MIS101 Information Systems for Business Assignment Sample

Assignment Brief
Length 1500 words (+/- 10%)
Learning Outcomes

The Subject Learning Outcomes demonstrated by successful completion of the task below include for assignment help

a) Identify and explain components of information system for business.

b) Demonstrate an understanding of computing related mathematics.

Submission Due - by 11:55pm AEST/AEDT Sunday end of Module 4.2 (Week 8)
Weighting - 40%
Total Marks - 100

Task Summary

Using your understanding of computer number system and logic, answer the questions provided.
Context
Computer systems only understand binary numbers. The CPU, the main component inside a computer system, makes logical decision based on binary numbers. In Modules 3 and 4, you learned about computing mathematics and logic. This assessment focuses on your understanding of the number system and logic in computers.

Task Instructions

Read the questions carefully and give clear and precise answers.

Question 1:

a) Choose a sentence of no more than 25 characters containing your name (Example: ‘Kyle is in high school.’ Identify the ASCII code for each character; identify its decimal representation and then convert it into its equivalent binary number. (10 marks).

b) Convert the binary sequence (identified in part ‘a’) back to characters (5 marks).

c) Show the hexadecimal representation of each character in the selected sentence (5 marks).

Question 2:

Select an everyday real-life problem that requires two inputs. Once selected, represent it using a truth table. Explain the possible outcomes. Represent your problem using a logic diagram (20 marks).

Question 3:

Use the internet to investigate and explain what data transfer rate or speed is (10 marks).

Question 4:

How is the concept of Set Theory applied to Relational Databases? Give two examples (10 marks).

Question 5:

Identify and explain at least two applications of hexadecimal numbers in modern computing (10 marks).

Question 6:

Consider the following scenario:

The three inputs which affect the outcome of a business are:

1. the management is good
2. employees are satisfied
3. people are hard-working

If the management is not good, the organization will be in loss. If management is good and employees are satisfied but they do not work hard, then the organization will be in loss. If the management is good but the employees are not satisfied, then the business will break-even. If all three conditions are satisfied, then the organization will be in profit.
Analyze the scenario and identify the inputs and outputs to a process which decides the success of a business. Show this in the form of a truth table and logic diagram (30 marks).

Referencing

It is essential that you use appropriate APA style for citing and referencing research. Please see more information on referencing here: http://library.laureate.net.au/research_skills/referencing

Submission Instructions
Please submit ONE Word document (.doc or .docx) via the Assessment 2 section found in the main navigation menu of the MIS101 Blackboard site.

Solution

Introduction

In the world of computing, mathematics is an important subject as this is helpful for the students to use abstract language, deal with algorithms, self-analysis of computational thinking, and accurate modeling of real-world solutions. Thus, the unit here introduces the mathematical paradigm in the context of computing. Here, the researcher shows different calculations.

Question 1

a) Sentence: Kyle is in high school

ASCII code for Each character: 075121108101 105115 105110 104105103104 115099104111111108

Decimal Representation: 75 121 108 101 32 105 115 32 105 110 32 104 105 103 104 32 115 99 104 111 111 108

Conversion to equivalent binary number: 01001011 01111001 01101100 01100101 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01101000 01101001 01100111 01101000 00100000 01110011 01100011 01101000 01101111 01101111 01101100

b) Binary to character: Kyle is in high school

c) Hexadecimal representation: 4b796c6520697320696e2068696768207363686f6f6c

Question 2

Real-life problem

Premise: If an individual bought bread, then he/she went to the store
Premise: The individual bought bread
Conclusion: He/she went to the store
So, for this, the truth table will be represented as:

For the given problem, the logic problem will be represented as:

Question 3

A data transfer often talks about the movement of digital data from one place to another, from a hard drive to a USB flash drive at a specific point in time. It is commonly used for measuring how fast data is going to be transferred from one location to another. For example, ISP often provides an Internet Connection with a maximum rate of data transfer of only 1.5 Mbps. It is measured in terms of either bit per second or bytes per second. A bit is used for measuring speed, while Byte is used for measuring size (Comer, 2018).

