Assignment 1: Designing FERPA Technical Safeguards

Due Week 2 and worth 100 points

Imagine you are an Information Security consultant for a small college registrar’s office consisting of the registrar and two (2) assistant registrars, two (2) student workers, and one (1) receptionist. The office is physically located near several other office spaces. The assistant registrars utilize mobile devices over a wireless network to access student records, with the electronic student records being stored on a server located in the building. Additionally, each registrar’s office has a desktop computer that utilizes a wired network to access the server and electronic student records. The receptionist station has a desktop computer that is used to schedule appointments, but cannot access student records. In 1974, Congress enacted the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) to help protect the integrity of student records. The college has hired you to ensure technical safeguards are appropriately designed to preserve the integrity of the student records maintained in the registrar’s office.

Write a three to five (3-5) page paper in which you:

1. Analyze proper physical access control safeguards and provide sound recommendations to be employed in the registrar’s office.
2. Recommend the proper audit controls to be employed in the registrar’s office.
3. Suggest three (3) logical access control methods to restrict unauthorized entities from accessing sensitive information, and explain why you suggested each method.
4. Analyze the means in which data moves within the organization and identify techniques that may be used to provide transmission security safeguards.
5. Use at least three (3) quality resources in this assignment. Note: Wikipedia and similar Websites do not qualify as quality resources.

Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements:

• Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides; citations and references must follow APA or school-specific format. Check with your professor for any additional instructions.
• Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page and the reference page are not included in the required assignment page length.

The specific course learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:

• Describe the role of information systems security (ISS) compliance and its relationship to U.S. compliance laws.
• Use technology and information resources to research issues in security strategy and policy formation.
• Write clearly and concisely about topics related to information technology audit and control using proper writing mechanics and technical style conventions.