Overview of Network Security - Major Methodologies for Secure Networks - IT/Computer Science Assignment Help

Assignment Task :

Purpose of the assessment (with ULO Mapping)
The purpose of this assignment is to develop skills to independently analyse innovation. Students will be able to complete the following ULOs:
a. Analyse and discuss the main security issues and emerging trends in information security;
b. Analyse and discuss common emerging threats, attacks, mitigation and countermeasures in networked information systems;
c. Explain the major methodologies for secure networks and what threats they address;
d. Identify and report network threats, select and implement appropriate countermeasures for network security;
e. Use security policies to manage operational security, and then administer those policies to ensure compliance by users in an organization;
f. Demonstrate professional and ethical behaviour with regard to network security

QUESTION 1:  
a) Select one of the recent attacks (which happened in the years 2019-2020) from the Information is Beautiful World’s Biggest Data Breaches  Based on your research and analysis, discuss in a tabular form, how this attack could have been prevented or mitigated if the five basic security principles had been applied?
 
b) Google Dorking, or using advanced Google search techniques to find sensitive information, has been linked to “online dumpster diving.” Advanced Google search engine operators such as allintext, allintitle, allinurl, cache, filetype, inanchor, intest, intitle, link, site, +, |, and * are used to find sensitive information. Discuss the purpose any two operators.
 
QUESTION 2: 
a) Salt is the most common input value for the cryptographic algorithm. Explain how Salt is used? How it can be compromised?
 
b) Explain hardware and software-based encryption techniques with suitable examples. Which will you recommend from an information security perspective? Justify your answer.
 

QUESTION 3: 
a) One of your friends is concerned that attackers could be exploiting a vulnerability in software to gain access to resources that the user normally would be restricted from accessing. In this regard he/she has asked for your help. Identify the type of attack for which your friend is worried and propose a solution.

b) You have recently joined a large enterprise as an information security officer. In a recent meeting, you were asked which of the standard networking devices already present on the network could be configured to supplement the specific network security hardware devices that were recently purchased. Identify and discuss two standard networking devices which you would recommend. How could these devices help in securing information in a networked scenario?

QUESTION 4  
a) The use of various devices and technologies to secure the network is a current necessity. Sensors, collectors, and filters are commonly used devices to ensure the security of the network. With reference to Figure 1:
i. Discuss the purpose of sensors, collectors, and filters in a network. Explain the basis on which the placement of the sensor/collector/filter could be decided.
ii. Among the given locations, if you were asked to choose one location for placing the sensor/collector/filter, which one would you choose? Justify your answer

b) With the help of a diagram, analyse the security policy cycle for a health organisation? Highlight the significance of Codes of Ethics in a health organisation.

QUESTION 5  
a) Another dire warning has been issued for Windows users in the first week of August 2019, after threat researchers at Proofpoint disclosed "a previously undocumented malware." This one had a twist, though, this malware was not an attack in itself, it was an enabler, hiding on infected computers, establishing a proxy that other malware can then use to manage traffic to the PC and carry out their threats. Dubbed by its finders as SystemBC, the new strain of malware uses SOCKS5 proxies to bypass security measures, creating a secure command and control tunnel for other malware to use. The researchers highlighted "well-known banking Trojans such as Danabot" as likely beneficiaries.
Identify and discuss the primary trait of SystemBC malware? Explain what are possible motives of Danabot malware?

b) Different services can be used to provide identity and access services. One such authentication service is called Remote Authentication Dial In User Service (RADIUS). Explain all the steps of the authentication mechanism of RADIUS as shown in Figure 2. Report on the advantages of this authentication service.