The rate of data transfer can be tested using various online tools. Most of them are known as internet speed tests. These tools are mostly used in order to get the broadband speed promised by the Internet providers. Various speeds are measured, such as speed of downloading, uploading, and also latency. Download speed talks about the time taken to transfer a file from the Internet to the user’s home network or computer. Uploading speed is referring to as time is taken for uploading a file to the internet. At the same time, latency, also known as ping, depicts the delay in the transfer of data from a server to the user's computer.

A slow rate of data transfer is the result of the computer’s hard drive, so this can be fortunately increased. Some of the ways to enhance it are:

? Changing the file system used for formatting the drive from FAT32 to NTFS.

? Tweaking the settings of the system to perform better

? Turning off the compression of the disk

? Another method is the upgradation of USB 2.0 to USB 3.0 or new versions.

In the case of a hard drive, the data transfer rate is of two types: External rate of transfer and internal transfer rate. External is also known as curst data transfer rate or interface rate that means the speed at which the data is moving between the internal buffer and system memory. On the other hand, the internal transfer rate is also referred to as the maximum or minimum sustained rate of transfer (Bhati & Venkataram, 2017). This means the speed of data is often read and written to the hard disk. The external rate of transfer is faster than the internal just because it is purely electronic and hence not relying on the efficiency of actual physical elements.

Question 4

A set is the collection of objects. Objects in this assortment are additionally supposed to be the set components or individuals. The most important point of this is members must define it clearly and exactly. An explicit definition of the member is not able to identify the set. For example, months of the colder time of year season is indicating a set, yet a few months are not determining a set. Consequently, sets are frequently named with the assistance of capital letters (Rodionov & Zakharov, 2018). Set names are given in curly braces and separated with the help of commas. Such a representation is known as Roster or Tabular form. X= {December, January, February}

It can also be represented using a Venn Diagram.

According to the set theory, the union of two sets can be helpful to get a new set containing members of the union sets. The below example can represent this:

A= {Orange, Apple, Lemon, Avocado, Strawberry}
B= {Lemon, Avocado, Apricot, Grape}

The union will be hence depicted by A U B.

A U B= {Apple, Lemon, Avocado, Orange, Strawberry, Grapefruit, Apricot}

The Venn diagram will be hence:

In SQL Server, the UNION operator is concatenating the result sets obtained from two tables and hence eliminating the duplicated rows from the outcome. In fact, here, this is acting just like a union operator in the Set Theory. If, B and A sets are defined using SQL server’s tables then, in this context, first, create the table and then add the expressions similar to A and B.

The union of these tables will result in:

Change in the order of tables in the query will not result in any alteration.

On the other hand, the intersection of two sets is generating a set containing the common members of the intersected sets.

A∩ B = {Lemon, Avocado}

In SQL Server, the INTERSECT operator is implementing the logic of intersection in the Set Theory to tables. So, the intersection of both tables A and B can be given as:

Question 5

Hexadecimal or hex with base 16 system is mainly used for simplifying the representation of binary. This hence means that an 8-bit binary number can be written with the help of two different hex digits, one for each nibble or group of 4-bits. Hexadecimal is utilized in the following manner:

? Defining the memory location: Hex has the potential to characterize every byte as two hex digits can only be compared to eight digits at the time of using binary.

? Defining colours on the web pages: Each primary colour, such as green, blue and red, is attributed by two hex digits (Massengale, 2019). The format that is used is #RRGGBB.

? Displaying an error message: Hex is used for defining the error location in the memory. This one is hence used by the programmers to find and fix the errors.

? Representing MAC addresses: There are 12-digit hex numbers in a MAC address. The format used is either in the form MM: MM: MM: SS: SS: SS or MMMM-MMSS-SSSS. The first 6-digits of the MAC address is hence showing the adapter manufacturer's ID, while the last 6-digits represent the adapter's serial number.

