva, T.S. and Borisova, V.V., 2021, February. Digital Design of the Region’s Logistics Infrastructure. In International Scientific and Practical Conference “Russia 2020-a new reality: economy and society”(ISPCR 2020) (pp. 446-450). Atlantis Press.