Custom «Restoration and Recovery Plan» Essay Paper Sample

How the City Mayor Can counter a Terrorist Attack

As the city mayor of Florida I would term this as a cyber terrorist attack, and on my address to the public of my state I would ask them not to Panic because everything is under control. I see this as a cyber terrorist attack because these terrorists have used the internet to attack and break down each of our major institutions operating systems in the state of Florida. The terrorists have attacked every computer that is connected to the internet and brought the operations of these institutions to a halt. These great institutions include the local hospital, the local police department, the Fort Lauderdale airport and the local bank (Poulsen, 2004). And the terrorists have hacked into the information systems of these institutions and downed their normal operations. In fact, they have even reached an extent of instructing these institutions not to allow their employees into using the company's computers; because they have been warned that by using the computers will expose them to danger or attacks by the terrorists.

These terrorist attacks on the computer systems in the state of Florida will have diverse negative effects which includes the increase rates of insecurity (Alexander, 2001). This is because the police department in the state isn't operating normally. The police department will not be in a position of monitoring all the criminal activates in the state easily; as a result of breakdown of communication with other parts of the state. It will also result to delays in flights this is because the Fort Lauderdale airport isn't operating normally. This will result from the lack of communications that facilitates its normal operations. It will also lead to increased deaths in the hospitals this is as a result of the demands from the terrorists instructing them not to handle any computers. The banking sector is also hacked and the terrorists have stolen millions of dollars from the bank; this will make the people who banked in the bank to loose there money that they had saved in the bank (Online Tech, 2010).

This attack on the computers of these institutions doesn't only affect the employees of these companies alone. It should be noted that's all these institution that are involved with the terrorist attacks are organizations that serve the entire public either directly of indirectly. Therefore this attack will affect the entire Florida population and its effects may also affect some other parts of America (Online Tech, 2010).

How I would counter this attack

At this stage the damage has already been done by the terrorists and this will definitely mean that the accounts and data in the computer systems have been altered or deleted. The only way that I can use in order to help the company be in a position to operate normally; the data can be recovered from the use of the back ups which each of the organizations is mandated to have; in case of any insecurity in its information systems. This will definitely be of help to ensure that almost all the data that was in the computer is saved and isn't lost incase of the invasion from the attacks (Alexander, 2001). The other step that I would opt to use is to address all the Information and Technology officers to change the passwords of there computers and servers this is as a way of securing the institutions from a repeat of the same incident. The change of the passwords will make it difficult for the terrorists to access the accounts of these organizations once again and harm there computers (Online Tech, 2010).

In order to secure the organizations from any incidences of hackers, the organizations should ask there employees to ignore or not accept any emails or desist from visiting sites from unknown or suspicious recipients or sites. This is because the massage or link will result to the institutions information systems operations to fail as a result of virus attacks that are contained in the massage. This will be as a result of the virus attacks in the message (Poulsen, 2004).

The other way of securing the systems is by the installation and updating of the machines antivirus and software programs this will beef up the security of the computers. This will definitely make it difficult for the terrorists to invade and halt all the computer operations as a result of having weak antiviral protections in there computers, and thus ensuring that the computers are stronger than the attacks that are being sent by the terrorists.

In investigating the people responsible for the terrorist attack I would implement the use of high intelligence officials; who will be in a position to trace the motives of the terrorists, I would ask for assistance from the federal to help in tracing the suspects that are associated with this terrorist attack. This is by using the radars to try and look at the exact location of the terrorists. The locations of the terrorists will be noted from the radar that will disclose exact position of the terrorist; this will be of help in the efforts aimed at securing the lost data and their motives for the attacks (Alexander, 2001).

In conclusion I would ask all these affected institutions to boost there security levels in attempts to reduce the likelihood of this happening again. This is as a result of the poor protective devices on the computers which are seen as the ones that are driving the institutions and without them these organizations can't conduct there operations successfully. Therefore, each organization should be in a position to update its computers security systems (Poulsen, 2004).