Question 6

For the given scenario, it can be observed that here three inputs are present they are: employees are satisfied, management is good, and people are working hard. From the scenario, it can be said that if the management is good and employees are highly satisfied with the work environment, then automatically, the companies can foster their business. However, if the management is good, but employees are less or not satisfied, then the organization will suffer a huge loss. If all the conditions are satisfied, then, obviously, the organization will be in profit. So, the overall scenario can be presented in the truth table. Once the truth table has been created, the logic diagram can also be created easily.

So, the logic gate for this truth table would be:

In this context, the "OR" operator has been applied. It is observed that if all the inputs are false, then the output will also be false. Similarly, when two false conditions are combined with one true value, then the result will be true itself. That means that if the management is not working well and employees are not satisfied but still working with great dedication, then also the organization is gaining a huge revenue because of high productivity level. Similarly, if all three inputs are false, then the firm automatically fails to provide the best service, and there will be a huge loss in revenue.

Conclusion

Comprehensively, it can be said that binary and ASCII codes are mostly used for transmitting data. These are codes to transmit data often used by smaller and less-powerful computers for representing both textual data and also non-input device commands. So, the unit discussed these concepts profoundly. The unit also consisted of some descriptive parts related to the computing world. The study also depicted the use of a truth table and logic gates for inferring a premise. This also discussed the relationship between set theory and relational databases. In this direction, the researcher used UNION and INTERSECTION operation.

References

Bhati, B. S., & Venkataram, P. (2017). Preserving data privacy during data transfer in manets. Wireless Personal Communications : An International Journal, 97(3), 4063–4086. Retrieved from: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-017-4713-2

Comer, D. (2018). The internet book : everything you need to know about computer networking and how the internet works (5th ed.). Chapman & Hall/CRC Retrieved from: https://lesa.on.worldcat.org/oclc/1052459938

Massengale, L. (2019). Digital systems design: numbering systems and logical operations. Momentum Press. Retrieved from: https://lesa.on.worldcat.org/oclc/1083457871

Rodionov, T. V., & Zakharov, V. K. (2018). Fundamentals of set and number theory (Ser. De gruyter studies in mathematics ser, v. 68/1). De Gruyter Retrieved from: https://lesa.on.worldcat.org/oclc/1023551253

Information Security Assignment Sample

Value: 15%
Due Date: 23-Apr-2021
Return Date: 18-May-2021
Length: 1000-1500 words
Group Assessment: No

Submission method options: Alternative submission method

TASK

This assessment relates to Topics 1 - 6 and consists of two tasks as follows:

Task 1 : Scenario Analysis (44 Marks)

1. Identify one real-life cybersecurity breach that may have occurred in the last 2 Years. Using the vulnerability-threat-control paradigm, discuss the breach (16 Marks).

Tip: You may use any one breach from the following link for assignment help.

2. Discuss the difference between cross site scripting (XSS) attack and cross site Request forgery (XSRF). Further, explain with justification, which attack is easier to defend against (16 Marks).

3. What is buffer overflow? Studies online (e.g. statcounter ) suggest Microsoft Windows has over 70% of the OS market share. For this reason, identify and discuss a feature in Microsoft Windows that prevents attackers from using buffer overflows to execute malware (12 marks).

Task 2 : Short Answer Questions (16 Marks)

1. Discuss the notion of "security through obscurity" and its implication on modern day computer security (8 marks).

2. Discuss at least two security advantages of a host running virtualisation (8 marks).

RATIONALE

SUBJECT LEARNING OUTCOMES

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 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 compare and contrast foundational security policies and models thatdeal with integrity and confidentiality.

GRADUATE LEARNING OUTCOMES

This task also contributes to the assessment of the following CSU Graduate Learning
Outcome/s:

• Academic Literacy and Numeracy (Knowledge) - Charles Sturt Graduates understand the use and structure of appropriate language in written, oral, visual, mathematical, and multi-modal communication.

• Academic Literacy and Numeracy (Skill) - Charles Sturt Graduates demonstrate the literacy and numeracy skills necessary to understand and interpret information and communicate effectively according to the context.

