Individual Assignment (Option #1) Understanding Threats, Vulnerabilities, and Consequences.

Individual Assignment (Option #1) Understanding Threats, Vulnerabilities, and Consequences.

Introduction You are to analyze threats, vulnerabilities, and consequences for an organization you are very familiar with; a major purpose of the exercise is to

uncover weaknesses that need to be corrected. You are to INTERVIEW (preferably in person, but by phone or other means if necessary) people to gather the information,

and then write up your results. NO RESEARCH in published sources is required to complete this assignment. NOTE: If you are re-taking this course, you must choose a

different organization. Use the attached template file for the assignment; the template helps you complete all parts of the assignment. For more details, see the

specifications below. The assignment is due at the end of Week 5 (Monday night, March 6).
If you have any questions about the assignment or the grading criteria, please post your question to Q&A for this assignment; please do NOT send an e-mail unless it is

a personal question. Other students may have similar questions. All students should check regularly for any Q&A. If there is a question of significant importance, I

will also put something in the News.
Here you will find information on these topics: • Academic Integrity • Learning Objectives • Content Specifications • Document Specifications and Instructions •

Statement Attesting to Original Work Academic Integrity With this assignment, as with all others, you must adhere to UMUC policies regarding academic integrity. Avoid

plagiarism, both intentional and inadvertent, and provide accurate documentation and attribution of the work of others. UMUC’s policy recommends “carefully following

accepted scholarly practices. Notes taken for papers and research projects should accurately record sources of material to be cited, quoted, paraphrased or summarized,

and papers and research projects should acknowledge these sources in references.” (Policy 150.25 – Academic Dishonesty and Plagiarism).
You must also include in your submitted documents a statement attesting that you are submitting work that is original and that complies with standards for academic

honesty. See below for specifications. The attestation statement is also included in the template for this assignment.
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Learning Objectives Through successful completion of this assignment, you will: • Gain insights into threats, vulnerabilities, and consequences. • Consider the topic

from disaster and business crisis perspectives. • Use interviews to gather information. • Speculate on difficulties on getting people to think about disasters and

management crises. Content Specifications CAUTION: Follow the instructions! Use the attached template! Definitions: • Threats/threat agents: events or persons that

potentially may cause unwanted consequences or impacts. • Vulnerabilities: controls or safeguards that are either weak or missing; also a condition or circumstance

that permit a threat to happen. Caution: Be careful of the distinction between vulnerability and “being vulnerable.” or example, a water system is vulnerable to

physical or cyber attacks by malicious actors, but it is simply the asset that is at risk. The vulnerabilities would be the weak safeguards for the water system. •

Consequences: damage or harm resulting from the failure of controls to prevent a threat from exploiting a vulnerability. • See also Disaster Resilience: A National

Imperative for an explanation of exposure and vulnerability (National Academy of Sciences, 2012, pp. 26- 27). Step 1: Select an organization you are familiar with and

that will allow you to interview at least 2 other people who are also familiar with it. This organization may be where you work, a business or community group (e.g.,

your auto repair shop, your doctor’s office, your child’s school, your homeowners association), or local government. NOTE: If you have taken this course before, you

must select a different organization as your subject. Step 2: Interview at least 2 people to brainstorm with you. If you cannot get them together at the same time,

that is okay. It’s fine if you need to keep the names of the interview subjects or specific organization anonymous at their request or for the sake of confidentiality,

but please use pseudonyms for easy reference.
First, identify at least 5 assets of the organization that are at risk; that is, harm to one or more of the assets would impact the organization’s ability to function

normally. Be sure to consider both tangible and intangible assets.
Second, identify at least 20 threats/threat agents, along with the associated vulnerabilities and potential consequences faced over the next 2 – 5 years. For threats,

think about what would cause significant harm. But be realistic; for
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example, if the organization is located in Miami, a blizzard is not likely.
Use both of these perspectives: A. Probable disasters or catastrophes arising from natural, technological, or human causes. B. Probable disruptive business or

management crises (usually arising from operations, personnel, strategy, or financial issues).
For example: Table 1: Disasters / Catastrophes Threats Vulnerabilities Consequences Earthquake Lack of structural hardening Furniture not properly braced Location