QUESTION 6: Case study 
In early 2019, millions of Facebook user records have been "exposed to the internet" in what could be the latest Cambridge Analytica-style shambles for the social network, cyber security researchers have revealed.
Two apps that Facebook allowed to access to its users’ data stored personal information on insecure servers without putting security measures in place, according to Australian IT company UpGuard. A total of 540 million records including users’ Facebook IDs, comments, likes, reactions and account names were found on a database uploaded by Mexican digital publisher “Cultura Colectiva” which was discovered on Amazon Web Service (AWS) cloud servers, a popular storage product. A second database belonging to a now defunct Los Angeles-based social network app called “At The Pool” which included names, email addresses, photos, friends lists and likes of 22,000 additional users was also found.
Facebook has been working with Amazon to remove both sets of data but said it was investigating how long the information had been exposed for and remained unclear on whether British users were caught up. The breach highlights Facebook's struggle to police its rule that developers it shares user information with must store it in a secure manner and bears the hallmarks of the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal.
Founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg is already entangled in a criminal investigation into how political consultants used Facebook's system to improperly harvest data from 87 million people. This was made possible by tasking a developer to create a seemingly harmless personality test app, which when installed by Facebook users was granted access to the Facebook Application Programmer Interface (API) to pool their information, which was later sold to Cambridge Analytica. Both Cultura Colectiva and At The Pool appear to have used Facebook's API to gather information.
Along with user IDs, friend lists, location check-ins and events, the At The Pool app data found on AWS included a list of passwords. It is unclear whether these are Facebook passwords, but could potentially put account holders at risk if they have re-used the same passwords across different services.
In a blog post detailing the leak, UpGuard wrote: “What ties them together is that they both contain data about Facebook users, describing their interests, relationships, and interactions, that were available to third party developers”. As Facebook faces scrutiny over its data stewardship practices, they have made efforts to reduce third party access. But as these exposures show, the data genie cannot be put back in the bottle.
“Data about Facebook users has been spread far beyond the bounds of what Facebook can control today. Combine that plenitude of personal data with storage technologies that are often misconfigured for public access, and the result is a long tail of data about Facebook users that continues to leak."

a) What went wrong in this scenario? What recommendations would you make to Facebook and the partner companies to avoid this security breach in future?

b) In this case study, it is mentioned that users’ passwords were also stored on the same insecure server by “At The Pool” app. What advice will you give to users who use the same password for multiple accounts? And how can they make their passwords stronger? Are there any alternate means to enable strong security other than password protection? Justify your answer with proper reasoning.
 
c) Identify and discuss some benefits and security risks associated with cloud computing.

QUESTION 7: Case study II  
Kevin, a journalist, wanted to determine how difficult it would be to have his information stolen. He sat down with Jessica, a security researcher, and laid out the challenge: could Jessica find Kevin’s personal email address just by having his cell phone number? Jessica started her attack in an unconventional way. Instead of searching the Internet for hints of Kevin’s email address or using sophisticated hacking techniques to uncover a link to his email address from his cell phone number, Jessica determined who Kevin’s wireless phone provider was by using a simple Internet lookup. Then she used software on her laptop computer to “spoof” Kevin’s cell phone number from her device, so that to the recipient of a call it looked like it was coming from Kevin’s phone. Finally, Jessica pulled out her ace: she accessed a website of sounds of a baby crying, and turned up the volume.
Now she was ready. Jessica dialled Kevin’s cell phone provider and started a dialog with a customer service representative that went something like this:
Jessica: “Hello? I’m sorry, can you hear me OK? My baby is crying. I’m so sorry.”
Customer Service Rep: “Yes, I can barely hear you. What can I do for you today?”
Jessica: “We’re about to apply for a loan, and we’ve just had a new baby—that’s who’s crying!—and my husband told me that I need to get this done today. I’m so sorry, I can’t call you back later. I’m just trying to log into our account for our user information. I don’t seem to remember the email we use to log in, and now the baby’s crying more, and—can you please help me?”
Customer Service Rep: “Sure. I have your phone number showing up on my screen. Let me look up the email address we have on file for this account. Here it is.”
Jessica: “Thank you so much. Oh, and we need to add an older daughter on this account so she can call in and make changes to it.”
Customer Service Rep: “I will need to send you a secure PIN to this cell phone number to verify that you have the phone.”
Jessica: “But I can’t receive a text while I’m talking on this phone. And there goes the baby again. Can you please help me just this once?”
Customer Service Rep: “OK. Oh, it looks like you’re not on the account either. Would you like for me to also add you to this account?”
Jessica: “My husband was supposed to add me but I guess he forgot. Yes, if you could add me that would be great! But what’s the password on the account so I can get to it?”
Customer Service Rep: “Since I just added you to this account I’ll reset the account password to ’Jess’ for you.”
Jessica: “Thank you so much! You’ve been a big help.”
Customer Service Rep: “My pleasure. Anything else I can do for you today?”
Starting with just Kevin’s cell phone number, Jessica was able to, not only get his email address but also reset his entire account with a new password, locking Kevin out of his own account. And she did it all in less than two minutes

