You are a network security consultant and have been hired by a manufacturing firm, Vandelay Industries, to help them secure their enterprise network. Each item below was requested by Vandelay’s executive management and small IT team. Assume that the company has nothing in terms of security as you approach recommending solutions in these areas. Also assume that money is no object, so don’t worry about how much something costs but be within reason in the context of the company’s details below. In other words, they’re not a Bank of America with a 300 million dollar information security budget.

Vandelay’s requested milestones:

1. Prevention and detection of phishing messages.
2. Defense of workstations and servers (aka endpoint defense).
3. Top five operating system hardening techniques for Windows workstations.
4. Network defense and security monitoring.
5. Best practices for protecting sensitive systems & information within AWS
6. Network architecture recommendations to prevent ransomware and destructive malware outbreaks.
7. Aggressive monitoring on a small group of servers containing highly sensitive information.
8. Physical security recommendations for both facilities.

Vandelay corporate information and network details:

• 375 employees, two locations – a HQ building and one distribution facility nearby (pictures attached of each building).
• Employees use Windows workstations. Vandelay’s full system fleet has a mixture of Windows workstations, Windows servers, and Linux/Unix servers.
• Vandelay utilizes Microsoft O365 for email, productivity, cloud storage etc.
• Vandelay utilizes AWS for their corporate website in addition to several applications such as inventory tracking, logistics, customer ordering etc.

You don’t need to go extremely deep, but pitch recommendations that are well thought-out and make sense for this company.

Your paper should be at a minimum:

1. Five pages double-spaced NOT including the cover page, index, reference page etc. That means a minimum of five pages of your own content to address the eight items above.
2. Using APA formatting –  https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/general_format.html
3. Utilizing no less than 5-7 high-quality references
4. Using no copied material or direct quotes from your references.