• Academic Literacy and Numeracy (Application) - Charles Sturt Graduates consider the context, purpose, and audience when gathering, interpreting, constructing, and presenting information.

Solution

Task 1

1. Identify one real-life cyber security breach that may have occurred in the last 2 years. Using the vulnerability-threat-control paradigm, discuss the breach

The world has been witnessing various cases of security breaches since the last decade. One major breach of the year 2019 was reported with regards to Facebook and its loss of confidential private data belonging to over 533 social media users. The founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerburg could not provide the committed privacy and confidentiality to its millions of loyal users. Vulnerable data like the name, location data, phone number, emails, and other biological data were leaked. The investigators further found that the privacy controls security protocols implemented in this program were weak and had loopholes. As a result data of individuals from over 106 varied nations and 32million data records related to the US was the victim of a real security breach (Jackson, Vanteeva & Fearon, 2019, p. 1277). Serious doubts and questions were raised since Facebook conserved important data like emails and data of birth users, Serious doubts came as Facebook asked all its users to make a password reset be done with urgency.

The vulnerability Threat control paradigm is referred to analyze whether this real-life data breach case fulfills the requirements of computer security (Tamrin, Norman & Hamid, 2017, p. 131). CIA triad comprising of confidentiality, integrity and availability is considered as basic needs of computer security which Facebook failed to fulfill. Confidentiality was lost since user authorization was not there and still their data got leaked. Authorised Facebook users were deceived and were manipulated and hence integrity has been filed. The users were not safeguarded by the security system applied by Facebook and hence their information was not in their hands. This breaks the availability dimension of the CIA triad as well. It can hence be considered that the Facebook data breach incident has failed to provide privacy and security to the users.

2. Discuss the difference between cross site scripting (XSS) attack and cross site request forgery (XSRF). Further, explain with justification, which attack is easier to defend against

XSS or cross-site scripting attack is a web application-centric incidence of a security breach where data or content is vulnerable. Cybercriminal often follows the web programs which the client or users are using. Scripts especially JavaScript is induced in such web pages at the code end (Rodri?guez Germa?n E, Torres, Flores & Benavides, 2020, p. 166). When the potential victim hits these specific web site on their browser these script gets injected. It is an unethical activity where no permission is taken from the victim where they use the vulnerability of the website to exploit them.

CSRF or the cross-site request forgery on the other hand is a more server kind of computer security vulnerability caused by hackers. Cybercriminals at times will send requests in the form of an email communication where the victim will be urgently asked to click open a file or install a file on their system (Kour, 2020, p. 4561). Due to the urgency if this activity request is fulfilled then cookies are detected and interaction is carried out by a hacker. The cookies sit quietly and keep sending data of the co muter system comprised to the external hacker.

So, an XSS attack is where the user will be induced for performing any action. CSRF on the other hand is dangerous as it is associated with some subset activities which users are performing. This is more like a one-way kind of attack. XSS on the other hand is a two-way attack vulnerability.

When both of these attacks are compared it is found that XSS attacks can be defended more easily than CSRF attacks. This is because the security prediction of the ber criminal cannot be made easily for the latter. As result victimisation possible more than the first kind of attack where using ample protection mechanisms one can be protected.

3. What is buffer overflow? Studies online (e.g. statcounter) suggest Microsoft Windows has over 70% of the OS market share. For this reason, identify and discuss a feature in Microsoft Windows that prevents attackers from using buffer overflows to execute malware

When the volume of information to be stored is more than the usual capacity of the stye to store data inside buffer memory the event is termed a buffer overflow (Gao, Wang, Y., Wang, Yang, Z., & Li, 2020, p. 1406). In such a circumstance, efforts are made to conduct a program overwrite over data adjacent to the buffer memory site. This is also technically termed a buffer overrun.

