Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs) assessed:
1. Explain network, security and operating systems techniques, standards, and practices 4. Analyse strengths and weaknesses of security protocols for contemporary and emerging
technologies and systems
This assignment requires you to investigate and write an essay (in English) on a specified topic relating to networks and security. There are three topics to choose from in different areas that relate to the content of this unit and its extended field of interest.
• This assignment needs to be completed as an individual. You must not engage nor employ others to write the essay for you – this is considered academic misconduct.
• You must select and write about one of the 3 available topics listed below, and you may not resubmit work previously submitted for this or other units you have studied in the past.
• This assignment is to be approximately 2000 words in length (plus or minus 10%, not including the references section). You are highly encouraged to include relevant diagrams and figures to make your essay more readable and interesting.
• Your essay must not include a table of contents nor an executive summary. However, you should consider including logical sections and subsections (with titles) to improve the essay’s readability.
Please pay close attention to the section near the end of this document on plagiarism. We treat plagiarism very seriously, and, if detected, it can lead to some serious penalties.
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2. Topic list
Choose from one of the following 3 topics. Your essay title must specify which topic you have chosen (topic 1, 2 or 3):
1. Zero-day attacks associated with hardware or software systems are becoming more common. Discuss these types of attack, including recent examples, why such attacks are increasing in frequency, and what preventative or mitigation actions are possible. Include in your discussion the key drivers behind exploit development for these attacks, who is doing it, and why.
2. The recently discovered Log4J vulnerability has highlighted security-related issues with open source software dependency supply chains (repositories). Discuss the Log4Shell issue in depth, including who is affected, and what steps can be taken for mitigation. Your discussion should also consider the deliberate exploitation of the supply chain in general and why supply chain vulnerability is a security issue.
3. Biometric authentication systems are an increasingly attractive alternative to password schemes that are still the most used authentication method. Discuss the benefits of biometric authentication, what biometric features are commonly sampled, and identify why the wider adoption of such systems has not yet occurred. As part of your answer you should consider the potential vulnerabilities that these systems may have, as well as any ethical and/or legal implications.
3. Citations and Referencing
This is a research assignment, and as such you are expected to read a range and diversity of content on your topic, and based on your reading, your thoughts, and understanding in the area, condense/summarise the topic in your essay. This means putting content into your own words and citing where it has come from.
You are expected to use a range of different sources, including academic sources.
3.1 What is an academic source?
Most academic sources will likely be formally peer-reviewed articles that have been published in journals or conferences, although other sources are permitted (such as books, and government and/or standards bodies documents). Magazines, web sites, blog posts and news articles are not considered to be academic sources – you may still include them as sources, but your marks will be improved when academic sources are also included (please see the marking rubric).
3.2 What do I have to cite?
All source material (anything you have read an obtained from elsewhere) must be cited and then be listed in a references section at the end of the assignment. Correctly citing and referencing the content you have used makes up a significant part of your final mark. You must use citations and referencing when making statements that are not otherwise common knowledge – you provide citations to justify all claims or statements you have made in your essay:
‘A citation is a reference to the source of information used in your research. Any time you directly quote, paraphrase or summarize the essential elements of someone else’s idea in your work, an in-text citation should follow. An in-text citation is a brief notation within the text of your paper or presentation which refers the reader to a fuller notation, or end-of-paper citation, that provides all necessary details about that source of information.’ (Suny Empire 2021)
In other words, any borrowed ideas (which includes direct quotes such as that above), must be acknowledged through the form of an in-text citation in the body of your essay (Victoria University 2015).
? It should be noted that any sources you include in your references section must be referred to by in-text citations – you cannot include a source (and have it counted) if you do not actually refer to it.
3.3 What referencing style do I have to use?
You are required to use the Harvard referencing style, which in simplest terms, is the Author/Year style. More information can be found by following the links below.
• https://utas.libguides.com/referencing/Harvard
• https://mylo.utas.edu.au/d2l/le/content/506348/viewContent/4322786/View
• https://libraryguides.vu.edu.au/harvard/getting-started-with-harvard-referencing
There is also a brief, non-assessed quiz in unit’s MyLO site to help you consolidate your knowledge on the Harvard referencing style:
• Assessments?Quizzes?Referencing Quiz
4. Plagiarism and Academic Integrity
Plagiarism is a very serious matter, and ignorance of this is not an excuse. If you submit work, claiming it to be your own, and it is not original work of your own, this is cheating. This includes (but is not limited to) trying to obscure the source of your work (such as blocks of text submitted as images), using language translation services to source text from one language and convert to another, or paying individuals or companies to do the work for you. Plagiarism can result in academic penalties both in relation to your assignment, and on your permanent university record.
If the work you submit is that of another person, without appropriate attribution (such as citation and references), then an academic misconduct case may be filed against you with the possible penalties mentioned above.
