Question

A northeast manufacturing firm captured contracts worth several million dollars to make measurement and
instrumentation devices for NASA and the US Navy. However, one-morning workers found themselves unable
to log on to the operating system, instead getting a message that the system was “under repair.” Shortly after,
the company’s server crashed, eliminating all the plant is tooling and manufacturing programs. When the
manager went to get back up tapes, he found they were gone and the individual workstations had been wiped
out. The company’s CFO testified that the software bomb had destroyed all the programs and code generators
that allowed the firm to customize their products and thus lower costs. The company subsequently lost
millions of dollars, was dislodged from its position in the industry, and eventually had to lay off 80 workers.
The company can take some solace in the fact that the guilty party was eventually arrested and convicted.

Read the scenario closely, evaluate it and provide possible solution based on your understanding of network
security.

Answer 1

The software bomb or a logic bomb is a malicious piece of code that is hidden and gets executed only when its specified conditions are met.They are put intentionally to create havoc in the network and corrupt the data.A logic bomb may be set to execute in different ways such as ,whenever a specific date is met,whenever a particular file is opened or other conditions are met.

The logic bombs are planted due to various reasons.

So the prevention of them is so much necessary.It can be done in the following ways.

1) For a logic bomb the code has to be hidden inside the virus and other trojans.So we should use a highly secure and strong anti-virus such that it can even identify viruses that hide logic bombs.

2)Access to unreputed and malicious websites must be blocked.

3)Unlicensed and pirated software must not be downloaded.

4)Proper policies should be made and the employees must be advised to adhere to the guidelines.

5)Employees must be educated on the sensitivity of data.

6)Operating systems must be updated whenver there is a update since they release it after bug fixes.