Microsoft, for preventing any hacking incidents or intrusions has restricted such buffer overflow processes. The potentials that applications by Microsoft being exploited is a stack that is applied over the memory spaces. Here storage space is made available. The brand dominates the market and has over 76.56%of the market shares. This is possible as Microsoft makes use of DEP or Data execution prevention programs for the operating system design Windows XP and the SP2. Here the program is given autonomous power so that they can stop any malware to get carried out with the code where there is reach for non-executable memory spaces.

DEP feature in Microsoft is enabled so that any attack upcoming can be detected. The non-explicit memory is not executed. If the buffer overflow gets used up ht DEP protection is applied so the process is carried out without the program which will restrict the security bars automatically (Wang, Huang & Chen, 2019, p. 1). This is performed in two ways by Microsoft- address the space randomization process using ASLR or using the Data Execution Prevention method.

Task 2

1. Discuss the notion of “security through obscurity” and its implication on modern day computer security. All security engineer experts use their robust design, formats, and security mechanisms to be the primary tool to execute safety to their system. In this regards a concept of security through the notion of obscurity is used as the underlying principle for such a security execution by experts (Andrew, 2018, p. 1). In modern times, however, all computer systems and mechanisms are layered by their design. Often there are gaps and loopholes which are detected by the cyber criminals and they use them to attack or hack computer systems.
Such use of security approach using obscurity as the core principle is not a positive or effective one since it is about the protection of system and data. The security mechanism is hence effective only till w nth obscurity is not explored or discovered. Hence such an approach makes the system weak or vulnerable. A modern-day example can be given here. Imagine the owner of a precious residential house uses some of the best security locking systems to give protection to the door. To give effective safety and security jiggling is made through obscurity. However, sometimes tricky ways are used by cyber criminals to get insider information about codes which can then be used to crack open the lock. So as soon as the code is discovered the system becomes vulnerable.

2. Discuss at least two security advantages of a host running virtualization

Virtualization is one of the latest technologies which has revolutionized the way business enterprises conducted their operations. Small and medium scaled business organizations today use virtualized architecture to avail their security advantages (Gavrilovska, Rakovic & Ichkov, 2018, p. 67). In using virtualization, businesses can avoid the face to face communications. Hence the first security advantage is this. The face of an individual is a vulnerable biological data that is hidden along with their other identifying information such as location, contact number of pictures using virtualization. All kinds of personally identifiable information is kept secure due to this.

The second security advantage of virtualization is that it offers centralization of all managerial operations and functions. All the operations which a business performs can run over a controlled architecture as a result. All IT-related activities are kept protected. The authorized users can only get access to such a system. These two security befits make virtualization a highly popular architectural structure.

References

Andrew, M. (2018). No security through obscurity: changing circumvention law to protect our democracy against cyberattacks. Brooklyn Law Review, 83(4).

Gavrilovska, L., Rakovic, V., & Ichkov, A. (2018). Virtualization approach for machine-type communications in multi-rat environment. Wireless Personal Communications : An International Journal, 100(1), 67–79. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-018-5611-y

Gao, F.-J., Wang, Y., Wang, L.-Z., Yang, Z., & Li, X.-D. (2020). Automatic buffer overflow warning validation. Journal of Computer Science and Technology, 35(6), 1406–1427. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11390-020-0525-z

Jackson, S., Vanteeva, N., & Fearon, C. (2019). An investigation of the impact of data breach severity on the readability of mandatory data breach notification letters: evidence from u.s. firms. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 70(11), 1277–1289. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24188

Kour, P. (2020). A study on cross-site request forgery attack and its prevention measures. International Journal of Advanced Networking and Applications, 12(02), 4561–4566. https://doi.org/10.35444/IJANA.2020.12204
Rodri?guez Germa?n E, Torres, J. G., Flores, P., & Benavides, D. E. (2020). Cross-site scripting (xss) attacks and mitigation: a survey. Computer Networks, 166. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comnet.2019.106960

Tamrin, S. I., Norman, A. A., & Hamid, S. (2017). Information systems security practices in social software applications. Aslib Journal of Information Management, 69(2), 131–157. https://doi.org/10.1108/AJIM-08-2016-0124

