Operation Eligible Receiver Research Paper Samples

Operation Eligible Receiver refers to a U.S. government exercise, which was conducted on the basis of No-Notice Interoperability Exercise Program. This process was conducted on June 9–13, 1997 and involved Federal departments including National Security Agency (Red Team), Central Intelligence Agency, Defence Intelligence Agency, Defence Intelligence Agency among others. The operation also included civilian infrastructures such as power and communications companies (Mark and Jim, 2007). The red team used hacker techniques and software freely available on the internet to crack networks. The networks were used to crack systems, manipulate emails making them appear to come from a legitimate source. The team was, therefore, able to access over 36 government networks that helped them alter its system. However, certain hackers such as white hat hacker could not hack the system.

Why White Hat Hacker Could not Attack the System

The penetration of this system by white hacker was quite difficult for two main reasons. The first reason relates to the nature of the white hat cracker and the second one relates to the non-permeability nature of Operation Eligible Receiver (Mark and Jim, 2007). The nature of white hat cracker is that it identifies a security weakness of a network or a system. However, it cannot take advantage of this weakness; instead, it reports the weakness to the administrator of the system to fix the problem. In this case, the white hat cracker cannot interfere with the system by taking advantage of its weakness. Mark and Jim (2007) argue that, on the contrary, operation eligible receiver showed that hackers had obtained root access to the system and looked for methods to strictly protect it. These two factors rendered it impossible for the white hat hacker to breach the system.

Specific Conclusions Reached

The probability of attack and the desire to maintain information integrity encouraged to the red team to initiate measures to protect this system. The team engaged extensively on preliminary electronic devices of the target agencies (Mark and Jim, 2007). It was able to control the system. The conclusions include:
There was a widespread and systematic national dialogue, which dubbed Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP), which was ratified by President Clinton in 1998 and was placed under a department of Homeland security.
Information sharing and Analysis Services (ISACs) were increased in number from eight to twelve. Each of these had varying degree of participation.

System breaches necessitated the enactment of over 25 bills to counter the breach.

Knowledgeable employees were recruited to counter the breach and offer expertise in protecting the system against attacks.
How far has out National Information Structure been improved since the Program?
The national information structure has undergone tremendous improvement since the program was launched. Various federal departments have added input into the system to ensure confidentiality of information contained in the system (Mark and Jim, 2007). Several laws have also been enacted to ensure that the system can secure its information appropriately and where infiltration occurs, necessary measures are available to remedy the situation. Although the system is not fully tamper proof, every federal institution is working extremely hard to seal all the available loopholes.

Conclusion

Information integrity and confidentiality are the epitome of every administrator of a database. It can be frustrating especially when the system being breached belongs to the government with an obligation to keep state secrets, as well as hold information about its citizens, in a confidential manner. The wiki leak event is just proof that there is a long way to secure the system against breach. However, the system looks secure compared to when it was before the Operation Eligible Receiver program was initiated.

References

Mark, M. and Jim, B. (2007). Information security: principles and practices. Pearson Information
Security. retrieved from http://sites.csn.edu/jmiller/ET/ET115B/merkow_ppt_14-JRM.pdf.