Reference no: EM132376729

Learning outcomes

Upon successful completion of this subject, students should:

• be able to justify security goals and the importance of maintaining the secure computing environment against digital threats;
• be able to explain the fundamental concepts of cryptographic algorithms;
• be able to examine malicious activities that may affect the security of a computer program and justify the choice of various controls to mitigate threats;
• be able to compare and contrast the security mechanisms of a trusted operating system with those used in a general purpose operating system;
• be able to investigate and justify the use of the access control mechanisms and user authentication processes;
• be able to compare and contrast foundational security policies and models that deal with integrity and confidentiality.

Subject content

There are a number of topics in this subject which you will cover. These topics are:
• Overview of information security
• Authentication and access control
• Cryptography
• Types of security threats and attacks
• Operating system security
• Network security
• Database security
• Cloud computing security
• Privacy
• Emerging topics in security

Assessment item - Security fundamentals

Task

This assessment aims to develop and gauge student understanding of the key topics covered so far by answering the following questions. Answering these questions will help you build some understanding for the next assessment item as well as for the entire subject. It is expected that answers to the assignment questions be succinct (i.e. precise and concise) with all sources of information fully referenced as per APA referencing style. You have to reference the text book and any additional material you have used in your answers.

Note that the guide for APA referencing is provided in the resources section of Interact site of this subject.

Answers MUST be written in your own words. If an answer contains more than 10% direct quote (referenced or unreferenced), 0 marks will be awarded for this question. One or two sentence answers will be too short and only receive low marks. Answers longer than 1.5 pages (12 point font, single line spacing) may incur a penalty if too much non-relevant information is stated. For mathematical questions it is expected that you show intermediate steps of your working. Just stating the correct solution will result in low marks, on the other hand if the working is correct and you only made minor mistakes, you will still be awarded marks, even though the final answer is wrong.

Question 1

Automated Teller Machines (ATM) are designed so that users will provide a personal identification number (PIN) and a card to access their bank accounts. Give examples of confidentiality, integrity and availability requirements associated in such a system and describe the degree of importance for each requirement.

Question 2
A thief broke into an Automated Teller Machine (ATM) using a screwdriver and was able to jam the card reader as well as breaking five keys from the keypad. The thief had to halt the process of break-in and hide, as a customer approached to use the ATM. The customer was able to successfully enter their ATM card, punch in the 4 digit PIN and was able to draw out some cash. Since the card reader was jammed, the customer was however not able to withdraw the ATM card, and drove off to seek some help. In the meantime, the thief came back and decided to try to discover the customer's PIN so that he can steal money from the customer. You are required to calculate the maximum number of PINs that the thief may have to enter before correctly discovering the customer's PIN?

Question 3

Thinking about bio-metric authentication, list three reasons why people may be reluctant to use bio-metrics. Describe various ways of how to counter those objections.

Question 4
In bio-metric authentication, false positive and false negative rates can be tuned according to the requirement, and they are often complementary i.e. raising one lowers the other. Describe two circumstances where false negatives are significantly more serious than false positives.

Question 5
Transposition is one known method of encrypting the text. What can be one way that a piece of cipher text can be determined quickly if it was likely a result of a transposition? Utilising some of the decryption techniques (substitution and others) covered in the subject so far, you are required to decipher (find the plain text) the cipher text that will be proviced to you closer to the assessment due date via the subject site. In order to present your solution, you need to demonstrate and explain the steps taken to decipher this text.

Rationale
This assessment task will assess the following learning outcome/s:
• be able to justify security goals and the importance of maintaining the secure computing environment against digital threats.
• be able to explain the fundamental concepts of cryptographic algorithms.
• be able to examine malicious activities that may affect the security of a computer program and justify the choice of various controls to mitigate threats.
• be able to compare and contrast foundational security policies and models that deal with integrity and confidentiality.

Assessment item - Research project (Abstract)

Task
In this assessment task you are required to select a topic for your research project from the list of research areas/topics provided below:
•Biometrics for authentication: security and privacy implications
•Security and privacy issues in Internet of Things (IoT) /Smart Architectures
•Security threats in cloud computing and preventive methods
•Security issues in Software Defined Networks (SDN)
•Denial of service and distributed denial of service attacks
•Investigating security of Blockchain enabled applications
•Malware: past, present and future
•Employee privacy and email, WWW, and instant messaging
•Wireless Network security and preventive techniques
•Security threats related to BYOD devices and countermeasures
•Cryptographic techniques
•Data Exfiltration techniques

In this assessment, you are required to submit the title and an abstract for your selected research project. The abstract will provide an overview of your selected topic, along with key securtiy challenges in that area and why you have selected this to be your area of research. At the end of the submission, you should have "Reference" section that will have a maximum of two articles (at least one journal article) used to build your discussion for this abstract.

Rationale

This assessment task will assess the following learning outcome/s:
• be able to justify security goals and the importance of maintaining the secure computing environment against digital threats.
• be able to explain the fundamental concepts of cryptographic algorithms.
• be able to examine malicious activities that may affect the security of a computer program and justify the choice of various controls to mitigate threats.
• be able to compare and contrast the security mechanisms of a trusted operating system with those used in a general purpose operating system.
• be able to investigate and justify the use of the access control mechanisms and user authentication processes.
• be able to compare and contrast foundational security policies and models that deal with integrity and confidentiality.
This assessment has been designed to assist students with the completion of assessment 5 (Research Project Report).The aim of this task is to help students :
• to build an understanding and perspective of current and emerging topics in Information Security;
• to help the students to formulate their research project in a step by step manner; and
• to build generic skills including, critical thinking, analysis, problem solving in the context of Information Security

Assessment item - Research project (Report)Task

In this assessment, you are required to provide a complete report of your research project,

that you chose in Assessment 3 (Research Project Abstract) by discussing the following aspects:
• Overview of the technology involved
• Relevant technologies and applications of those technologies
• Highlighting the challenges/problems in your chosen research area
• Identification of any gaps in the literature by:
discussing areas/issues that you believe have been addressed in the current literature;
highlighting areas/issues that have not been addressed or adequately addressed; and discussing your view(s) on the issue(s) that you see as being critical.
• Summarize the future research directions based on the identified gaps

To accomplish the above, you are expected to read and critically evaluate recent research in your selected research area by citing a minimum of 5 research articles. Students are encouraged to access such research articles from well known and reputed research portals such as IEEE, ACM, Springer, Wiley etc. Please note Wikipedia and general blogs will not be considered as reputable citations.

Rationale

This assessment task will assess the following learning outcome/s:
• be able to justify security goals and the importance of maintaining the secure computing environment against digital threats.
• be able to explain the fundamental concepts of cryptographic algorithms.
• be able to examine malicious activities that may affect the security of a computer program and justify the choice of various controls to mitigate threats.
• be able to compare and contrast the security mechanisms of a trusted operating system with those used in a general purpose operating system.
• be able to investigate and justify the use of the access control mechanisms and user authentication processes.
• be able to compare and contrast foundational security policies and models that deal with integrity and confidentiality.
This assessment continues links back to assessment 3 where students initiated their research project by selecting a research topic in an emerging area of information security.The aim of this task is to help students :
• to demonstrate ability to integrate and apply information from various topics;
• to build an understanding and perspective of current and emerging topics in Information Security;
• to help the students to formulate their research project in a step by step manner; and
• to build generic skills including, critical thinking, analysis, problem solving in the context of Information Security