Journal of Cases on Information Technology, 15(3), 1-22, July-September 2013
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Information Security breaches today affect a large number of organizations including universities, globally.
They pose an immense threat to the C-I-A (confdentiality, integrity and availability) of information. Hence,
it is important to have proper Information Security Management System (ISMS) designed in accordance with
industry adopted standards for risk management. The current case explores the IT infrastructure at a premier
Indian business school where internet support is required round the clock. The entire ISMS framework of the
organization, including security policy, security budget and network components, is described. Though the
security infrastructure apparently seemed to be adequate, a spate of hacking attacks targeted at the SMTP
server attempted to cripple the extremely crucial email services for the period of the attack by generating
spam. The primary security challenges facing the organization including nature and appropriateness of ISMS,
adequacy of the security policy, budget allocation for IT security, etc., are left open for discussion.
Today’s Action is Better than
Tomorrow’s Cure - Evaluating
Information Security at a Premier
Indian Business School
Saini Das, Indian Institute of Management, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India
Arunabha Mukhopadhyay, Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India
Bharat Bhasker, Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India
Keywords: Confdentiality, Integrity and Availability (CIA) of Information, Information Security Management
System (ISMS), Network Security Components, Security Policy, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
(SMTP)
DOI: 10.4018/jcit.2013070101
INTRODUCTION
Mr. Rajesh Ghosh
1
, the Chairman, Computer
Advisory Committee (CAC) at the ABC Institute
of Management, Lucknow (AIML)
1
looked at the
dark brown, wooden foor of his offce, immersed
in thought about the latest hacking attempts on
the Institute’s network. There was a knock on his
partially open offce door. Mr. Deepak Jha, the
Computer Centre (CC) manager stood at the door
with a pile of documents in his hand, smiled and
said “It is not that bad after all. Our Computer
Centre employees are trying their best to handle
the attack and the situation will soon be under
control.” Mr. Ghosh however, was more worried
than relieved. It was the computer centre’s