Reference no: EM132756133

MN502 Overview of Network Security - Melbourne Institute of Technology

Assessment Title - Security in Networked Systems

Purpose of the assessment (with ULO Mapping) - The purpose of this assignment is to develop skills to independently think of innovation. Students will be able to complete the following ULOs:

a. Explain the major methodologies for secure networks and what threats they address;

b. Identify and report network threats, select and implement appropriate countermeasures for network security.

Assignment Description -

Royal Consulting Services (RCS) provides security consulting and services to over 500 clients across a wide range of enterprises in Australia. A new initiative at RCS is for its two offices in Sydney and Melbourne to provide internships to groups of students who are pursuing their postgraduate studies in reputed institutes in Sydney and Melbourne in the Networking and Cyber Security domains.

Student groups are required to demonstrate outstanding writing and presentation skills about their theoretical as well as practical knowledge related to information security domain. Further, groups must demonstrate excellent teamwork and collaboration skills.

To evaluate suitable candidates/groups for this prestigious internship program, RCS has advised student groups from multiple institutes to prepare a detailed report and a video demonstration of two port scanning tools. Detailed descriptions of these two tasks are given in the following sections.

Part I: Report

The report must include the following sections:

A. SQL Injection Attacks

SQL injection attacks continue to be a significant attack vector for threat actors to manipulate database servers. Use the Online and library resources to research these attacks. Based on your research

1. Explain how SQL injection attacks are carried out. Report any two SQL statements crafted by the threat actors to manipulate databases.

2. Discuss one recent attack that has been initiated by the SQL injection.

3. Identify and discuss possible defenses against SQL injection attacks.

B. Load Balancing Algorithms

Load balancing is a technology that can help to distribute work across a network. Different algorithms are used to make decision on the load balancing. These include random allocation, round-robin, weighted round-robin, round-robin DNS load balancing, and others.

1. Explain the importance of load balancing in today's networks. What benefits are achieved with load balancing from information security perspective?

2. From current literature survey, research about two load balancing algorithms (mentioned above) and discuss their working mechanism with advantages and disadvantages.

3. Do these algorithms compromise security? Provide proper justification regarding your recommendation.

C. Blockchain for the Internet of Things (IoT)

With recent developments, it is predicted that there will be 18 billion internet of things (IoT) enabled devices by 2022 having a large influence across many vertical markets. Blockchain technologies have potential to track, coordinate, carry out transactions and store information from these large number of devices, enabling the creation of applications that require no centralized cloud. Based on your research and analysis

1. Discuss IoT and their Characteristics.

2. Explain the working mechanism of Blockchain and Its advantages in comparison to centralised coordination.

3. Evaluate how Blockchain can ensure security in IoT domain.

D. Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is a pay-per-use computing model in which customers pay only for the online computing resources they need. It is a model for enabling convenient, on demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provide interaction. Based on your research and analysis

1. Discuss the importance of cloud computing in today's world. Explain four service models in the cloud computing.

2. Report one security protection for cloud computing used in an organization.

3. Compare Microsoft Azure with Amazon Web Services (AWS). Create a table that lists at least five options. Include the advantages and disadvantages of each. Which would you recommend? Why?

E. References

Must consider at least 10 current references from journal/conference papers and books. Must follow the IEEE style.

Part II: Video Demonstration (5-7 Minutes)

Most communication in TCP/IP networks involves the exchange of information between a program running on one system (known as a process) and the same, or a corresponding process, running on a remote system. TCP/IP uses numeric value as an identifier to the application and services on these systems. This value is known as the port number.

Use the library resources/ the Internet to locate two port scanner applications. Download and install each selected tool on Virtual machine (Kali Linux /Windows). As a team of four, create a 5-7 minutes video demo using Zoom application (along with presenters' video) addressing the following tasks.

1. Analyse and discuss the importance of port scanners.

2. Perform port scanning using both applications.

3. Identify and discuss the strengths and weakness of each scanner.

4. Which scanner would you recommend? Justify your recommendation.

NOTE: To complete a shared goal, both teamwork and collaboration play an important role. Therefore, for this complete task, excellent teamwork and collaboration skills must be demonstrated. The assignment should be submitted on the Moodle in two separate files: The report should be submitted as a Word file and the demonstration should be submitted as a video file. Demonstration video must include presenters' video. It must be created using Zoom app.