2. RIVAL COMPANY INFORMATION In order to obtain insiders' information about Exigent, we formulated several plans. After some discussion, the best way to get insiders' information is to plant a mole within Exigent's organization. While going through Smooth Inc.'s employees' details, we came across an employee, called Employee X for privacy reasons, who had just left Exigent and joined us. Upon further probing, it was found that he worked in Exigent's IT Department and is willing to divulge whatever he knows about Exigent.
2.1 EXIGENT'S BACKGROUND INFORMATION Formed in 1990, Exigent Pte Ltd has rose from a small chain of computer retails outlets to an IT firm that manufactures a wide variety of IT related products and computer peripherals. Recently, Exigent has also extended their scope of business into the Research and Development sector of the IT industry.
Presently, Exigent has about 1800 employees in their 3 plants located in Perth, Singapore and China.
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English: , a research and development centre for b...The Regional Office in Singapore serves as a business hub for the entire Exigent Pte Ltd as their products target mainly at the Asian market. The China plant is the where all the manufacturing of the products are done mainly, After manufacturing, the products are sent to the Singapore Regional Office for distribution.
The main Research and Development (R&D) department can be found in Exigent's Perth installation. Besides R&D, the Perth Main Office will oversee the manufacturing wing and also the regional distribution hub in located in China and Singapore respectively.
2.2 Investigation on R&D Department 2.2.1 Structure of Research and Development Department The Research and Development Department is led by Dr Ronald Peterson. He has 3 Project Managers working under him. They are namely Dr. Ian Mathews, Mr. David Douglas and Mr. Connor Finnigan. Each project teams consist of 5-6 research specialist working together.
2.2.2 Key Appointment Holders of Project "HoloDrive"ÃÂ After some investigation, it was found that Dr. Ian Mathews and Mr. Connor Finnigan are jointly responsible of the project "HoloDrive"ÃÂ. This information was divulged by Employee X.
Exigent's Project "HoloDrive"ÃÂ is extremely similar to Smooth Inc. Holographic Drive (HOLD). According to "Employee X"ÃÂ, Project "HoloDrive"ÃÂ is already in its prototype stage and it could be launched within 2-3 months time.
2.3 Security Measure of Exigent (Perth Main Office) In this section, we would discuss about the Security Measures taken by Exigent. We would go into the details of their Physical Security, provision of compound guards etc., and Information Security, use of Firewalls and Encryption etc.
2.3.1 Physical Security The physical security of Exigent (Perth) is being contracted to a security company called "Silent Knights"ÃÂ.
Throughout the day, there are a total of 4 security personnel within the compound itself. 2 of which are situated in the security booth located at the entrance to Exigent and 2 of them will be at the Information Counter in the main lobby. After working hours, which is 1700hrs, 1 of the guard at the Information Counter will take turns to prowl around the building.
Closed Circuit Video Cameras are located at key points of entries to the building. In total, there are 5 points of entry into Exigent's (Perth) building, namely the main entrance at the lobby, rear entrance at the lobby, 2 fire escape staircases at both sides of the building and the roof of the building.
All entrance leading to office areas are protected by a key-card reader. Only when a Exigent's key-card is scanned by the reader, then will the door to the office opens. In the event that a door is being forced opened, the alarm will sound and guards will be notified.
2.3.1.1 Physical Security R&D Department The main door leading to the Research and Development office is being doubled locked after the last person leaves the room. Only personnel within the department, the Director and General Manager are cleared to enter this office by scanning their card at the card-reader. Besides the card-reader, personnel entering the office must also punch in a 6 digit code within 30 seconds of scanning their key-card before security is being notified. The 6 digit code is changed every fortnightly.
2.3.2 Information Security For every Exigent employee, there are actually 2 mains servers that they have to log in to every day. The first would be the main Exigent server, which enables them internet access, mail access and resource sharing. The second server is their own department's server which enables them to do their respective work. In order to log in to Exigent's servers, employees will have to enter a password that is to be changed every fortnightly.
For access to the internet, all users will have to go through 2 firewalls that offers logical protection to the organization. The firewall is configured such that only permitted traffic such as HTTP, HTTPS and SMTP data are allowed so as to deter hackers (refer to Appendix A).
Most of the terminals of the staff are not equipped with floppy disk drives or zip drives, only the various section heads and department heads have such privileges so as to control the outflow of softcopy data.
The IT Department maintains a log of all web activities of all users, be it the internet sites employees visit and also the contents of e-mails sent out. This is for periodic checks and also for future reference (refer to Appendix B).
2.3.2.1 Information Security of R&D Department The Research and Development Department has its own computer room, unlike other departments who house their server in the main computer room located in the IT Department. This is due to the sensitive nature of the work in the Research and Development Department. All works are done within the Office and stored onto the server. The Research and Development server does a back-up on a daily basis. One copy of the backed-up data is sent to "Silent Knight"ÃÂ office every evening at 1900hrs.
English: Papworth Hospital Research & Development ...
Learning Research and Development Center, Universi...