Information Technology Security
Information Technology Security
Q1: Describe in your own words the differences between steganography, digital watermarking, and digital rights management.
Advances in the field of technology have helped a lot in the drastic shift from traditional media to digital media while ensuring information security. These digital media include Digital Rights Management (DRM) methods Steganography and like Digital Watermarking. DRM helps in ensuring data security and has a varied array of systems. While DRM includes several methods like Encryption, Public/Private keys, Digital Certificates and Hashing, Steganography and Digital Watermarking are just one of the methods under DRM – Watermarking . Watermarking is a type of information hiding in order to protect intellectual property and insert a copyright indication within a material. Digital Watermarking ensure protection to digital media by preventing its unauthorized use and distribution – it essentially embeds information (a visible watermark) so that its originality is known and preserved. However, it does not prevent the copying of the material. Steganography is also a type of watermarking in that the watermark in this method is almost imperceptible. It examines methods of data encoding and secret messages like the Morse code. It is a means of “data hiding” for ensuring protection against detection, while digital watermark is a means of “document marking” for ensuring protection against unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material .
Q2: What are the strengths and weaknesses of symmetric key cryptography? Give an example of where this type of cryptography is used. What are the strengths and weaknesses of asymmetric key cryptography? Give an example of where this type of cryptography is used.
Cryptography is a method of scrambling information such that only a person in possession of a special key can decode it . There are two types of cryptography – symmetric and asymmetric.
In symmetric cryptography, there is the use of only one key for both the encryption and decryption of the information.
Symmetric cryptography makes use of algorithms that make it extremely secure and reliable. The algorithm generates keys that are almost impossible to guess, and can possibly take a person million years to guess it. Thus, it provides authentication of the user who receives the message. It is also extremely fast when compared to asymmetric cryptography and gives good performance.
Disadvantages
The main disadvantage of symmetric cryptography is the means of sharing the key information. The only way of ensuring that the receiver safely received the private key is to deliver it to him/her personally. It also has the disadvantage that if someone gets hold of the key, there is no way the information can be repudiated since the same key is used for both sides.
Example
U.S. Government-designated Advanced Encryption Standard
In asymmetric cryptography, two different keys are used for encryption and decryption.
Here, the key sharing problem is eliminated since there is no need to exchange the key. Thus, there is increased security since the private keys for decryption need not be revealed to anyone.
Disadvantages
The main disadvantage is that it is relatively slow, since it uses complicated mathematical calculation, making them computationally intensive.
Example
Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions
Q3: Define cryptanalysis and describe some of the common cryptanalytic techniques used to attack plaintext, ciphertext, ciphers, and hashes.
Cryptanalysis is the method of studying and analyzing ciphertext or already encrypted text in order to attempt a way to restore it back to plaintext. This mainly comes in handy when an unknown party gets hold of the ciphertext and we need to second guess their actions .
Different cryptanalytic techniques :
Ciphertext-only attack: Here the attacker has only the ciphertext and not the plaintext. In such a case, frequency analysis for the most and least common words in the cipher can be used to break the code.
Known plaintext attack: The attacker has access to both ciphertext and plaintext, and attempts to find the relation between the two. This can be done by using the encryption key used to convert the plaintext to ciphertext.
Hash function cryptanalysis: The attacker has the hash function used to encode the information (in digital signatures). Differential cryptanalysis and collision attacks may be applied against the hash functions.
Q4: Compare Wireshark and NMap/ZenMap. Determine which one is more useful (Must choose one).
Both Wireshark and NMap are network security tools used for scanning and checking the status of the network. Wireshark is a network packet analyzer that analyzes and measures the network packets inside a network cable and then display its results as accurately as possible. Wireshark is compatible on both Windows and Unix OS and displays detailed information such as the packet data and protocol information. It can save, export and import packets as required by the user in files and hex dumps. It gives all the essential information like where the browser is navigating to and also cleartext passwords. Since it returns a large amount of information, it also offers an option to filter packets . Because of its powerful applications, Wireshark can be dangerous in the wrong hands. NMap or Network Mapper is also a network scanning tool used for exploring the network and security auditing. It uses packet information gained through scanning of multiple hosts to find out the hosts available on the network, the services it offers and the platforms on which it runs. It is used for network inventory and monitor server uptime . NMap is a port scanner, while Wireshark is a protocol analyzer. NMap is used for checking available ports on remote devices while Wireshark is used for observing traffic over the network. Wireshark is more useful since it gives all the information on the network, even while NMap is running to scan the network.