4.1 Where can I find more information on academic integrity?
More information can be found here:
• https://universitytasmania.sharepoint.com/sites/StudentPortal/SitePages/Academic -Integrity.aspx
• https://faq.utas.edu.au/app/answers/detail/a_id/1947/~/what-is-plagiarism-andacademic-integrity%3F
Note: We will be using Turnitin as a plagiarism detection tool.
5. Submission
The essay is due on Thursday the 7th of April (Week 7) at 11:59 pm. You must submit your assignment in MyLO via the assignment submission link in the Assessment section of the MyLO unit website.
• The submission must be a single Word document
• Do not submit in PDF format, and do not ZIP or compress your file before submission
• You are not required include an electronic cover sheet, as submitting to MyLO is an implicit acknowledgement of accepting the University’s policies around plagiarism and your way of claiming that this is entirely your own work.
6. Hints
-where should I start?-
• the library online catalogue search is a good starting place to search for academic references
e.g. https://www.utas.edu.au/library/find/megasearch (but note however not all search results are academic in nature, some search results are news sites and magazines etc)
• Google scholar (or international alternatives) are also good for finding academic sources – https://scholar.google.com.au
• Web sites (for news articles, blogs, security company technical papers etc)
• Textbooks on networking and security
7. How is your essay marked?
Your essay will be marked against the rubric that can be found on the next page. Please pay close attention to the weighting % of each criterion and how each grade (HD, DN etc) is assigned. Also note, for example, the Referencing criteria does not mean you will automatically get full marks (25%) if you have 10 or more sources, including 6 academic sources – the mark is assessed on how well you use the sources (e.g. are they relevant), the referencing style, as well as the source quality (for example, are too many of the references from the one web site, or the one company, or the one news report, and are they just blog sites etc).
7.1 Marking Rubric
KIT501 Networks Security Assignment Assessment Criteria
Descriptive text in this rubric is indicative only, not a prescriptive guide for assessment
Criteria HD DN CR PP NN
Accuracy and Depth (40%) Clear, concise, consistent, and relevant coverage of all components of the topic question, and discussions are justifiably explained using fully accurate intext citations. Clear, concise, consistent, and relevant coverage of all components of the topic question, and discussions are explained using mostly accurate in-text citations. Clear, concise, and relevant coverage of most of the topic question components
using in-text citations. Provided relevant coverage of most of the topic question components. Missing important pieces of information or contains significant inaccurate information.
Referencing (25%) 10 or more sources, including 6 or more relevant peer-reviewed sources. Harvard style always used. 8 or more sources, including 4 or more relevant peer-reviewed sources. Harvard style always used. 6 or more sources, including 3 or more relevant peer-reviewed sources. Harvard style mostly used. 4 or more relevant sources. Mostly uniform referencing style used. Less than 4 relevant sources or varying referencing styles.
Presentation (20%) Clearly identified title/topic. Consistent and meaningful headings and subheadings using styles. Correctly labelled and relevant figures and/or tables. Meaningful order of logical sections and paragraphs and bullet points where relevant.
Clearly identified title/topic. Have meaningful headings and subheadings, and logical sections and paragraphs, and bullet points where relevant. Inclusion of relevant figures and/or tables. Clearly identified title/topic.
Have headings, sections and paragraphs, and bullet points where relevant. Inclusion of figures and/or tables. Clearly identified title/topic. Have paragraphs. Unlinked textbased presentation, with little evidence of design thought.
Editing
Spelling and
Grammar (10%) Material presented is grammatically correct, contains no spelling errors. A few minor errors in grammar and/or spelling. A few major obvious errors in grammar and/or spelling. Material presented has many errors in
grammar and spelling. Significant grammatical and/or spelling errors that substantially detract from the presentation.
Length (5%) Meets length requirement (1800 – 2200 words). Between 2200 and 2400 words, or between 1600 and 1800 words. Between 2400 and 2600 words, or between 1400 and 1600 words. Between
2600 and 2800 words, or between 1200 and
1400 words. More than
2800 words or Less than 1200 words.
Terminology
Clear – explanation can be read once without confusion
Consistent – no contradiction in terminology or explanation
Concise – no unnecessary repetition or padding
Justified – analysis uses cited sources to reach conclusions
References (example)
The two references below are an example of two web sites that were directly cited in the content above with in-text citations.
Your references section should also be sorted in alphabetic order (by author)). Please see the Harvard referencing style guide in Section 3.3 above to determine how to refer to other types of sources such as journal articles and conference proceedings.
Note that the first reference listed below (Suny Empire 2021) is not about Harvard referencing style, it was included as some text was directly quoted in the body of this assignment specification.
Suny Empire 2021, Research Skills Tutorial, Suny Empire State College, viewed 4 Feb 2022, https://subjectguides.esc.edu/researchskillstutorial/citationparts
Victoria University 2015, Harvard Referencing: Getting started with Harvard referencing, Victoria University, viewed 4 Feb 2022, https://libraryguides.vu.edu.au/harvard/getting-started-withharvard-referencing
