31 Jan 2021
Instructions for the Breach Report Paper
For ISOL533, the Breach Report Paper is a research exercise that seeks to raise awareness on the importance of securing and protecting vital information that is used in industry, in retail settings, in finance, and in personal transactions every day. The details below describe the requirements of the project.
What is being researched?
The Breach Report Research Project is a study of Information Security data breaches that have been published in the media. You are to find ONE NEWS ARTICLE on the Internet that was a strong example of an Information Security incident or crime.
- The articles must be within the past 6 years (a large system failure, a data breach, a hacking event). Please see “My Favorites” below for some examples, and feel free to use the examples for your own paper.
- The event must be something that was publicly reported on in news media articles. Do NOT pick academic articles gathered from scholarly journals. Do NOT pick passages from textbooks and other hardcopy media. Do NOT take information from Wikipedia. Your grade will be lowered if I cannot access the original articles over the Internet.
- Pick an event that is well-documented. Do NOT pick obscure articles such as a data breach in Buford, Wyoming, the smallest town in America (population: 1). Please stick to major events. Again, use My Favorites below as starting points if you are having trouble choosing a cyber breach or hacking event.
Scope & Format of the Project
The scope and format your paper should be:
- 600-900 words. Microsoft Word. Double-spaced, Arial or Calibri font, APA format. Do NOT write a giant paper that will take me forever to grade please. Do NOT send me a virus-infected file.
- Introduce the article. What happened and who was involved?
- Make sure you thoroughly summarize what happened – what was stolen or compromised. What were the damages or losses? If the event was a solved crime, who were the criminal(s)?
- MOST IMPORTANTLY: How could the event have been avoided? If the issue was corrected, describe what was changed. If not, give your advice based on what you’ve learned in class on how you would avoid the same situation next time. What have the experts suggested?
- Your paper needs a minimum of two references in the bibliography
- You can submit your paper in the classroom in the Breach Report assignment (in the CONTENT folder) or you can email it to me.