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Modern organizations need effective ways to assess cybersecurity risk. Successful cyber attacks can result in data breaches, which may inflict significant loss of money, time, and public trust. Small businesses and non-profit organizations have limited resources to invest in cybersecurity controls and often do not have the in-house expertise to assess their risk. Cyber threat actors also vary in sophistication, motivation, and effectiveness. This paper builds on the previous work of Lerums et al., who presented an AnyLogic model for simulating aspects of a cyber attack and the efficacy of controls in a generic enterprise network. This paper argues that their model is an effective quantitative means of measuring the probability of success of a threat actor and implements two primary changes to increase the model's accuracy. First, the authors modified the model's inputs, allowing users to select threat actors based on the organization's specific threat model. Threat actor effectiveness is evaluated based on publicly available breach data (in addition to security control efficacy), resulting in further refined attack success probabilities. Second, all three elements - threat effectiveness, control efficacy, and model variance - are computed and evaluated at each node to increase the estimation fidelity in place of pooled variance calculations. Visualization graphs, multiple simulation runs (up to 1 million), attack path customization, and code efficiency changes are also implemented. The result is a simulation tool that provides valuable insight to decision-makers and practitioners about where to most efficiently invest resources in their computing environment to increase cybersecurity posture. AttackSimulation and its source code are freely available on GitHub.

Poor passwords are often the central problem identified when data breaches, ransomware attacks, and identity fraud cases occur. This Purdue Extension publication provides everyday users of Internet websites and computer systems with tools and strategies to protect their online accounts. Securing information access with password managers can be convenient and often free of cost, on a variety of devices and platforms. “Do’s and Don’ts” of password practices are highlighted, as well as the benefits of multi-factor authentication. The content is especially applicable for small businesses or non-profits, where employees often share access to systems or accounts.

Internet users require secure means of communication. Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) often serve this purpose, for consumers and businesses. The research aims of this paper were an analysis and implementation of the new VPN protocol WireGuard. The authors explain the cryptographic primitives used, build server and client code implementations of WireGuard peers, and present the benefits and drawbacks of this new technology. The outcome was a functional WireGuard client and server implementation, capable of tunneling all Internet traffic through a cloud-based virtual private server (VPS), with minimal manual configuration necessary from the end user. The code is publicly available.