near known fault line Building damage or collapse Injury to or death of occupants
Table 2: Disruptive Business or Management Crises Threats Vulnerabilities Consequences Aging workforce about to retire HR department not inclined to change Loss of

institutional knowledge Lack of staff to handle workload Fraud Incompetent auditors Culture of not speaking up about problems Financial loss Reputation becomes

negative
You must have a TOTAL of 20 threats across the 2 tables; for example, 12 threats in the Disasters table and 8 threats in the Business Crises table. Be sure that the

information is clear and easily understandable.
Note: if you use written or Internet-based sources to develop your lists, you must cite them in a reference list. But to cite the interviews, those are NOT in the

reference list. Just cite them in the text. For example: Blizzards are not a realistic threat in Miami (M. Windelberg, personal communications, May 17, 2014). Do not

cite personal communications in the tables. Step 3: Then discuss with your brainstorming team the obstacles to getting people to: • Recognize potential disasters and

business disruptions. • Take actions to mitigate disasters and crises. Step 4: Write your report. The report must include the following sections, using the template

provided:
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• Describe the organization you selected and briefly explain why you chose it. • Describe the people you interviewed and why you selected them. (If they would prefer

to be anonymous, you may identify them by title and function; for example, assistant vice president at a branch bank office.) • List assets at risk. • List the

threats, vulnerabilities, and consequences that came out of the brainstorming and any other research you did. Use the table format shown above. One table should be

for disasters / catastrophes and the other table for disruptive business crises. Note: You are the subject-matter expert for the brainstorming and you are responsible

for editing the information in your final paper. If the people you interviewed mix up threats and consequences (for example), put the information in the correct

places. Do not simply accept verbatim what your brainstorming team said.
• Analyze the vulnerabilities and consequences in light of an all-hazards management approach. • Discuss issues with and obstacles to getting people to recognize

potential disasters and crises and mitigate them. • Explain what insights you gained from doing this assignment and how you might apply them. Document Specifications

and Instructions Fill out the attached template for the assignment.
Put your name on the top of the first page. Do not use a title page, an abstract, or a table of contents. If you cite any references, follow the APA guidelines; the

template has a section for references.
Paragraphs should form a logical sequence. Your sentences should be written clearly and succinctly and should also form a logical sequence. Use single- spacing, with

double spacing between paragraphs.
The length should be approximately 1200-2000 words (including the tables). NOTE: Quality of the information you provide is far more important than length.
Finally, you must also incorporate on a separate page at the end of the document a statement attesting to original work; it is included in the template. See the next

section for the full statement.
The document must be a Microsoft Word .doc or docx file or a rich text format (.rtf) file. Other file formats are not acceptable. 1. The assignment is due at the end

of Week 5/beginning of Week 6, at 11:59 PM on Monday night, March 6.
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2. Label your assignment with your First Initial + Last Name + Individual (e.g., SAnwendungIndividual). 3. Submit the Individual Assignment Essay in the dropbox under

the Individual Assignment folder in LEO.
If you would like some interim feedback on your assignment, submit a solid draft to the Workbook for the assignment in LEO and notify the instructor in an e-mail. I

usually can provide feedback to 2 students per day, so don’t wait until the last minute. Grading Rubric See separate Grading Rubric document, which is the same for

Options 1 & 2. This assignment is worth 15% of your final overall grade. Statement Attesting to Original Work You must also submit the following statement with your

personal attestation on a separate page at the end of the document; this is included in the template:
“This paper, examination, report, or the section thereof for which I have indicated responsibility, is my own work. Any assistance I received in its preparation is

acknowledged within the report or examination, in accordance with academic practice. For any data, ideas, words, diagrams, pictures, or other information from any

source, quoted or not, I have cited the sources fully and completely in the text, in endnotes, or in footnotes and bibliographical entries, as required. Furthermore, I

certify that the material was prepared by me specifically for this class and has not been submitted, in whole or significant part, to any other class in this

university or elsewhere, or used for any purpose other than satisfying the requirements of this class, except that I am allowed to submit this material to a

professional publication, peer reviewed journal, or professional conference. In adding my name following the word ‘Signature’, I intend that this certification will

have the same authority and authenticity as a document executed with my hand-written signature.”

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