a) After analysing the above case scenario, how would you categorise this type of attack? Give detailed justification supporting your answer. What recommendations would you make for the Customer Service Rep (who were tricked into giving out information over the phone) to avoid this situation?
 
b) In the above scenario, Jessica used spoofing techniques for collecting Kevin’s personal information Explain another technique that an attacker might use to gather information about any individual to perform a social engineering attack. You can make any logical assumption to support your answer.

QUESTION 8: Case study III 
In a case that exposed US government’s embarrassing failure to secure its secrets, a 54-year-old former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor pleaded guilty on taking classified documents home. Harold T. Martin III, who worked in the NSA’s Tailored Access Operations hacking unit, admitted his guilt more than two years after his arrest in what may be the biggest breach of classified information in history.
FBI agents who swarmed his modest home south of Baltimore in 2016 found stacks of documents and electronic storage devices stashed in his car, his home and even a garden shed. But investigators never found proof that Mr. Martin, who was working on a doctorate in information systems at the time of his arrest, had shared the stolen secrets with anyone else, though there is evidence he may have considered doing so.
Poring over the piles of material they found in their searches, investigators were astonished to discover that for 20 years, Mr. Martin, known as Hal, had been carrying classified material out of the NSA and other security agencies where he had worked. At the time of his arrest, he was working for Booz Allen Hamilton—the same intelligence contractor that had employed Edward Snowden, who flew to Hong Kong in 2013 and gave journalists a large trove of NSA documents.
The most damaging leak of all was discovered around the time of Mr. Martin’s arrest in August 2016, when a mysterious group calling itself the Shadow Brokers announced an online auction of a long list of software exploits the NSA used to break into foreign computer networks. The Shadow Brokers eventually made the stolen cyber weapons public, and other countries and criminal groups began using them for hacking and theft around the world.
FBI investigators focused on Mr. Martin after getting a tip from Kaspersky Lab, a Russian cybersecurity company. Two Kaspersky employees had gotten cryptic messages from Mr. Martin — calling himself “HAL999999999” — via Twitter that seemed to be offering secrets, as Politico first reported in January. “Shelf life, three weeks,” Mr. Martin wrote in one of his cryptic texts, seeming to suggest that he was offering material on a time-limited basis. But shortly after sending the messages, he blocked on Twitter the two Kaspersky employees he had just contacted, so they could not respond.
The FBI quickly linked the HAL999999999 Twitter account to Mr. Martin, and agents were soon searching his modest house in Glen Burnie, a Baltimore suburb. They discovered a staggering total of 50 terabytes of government data, a virtual library’s worth, much of it classified at a high level.
Investigators at first believed Mr. Martin might be the Shadow Brokers, who had posted their first announcement of their auction of NSA hacking tools a half-hour after Mr. Martin blocked the two Kaspersky workers on Twitter. They found the same NSA exploits in Mr. Martin’s vast collection of stolen material.
But the Shadow Brokers continued to post taunting manifestoes and stolen software for months after Mr. Martin was jailed. It appears that the investigators eventually concluded that Mr. Martin was not the source of the Shadow Brokers’ material, at least not wittingly.
Government officials have never charged anyone in the Shadow Brokers breach, and speculation has centred on two possible perpetrators: Russian intelligence or disgruntled NSA insiders. If FBI and NSA security officers have made progress in solving the case, they have not said anything about it in public.

a) Identify the threat actors listed in this case study. Discuss the main motives of these threat actors. 
b) After analysing the case study, discuss the importance of access control. Some security experts recommend that Mandatory Access Control (MAC) should have been implemented for the contractor to withstand this attack. Explain Mandatory Access Control (MAC). Report on the importance of labels and levels elements of MAC with respect to this case study.

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