Vulnerabilities/Weaknesses
When looking at the companies vulnerabilities and weaknesses there are certain aspects to consider. “One aspect of analyzing a customer’s business goals is the process of analyzing vulnerabilities related to disasters and the impact on business operations.” (Oppenheimer, 2011, p. 13) By doing this you will determine what areas of Riordan’s network and services are critical to their business operations and where they are specifically located at, and how better to protect them to ensure operationally ability in case of physical disaster’s such as.
Physical Vulnerabilities * Weather * Environmental disaster – Earthquake, flood, tornado * Fire or other preventable disasters * Political instability in foreign countries * Satellite used for communication between China and San Jose, satellite could fail, be destroyed, or lose communication based on orbit and location
Once these physical vulnerabilities have been assessed and determined Riordan can then start the process of providing a continuity plan in case of one of these situations arise. By identifying and planning for this emergency’s Riordan will be better prepared to handle these vulnerabilities and protect against them so to minimize their threat to continued communications.

Another aspect of assessing Riordan’s vulnerabilities and weaknesses is to conduct a security assessment. “The network is examined from within by professionals, trained in the vulnerabilities exploited by network invaders.” (Oppenheimer, 2011, p. 13) This process would provide an exceptional technical vulnerabilities/weakness assessment. That Riordan could have, some examples of what they could find are.
Technical Vulnerabilities * San Jose used as central location for network, to access other sites data must travel through this site, if central site were to go down access to all other sites would be lost * Solo router used to connect networks to Internet and outside sources, if hardware failure no way to connect to outside * Solo hubs and switches used, hardware failure would cause loss of communication amongst nodes * Hardware vulnerabilities in firm ware that invaders could use against to gain access * Software exploits that invaders could use to gain access * Each locations firewall setup and intrusion detection/prevention could be compromised/outdated/non-existent
Once the technical vulnerability assessment has been conducted and the technical deficiencies have been defined. Riordan could then plan accordingly and correct the specific vulnerabilities/weaknesses in their network to greatly minimize the company’s weaknesses. This would also provide them an exceptional example and base line to use in the future when assessing and minimizing technical vulnerabilities and weaknesses.

Reference
Oppenheimer, P. (2011). Top Down Network Design (3rd ed.). Retrieved from The University of Phoenix eBook Collection database.