A mouse stops a whole office
A mouse gets into a cable duct. It chews through a cable. Forty people cannot work until the cable is fixed.
Threats do not only come from hackers. Today you sort threats by where they come from.
By the end of this lesson
Note
I can sort a threat into environmental or manmade, and say if it is inside or outside.
Key words
| Word | What it means | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Environmental | to do with nature and the room around the equipment | Flood, heat, damp |
| Manmade | caused by people, on purpose or by accident | |
| Internal | comes from inside the organisation | A worker or a contractor |
| External | comes from outside the organisation | A hacker |
| Contractor | a person who works for the organisation but is paid by another company | |
| Humidity | how much water is in the air | |
| Third party | another company the organisation depends on | An internet provider |
| Malware | harmful software |
The cells students fill in are left blank in this preview.
Starter
Have a go
Starter
3 questionsYour answers are marked here and are not kept. A college account keeps every student’s marks.
Environmental threats
Equipment lives in a place. The place can harm it. There are five environmental threats.
Extreme weather. Natural disaster. Animals. High or low humidity. Poor air quality.
Environmental threats and the harm they do
| Threat | Example | Harm |
|---|---|---|
| Extreme weather | Storm floods a basement | Equipment under water |
| Natural disaster | Earthquake or wildfire near a site | Building and equipment lost |
| Animals | A rodent chews cables or enters the server room | Broken cables, short circuits |
| Humidity | Damp air in a store room | Rust and short circuits |
| Air quality | Dust in a cabinet | Blocked fans and overheating |
The cells students fill in are left blank in this preview.
Manmade threats: inside and outside
People cause harm on purpose or by accident.
Internal threats come from employees and contractors. Some mean harm. Some only make a mistake, such as deleting the wrong folder.
External threats come from outside: malware, hacking, social engineering, third parties and terrorism.
Manmade threats with an example each
| Where from | Threat | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Internal | Malicious activity | An angry worker copies a customer list |
| Internal | Inadvertent activity | A contractor unplugs the wrong cable |
| External | Malware | A harmful file in an email |
| External | Hacking | Someone guesses a weak password |
| External | Social engineering | A caller tricks a helper into giving a password |
| External | Third-party organisation | Our internet provider has a long outage |
| External | Terrorism | An attack on a building or on computers |
The cells students fill in are left blank in this preview.