Throughout this course, you will be working on several aspects of network security that will result in a complete Network Security Plan Document for an organization of your choosing. Providing security to the organization and protecting valuable corporate assets requires careful planning. The alternative could be disastrous for any organization. A properly designed network security plan provides a methodology for evaluating and protecting the organization’s assets. Each week, you will complete a part of your Network Security Plan, with the final draft due at the end of the course.

You will select an organization and apply your research to the analysis and development of a Network Security Plan document that would be appropriate for the organization and the needs it has for security. Additional information and the deliverables for each Individual Project will be provided in the assignment descriptions each week. This is the course’s Key Assignment that you will make contributions to each week.

Project Selection:

The first step will be to select an organization as the target for your Network Security Plan document. This organization will be used as the basis for each of the assignments throughout the course and should conform to the following guidelines:

• Nontrivial: The selected organization should be large enough to allow reasonable exercise of the development of a network security plan.
• Domain Knowledge: You should be familiar enough with the organization to allow focus on the project tasks without significant time required for domain education.
• Accessibility: You should have access to the people and other information related to the organization because this will be an important part of the process.
• Note: The selected organization may already have a security plan in place and may still be used as the basis for the projects in this course.
• Note: The selected organization must have a need for network security as part of its operations. Therefore, you may feel free to identify a hypothetical organization that meets the requirements. Any necessary assumptions may be made to fulfill the requirements of the organization selection.

Select an existing organization, or identify a hypothetical organization that fits these requirements, and submit your proposal to your instructor before proceeding further with the assignments in the course. Approval should be sought within the first few days of the course. Your instructor will tell you how to submit this proposal and what notification will be given for project approval.

Assignment Details:

You will not be implementing network security for the assignments in this course; however, you will be developing a comprehensive Network Security Plan document. Your first task in this process will be to select an organization or identify a hypothetical organization to use as the basis of your project. You will also create the shell document for the final project deliverable that you will be working on during each unit. As you proceed through each project phase, you will add content to each section of the final document to gradually complete the final project deliverable. Appropriate research should be conducted to support the development of your document, and assumptions may be made when necessary.

The project deliverables are the following:

• Submission of the proposed organization to the instructor for approval
• Network Security Plan document shell
  • Use Word
  • Title Page
    • Course number and name
    • Project name
    • Student name
    • Date
  • Table of Contents (TOC)
    • Auto generated TOC
    • Separate page
    • Maximum of 3 levels deep
    • Before submitting your project, update the fields of the TOC so it is up-to-date.
  • Section Headings (Create each heading on a new page with TBD as the content, except for sections listed under New Content).
    • Project Outline
    • Overview of Network and Existing Security
    • Risk Assessment
    • Security Architecture Plan
    • Security Policies
    • Incident Response
    • Implementation Plan
    • New Content: Overview of Network and Existing Security (Week 1)
    • Select an organization as the target for the analysis and plan that will be created.
    • Provide an overview of the existing network architecture, including the following:
      • Description of the network
      • The topology
      • Protocols allowed
      • Connectivity methods
      • Network equipment
      • Number of routers, switches, and any other network equipment, such as VPN concentrators, proxies, etc.
      • A summary of the current security devices in use on the network
        • List the type of device, the vendor, and provide a brief description of how the device is used.