An Analysis of Cybersecurity Architectures

Abstract

The 4th Industrial Revolution has increased high-capacity connectivity, new human-machine interactions largely with IoTs and smart devices. This digital revolution offers incredible conveniences such as the ability for users to access volumes of data, governments can address social challenges, connect remote villages in the country, and more. Once secluded systems are now connected and sharing information. This connectedness also poses some inconveniences as well, whenever a device joins the Internet, it becomes publicly discovered. Once these devices are discovered, they become open to cyberattacks. Cybersecurity has become a crucial part of daily life as cyberattacks have increased over time and have become more and more severe. The challenge that cybersecurity consultants find is the difficulty of measuring cybersecurity efforts in organizations. Another challenge could be finding a cybersecurity architecture that is effective and can fit different situations. The main aim of this study was to develop a comprehensive cybersecurity architecture that can be used by cybersecurity consultants when measuring cybersecurity effectiveness. This study conducted an in-depth literature review on current cybersecurity architectures offered by national and international cybersecurity organizations. The identified cybersecurity architectures that have been developed by other organizations were translated, interpreted, compared, and synthesized and a new cybersecurity architecture is proposed. The proposed cybersecurity architecture has the NIST goals as a foundation and the CIA triad at the center. The proposed cybersecurity architecture has domains such as application and Systems security, Information security, Network security, End-point security, Critical Infrastructure security, Mobile security, Storage security, etc. The proposed cybersecurity architecture seeks to assist cybersecurity consultants in answering questions from executives such as: Are we secure? Are security investments delivering value to the business? What is our preparedness for a cyberattack?