Wang, X., Huang, F., & Chen, H. (2019). Dtrace: fine-grained and efficient data integrity checking with hardware instruction tracing. Cybersecurity, 2(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1186/s42400-018-0018-3

ITC573 Data Knowledge and Engineering Assignment Sample

Assignment Brief

Value: 20%
Group Assessment: No
Submission method options: Alternative submission method

TASK

For this task, you are required to download the Airlines dataset which is available in the Massive Online Analysis (MOA) framework. You will need to access the airlines. arff file. Moreover, you are required to download the MOA (https://sourceforge.net/projects/moa- data stream/) software for this task.
Answer the following short answer questions based on the given dataset.

Knowledge obtained through all topics from Topic 1 to Topic 9, particularly Topic 8 and Topic 9 can be useful for assignment help to answering the questions.

Q1. Data Pre-processing [10 marks]

1. Assume that the Airlines dataset has some missing values. Out of the missing value imputation techniques (i.e. Mean Imputation, EMI and DMI) discussed in this subject, which technique do you prefer to use for the Airlines dataset? Why? [5 marks]

2. Again assume that the Airlines dataset has some missing values and some corrupt values. Do you prefer to handle the missing values before handling the corrupt values? Why? [5 marks]

Q2. Incremental Learning [10 marks]

You are required to perform a data mining task to evaluate different incremental learning algorithms. Load the airlines. arff data set into MOA and compare the performance on this data set for the following algorithms:

• HoeffdingTree
• Adaptive Random Forest
• Hoeffding Adaptive Tree
• Leveraging Bagging

Write a response that shows the performance of the different algorithms and comment on their performance using the classification accuracy and other performance metrics used in MOA. In your report consider:

• Is there a difference in performance between the algorithms?
• Which algorithm performs the best?

Your response should include the necessary screenshots, tables, graphs, etc. to make your report understandable to the reader. The recommended word length for the report is 700 to 1000 words.

SUBJECT LEARNING OUTCOMES

This assessment task will assess the following learning outcome/s:

1. be able to compare and critique various data pre-processing techniques.

2. be able to evaluate the usefulness of data cleansing and pre-processing in discovering useful knowledge necessary for critical business decision.

3. be able to evaluate and compare time series data mining approaches for business decision making.

You MUST prepare and present all text answers to the above tasks in a single document file. All images must also be embedded into the document. All files such as your response to the assignment tasks and Turnitin reports will all be in a single directory, identified by your name.

REQUIREMENTS

Your response to each of the questions such as Q1. a and Q1. b should be no longer than 500 words (excluding figures, tables and graphs). Administrative sections of your assessment such as headings, table of contents, reference list and other diagrams and figures are not included in the word count. In text citations are included as part of your word count. Please note that the length of an answer is not very important. The quality and completeness of an answer is important.

For this assessment you’re required to use APA7 referencing to acknowledge the sources that you have used in preparing your assessment. Please visit Referencing at CSU for guidance. In addition, a very useful tool for you to use that demonstrates how to correctly use in-text referencing and the correct way to cite the reference in your reference list is the Academic Referencing Tool (ART).

This assignment must be uploaded to Turnitin. Students will need to download the Turnitin report and submit it via Turnitin along with the assignment. More information on using Turnitin at CSU can be found at https://www.csu.edu.au/current-students/learning-resources/information- planning/assignments/plagiarism-checking

Solution

Introduction

The paper aims to evaluate the data mining models in incremental learning using Massive Online Analysis or MOA tool. In this context, the Airline data has been selected on which the data mining algorithms will be applied after preprocessing it.

Data Pre-processing

Primarily, the discussion about the data pre-processing will be done in this section. One of the most important data preprocessing is the missing data handling without which the data mining algorithm will not respond properly (Tahir & Loo, 2020).

