Writing Problem: Defender of the Web

Research methods and defenses against cyberattacks.

This course’s philosophy on academic honesty is best stated as "be reasonable." The course recognizes that interactions with classmates and others can facilitate mastery of the course’s material. However, there remains a line between enlisting the help of another and submitting the work of another. This policy characterizes both sides of that line.

The essence of all work that you submit to this course must be your own. Collaboration on problems is not permitted (unless explicitly stated otherwise) except to the extent that you may ask classmates and others for help so long as that help does not reduce to another doing your work for you. Generally speaking, when asking for help, you may show your code or writing to others, but you may not view theirs, so long as you and they respect this policy’s other constraints. Collaboration on quizzes and tests is not permitted at all. Collaboration on the final project is permitted to the extent prescribed by its specification.

Below are rules of thumb that (inexhaustively) characterize acts that the course considers reasonable and not reasonable. If in doubt as to whether some act is reasonable, do not commit it until you solicit and receive approval in writing from your instructor. If a violation of this policy is suspected and confirmed, your instructor reserves the right to impose local sanctions on top of any disciplinary outcome that may include an unsatisfactory or failing grade for work submitted or for the course itself.

As we’ve seen, it’s an ongoing battle to try to prevent cyberattacks over networks and on the Internet. Bad guys are coming up with new ways to hack into supposedly secure systems at all hours of the day, while simultaneously trying old methods again and again to catch even a second of system failure. Though we’d like to believe all our data is safe, the reality is that a lot of it may be at risk - unless the good guys can catch the vulnerabilities first.

Some of the major types of cyberattacks include:

While these attacks are generally eventually caught and defended against, much of the time they are caught too late to prevent significant damage to personal privacy and financial security. In addition, some are not publicized to a large degree, preventing other potentially vulnerable companies from becoming aware of the problem and fixing it before they too fall victim to an attack.

In this writing problem, we want you to delve deeper into one particular cyberattack you’ve not yet discussed in class. Research it and figure out exactly how it works, who it targets, and the damage it causes. How can we prevent ourselves from falling victim to that particular attack? Open a text editor and create a file called ‘defender’ (be sure that the file extension is either .doc, .docx, .pdf, or .txt). This problem should be between 750-1,000 words. In your writing, you should cover the following:

Start by taking a look at the different types of attacks, and find one that intrigues you. From there, search the different examples of those attacks that have come up over the past few years and read a bit about each before picking the one you want to dive into. News stories covering major security breaches will be a good resource for you as well. This assignment will provide you with a deeper understanding of the creativity involved in these attacks and the necessity of robust testing - and it’s an interesting conversation topic too.