1.5.3.4 Lab – Exploring the World of Cybersecurity Professionals Answers

Last Updated on February 12, 2019 by Admin

1.5.3.4 Lab – Exploring the World of Cybersecurity Professionals Answers

Lab – Exploring the World of Cybersecurity Professionals (Answers Version)

Answers Note: Red font color or gray highlights indicate text that appears in the Answers copy only.

Objectives

Explore the security features used by organizations like Google and Cisco to keep your data safe.

Part 1: Protecting Your Data

Part 2: Improving your Google Account Security

Background / Scenario

This chapter introduces the student to the cyber world. This cyber world is full of data domains that handle unimaginable amounts of personal and organizational information. As cybersecurity professionals, it is important to understand the types of cybersecurity safeguards an organization must implement in order to protect the data they store, manage, and protect. In this lab, you will explore one of the world’s largest data handling organizations, Google. You will watch two videos and then answer a series of questions. Each video presents a different aspect of cybersecurity defense at Google. Upon completion, you will have a better understanding of the security measures and services that organizations like Google take in order to protect information and information systems.

Videos:

How Google Protects Your Data

Security Key

Required Resources

  • PC or mobile device with Internet access

Part 1: Protecting Your Data

As one of the world’s largest personal data repositories, Google stores massive amounts of data. Google accounts for close to 50% of all internet search activity. To make things even more complicated, Google owns and operates YouTube, the Android operating system, and many other major sources of data collection. In this activity, you will watch a short video and try to identify several of the measures the cybersecurity professionals at Google take to protect your data.

Step 1: Open a browser and view the following video:
How Google Protects Your Data

  1. How does Google ensure that the servers they install in their datacenters are not infected with malware by the equipment manufacturers?________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
    The engineers and cyber professionals purchase, test, and build each server in-house and install their own operating system on each one.
  2. How does Google protect against physical access to the servers located in the Google datacenters?________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
    Access to a Google datacenter is tightly controlled. Only authorized personal are allowed to enter. The security staff works 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The centers are guarded by security personnel and 24-hour video monitoring. All personnel must check in at the reception area. The team at Google does not allow outside visitors at its datacenter facilities.
  3. How does Google protect customer data on a server system?________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
    All data on Google systems are encrypted and stored in multiple locations. Google also uses data randomizing to make it more difficult to locate data. All hard drives are monitored and tested regularly. If a drive indicates signs of potential failure, it is swapped out before it fails. All retired drives are physically destroyed.

Step 2: Identify data vulnerabilities.

  1. As you can see by the video, data in the Google datacenters are well protected, however, when using Google, not all your data is located in the Google datacenter. Where else can you find your data when using the Google search engine?________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
    Data still resides at your local machine (computer, laptop, tablet or smart phone). This data must also be protected.
  2. Can you take steps to protect data when using the Google search engine? What are a few measures you can use to protect your data?________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
    Use strong passwords and/or a two-step login. You can also clear your browser history or cookies frequently. You can require device authentication to access your account.

Part 2: Improving your Google Account Security

The greatest threat when using web-based services like Google is protecting your personal account information (username and password). To make things worse, these accounts are commonly shared and used to authenticate you to other web-based services, like Facebook, Amazon, or LinkedIn. You have several options to improve the handling of your Google login credentials. These measures include creating a two-step verification or an access code with your username and password. Google also supports the use of security keys. In this activity, you will watch a short video and try to identify measures that can be taken to protect your credentials when using web-based accounts.

Step 1: Open a browser and view the following video:
The Key to Working Smarter, Faster, and Safer

  1. What is two-step verification? How can it protect your Google account?________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
    Two-step verification is an enhancement to normal Google account login. Users can create a special ID number that is provided during login.
  2. What is a security key and what does it do? Can you use the security key on multiple systems?________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
    A security key log is registered to your Google account, not a particular computer. You can use your Security Key on any computer with Google Chrome.
  3. Click here for common questions about the Security Key. If you set up your account to use a security key, can you still get in without having the physical key?________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
    Yes. If you are asked for a Security Key and do not have it available, you will always have the option to use a verification code. Simply click the link at the bottom of the screen that says use verification code instead.

Step 2: Protect Gmail Account Access.

The use of a Gmail account has become extremely popular. Google now has over 1 billion active Gmail accounts. One of the convenient features of Gmail accounts is the ability to grant access to other users. This share access feature creates a shared email account. Hackers can use this feature to access your Gmail account. To check your account, log in to your Gmail account, and click the gear icon in the top right corner (settings). When the settings screen opens, a menu bar is displayed under the Settings screen title. (General – Labels – Inbox – Accounts and Import – Filters and Blocked Addresses …)

Click the Accounts and Import menu item. Check the Grant access to your account option. Delete any unauthorized shared users of your account.

Step 3: Check Your Gmail Account Activity.

  1. Gmail users can also check the account activity in order to make sure no other users have accessed their personal Gmail account. This feature can identify who has accessed the account and from what locations. Use the Last account activity option to determine if someone else has accessed your account. To access the Last account activity follow these steps:
    1. Login to your Gmail account.
    2. Select Last account activity: found at the bottom of the page. It will display the last time the unauthorized user accessed the account and from where.
    3. Just below this message is a detail hyperlink. Click the detail hyperlink.
  2. View the account activity. If you find an unauthorized user, you can disconnect the unauthorized user by clicking the button at the top left Sign out all other web sessions. Now change your password to keep the unauthorized user from accessing the account.