Computation on Missing Values

The data has been collected in ARFF (Attribute Relational File Format) and loaded in MOA. It has not been seen that there are any missing values. However, if the data will contain missing values, there are three ways to handle this and those are as follows:

1. Replace missing values by mean
2. Replace missing values with EMI
3. Replace missing values with DMI

When the EMI (Expected Maximization Imputation) is applied to the data, the missing data will be replaced by the most occurred values in the feature. If this will be done, the central tendency of the data may be changed and for the continuous variable, it will not work properly as the mode is not a valid computation for continuous variables. On the other hand, Decision Tree-Based EMI method is used to replace the missing values by creating the decision tree model and signifying the value at each node (Beaulac & Rosenthal, 2018). So, the DMI method is time-consuming for large datasets. When the missing data is replaced by the mean value of the features, the central tendency is maintained. However, replacing missing values for categorical or nominal features, mean will not work. As airline data contain both the continuous and nominal features, both mean values (for continuous) and the EMI method (for nominal) will have to be used (Islam, 2011).

Corrupt values are not similar to missing values. In most cases, corrupt values come in the form of special characters such as “?” etc. Those characters are not traced when missing values is found as those are not the missing values and rather treated as the valid member of those features with wrong values (Zhu & Wu, 2020). If those values are not replaced, those values will produce the wrong outcome of the data analysis and finally in the application of data mining algorithms. So, those corrupt values in the data need to be removed to make the dataset cleaned and without any kind of the wrong valuation. So, before missing value treatment, the corrupt values need to be converted to missing values or NaN values so that those will be traced at the time of finding the missing values (Ghalib Ahmed Tahir, 2020). So, finally, it will be easier to trace all the missing values and can be replaced by a suitable method.

So, in view of the thought, the corrupt values need to be converted to missing values first and then the imputation of missing values should be done.

Incremental Learning

In this section, the incremental learning methods will be applied to the airline data and the performances will be observed.

Hoeffding Tree

Primarily, the Hoeffding Tree has been applied to the airline data and classified to determine the flight delay (Guo, Wang, Fan, & Li, 2019). The screenshot of the application of this algorithm in MOA is shown below:

Fig-1: Application of Hoeffding Tree

After applying the algorithm, the following outcome has been obtained graphically as follows:

Fig-2: Visualization of Performance for Hoeffding Tree

After applying the Hoeffding Tree, the classification matrics have been stored and enlisted in the following table:

Table-1: Classification Metrics for Hoeffding Tree

Adaptive Random Forest

The Adaptive Random Forest has been applied to the airline data and classified to determine the flight delay. The screenshot of the application of this algorithm in MOA is shown below:

Fig-3: Application of Adaptive Random Forest

After applying the algorithm, the following outcome has been obtained graphically as follows:

Fig-4: Visualization of Performance for Adaptive Random Forest

After applying the Hoeffding Tree, the classification matrics have been stored and enlisted in the following table:

Table-2: Classification Metrics for Adaptive Random Forest

Hoeffding Adaptive Tree

The Hoeffding Adaptive Tree has been applied to the airline data and classified to determine the flight delay (Tahir & Loo, 2020). The screenshot of the application of this algorithm in MOA is shown below:

Fig-5: Application of Hoeffding Adaptive Tree

After applying the algorithm, the following outcome has been obtained graphically as follows:

Fig-6: Visualization of Performance for Hoeffding Tree

After applying the Hoeffding Tree, the classification matrics have been stored and enlisted in the following table:

Table-3: Classification Metrics for Hoeffding Adaptive Tree

Leveraging Bagging

The Leveraging Bagging has been applied to the airline data and classified to determine the flight delay. The screenshot of the application of this algorithm in MOA is shown below:

Fig-7: Application of Leveraging Bagging

After applying the algorithm, the following outcome has been obtained graphically as follows:

Fig-8: Visualization of Performance for Leveraging Bagging

After applying the Hoeffding Tree, the classification matrics have been stored and enlisted in the following table:

Table-4: Classification Metrics for Leveraging Bagging

Finding and Conclusion

The algorithms have been applied to the airline data for the classification of flight delays. While applying the classifiers, the performance matrices have been recorded so that those can be compared to find the best one. From the overall experiment, the following finding has been obtained:

1. The performance of the chosen classifier differs from each other. The accuracy, precision, recall and f1-scores (Overall values and also by class) are different from each of the classifiers that prove the fact that the performances of classification are different from each other.