Q5: Research the art and science of ethical hacking. Provide a plain English summary of your research in which you answer the following:
- Explain how network tools and utilities can be used by ethical hackers (include names and descriptions 3 or more specific tools or utilities.)
- What are the primary differences between white hat and gray hat hackers?
- Is it possible for hacking to be conducted in an ethical manner? Why or why not?
Ethical hacking is the science of testing personal or organization’s computers for potential threats and network vulnerabilities. It provides an opportunity to fill the security holes before they are taken advantage of by unwanted attackers. Every organization has the concern of a hacker who might attack their systems and make irreparable damage by revealing the company secrets. There is perfectly legal way to perform hacking, called ethical hacking. Here, the hacker hacks the system of his own organization, and does so on the direction of his superiors, in order to search for potential security holes. These hackers are professional hackers who attempt to break a computer security user various network utilities . Some of the tools and techniques used by ethical hackers are:
1. Information Gathering – Whois and Nslookup are tools that can be used gather information about the target network.
2. Port Scanning – This is a process of identifying free ports through which a malicious attacker can access the network.
3. Vulnerability Scanning - As the name suggests, it checks for configuration and system vulnerabilities in the target machine.
4. Password Cracking - This is basically just the tedious process of guessing the passwords using common passwords. Techniques used here are usually Brute Force, Dictionary and Hybrid.
The ethical hackers who use their abilities for the good of the company, that is to find and report system vulnerabilities to the company, so that they can take steps to eliminate the vulnerabilities, are the white hat hackers. A grey hat hacker is not a white hat hacker, but not necessarily has to be the bad guy out to cause damage. For example, these hackers hack the system illegally, but instead of taking advantage of their access, they might just disclose the flaw to the public instead of to the company in confidence.
Q6: In your own words, explain how wireless networking technologies, combined with sensors, are used to create the virtual fence product.
Virtual fencing is the new and upcoming transformation in the farming industry. It was developed by CSIRO researchers, and is used to control animals within a specified range of land without the use of conventional ground-based fences . Virtual sensors are invisible and overcome the disadvantages of physical fences – for example, when an intruder breaks in; there is no alert or notifications to the owners. Virtual fences use wireless sensor networks to detect and thus localize these kinds of intrusions. In order for a virtual sensor to work, wireless sensors gather information from various sensors like camera, thermal and motion detectors. The wireless sensor virtual fence is built into a boundary wall enclosing several segments, each of which is protected from intrusion by the use of wireless intrusion detectors like infrared sensor. These units of sensor need to as minimum as possible; therefore there must be long sensing ranges within the virtual fence system. There are several factors that influence these long sensing ranges including the azimuth angle, indoor and outdoor environment, height and sensitivity . Virtual fences using wireless sensor networks have the potential to utilize the landscape better and can be effectively used as farm management tool.
References
Anderson, D. M. (2007). Virtual fencing – past, present and future. The Rangeland Journal, 65-78.
Arsenova, E. (n.d.). Technical aspects of Digital Rights Management. Aachen, Germany: RWTH Aachen University.
Chan, H., Rahman, T., & Arsad, A. (2014). Performance Study of Virtual Fence Unit Using Wireless Sensor Network. Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Sensing Technology, (pp. 534-537). Liverpool.
Cummins, J., Diskin, P., Lau, S., & Parlett, R. (2004). Steganography and Digital Watermarking. England: Free Software Foundation.
nmap.org. (n.d.). Nmap Reference Guide. Retrieved from nmap.org: http://nmap.org/book/man.html#man-description
Palmer, C. C. (2001). Ethical Hacking. IBM Systems Journal, 40(3), 769-780.
Saroha, V., Mor, S., & Malik, J. (2012). A Review of Various Techniques of Cryptanalysis. International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science and Software Engineering, 2(10), 89-92.
Smith, C. (2001, November). Basic Cryptanalysis Techniques. SANS Institute InfoSec Reading Room. SANS Institute Reading Room.
Stein, D. L. (1988). Web Security. New York: Addison-Wesley.
Wireshark. (n.d.). Wireshark docs. Retrieved from Wireshark.org: https://www.wireshark.org/docs/wsug_html_chunked/ChapterIntroduction.html