2. From the comparison of accuracy, it has been seen that the highest accuracy has been obtained from Adaptive Random Forest by 64.3% with the kappa value of 27.33% and precision by 64.04%. The execution time for Adaptive Random Forest (34 seconds) is also comparatively lower with higher accuracy.

References

Beaulac, C., & Rosenthal, J. S. (2018). BEST : A decision tree algorithm that handles missing values. University of Toronto, 1-22.

Ghalib Ahmed Tahir, C. K. (2020). Mitigating Catastrophic Forgetting In Adaptive Class Incremental Extreme Learning Machine Through Neuron Clustering. Systems Man and Cybernetics (SMC) 2020 IEEE International Conference, 3903-3910.

Guo, H., Wang, S., Fan, J., & Li, S. (2019). Learning Automata Based Incremental Learning Method for Deep Neural Networks. IEEE Access, 1-6.

Islam, M. G. (2011). A Decision Tree-based Missing Value Imputation Technique for Data Pre-processing. Proceedings of the 9-th Australasian Data Mining Confere, 41-50.

Tahir, G. A., & Loo, C. K. (2020). An Open-Ended Continual Learning for Food Recognition Using Class Incremental Extreme Learning Machines. IEEE Access, 82328 - 82346.

Zhu, H., & Wu, Y. (2020). Inverse-Free Incremental Learning Algorithms With Reduced Complexity for Regularized Extreme Learning Machine. Access IEEE, 177318-177328.

Research & Data Modelling Assignment Sample

Assessment Brief

Value: 15%
Due Date: 04-Apr-2021
Return Date: 27-Apr-2021
Group Assessment: No
Submission method options: Alternative submission method

TASK

Part A: Database Research Discussion Forum (7 Marks)

You are to conduct research about a current or a future database technology and
discuss the findings of your research in the Interact 2 Discussion forum. You should submit a minimum of two posts. You are also to comment in the Interact 2 Discussion forum on at least two posts made by other students. Copy the time, date and content of your posts and include them in a MS Word document as part of this assessment. Two discussion posts of a current or a future database technology and two comments on other students posts (4 marks) Quality of engagement: (3 marks)

Part B: Data Modelling (8 Marks)

XYZ is a company which organises conferences mainly in the computing area. Due to the success of their business, they have decided to implement a relational database for better management of the conferences. For each conference, they need to keep records of the conference code, conference dates, conference name, days duration, and venue. XYZ are required to keep track of all the past attendees identified by participant id, as they are going to send advertising materials on topics which may interest the participants to attend a conference in the future. Thus, details such as name, phone number, and address of the participants are required. XYZ needs to track details of who attended a conference in the past and the number of days attended. XYZ also keep track of all the speakers who have spoken, or are potential speakers for their conferences. Information including speaker id, name, phone number, topic id and topic name are required. For each conference, XYZ gives a rating to a speaker. XYZ also have a list of casual catering staff who can be booked to provide catering services. XYZ needs to store their id no, name, phone, position (eg. chef) and the hours worked at each conference. And lastly, XYZ has a list of the venues and other information related to a venue such as venue id, seating capacity, seating style, fax, and phone number.

Your task for assignment help.

Create an ERD for the above scenario that describe the current business rules:
Use Crow's Foot notations and make sure to include all of the following:
• All entities Attributes for each entity
• Primary key and any foreign key attributes for each entity
• The relationships between entities
• The cardinality and optionality of each relationship

For guidance on how to draw an ERD based on business rules, watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvJ4t9_2SWk

To draw the diagrams, you should use a drawing tool like Draw.io, Lucidchart,
LibreOffice Draw etc. Hand-drawn diagrams are NOT acceptable.

Include your student ID and full name under the ERD then copy the whole ERD as
an image to your Word document.

Solution

PART- A

Future Database Technology

Post-1: Today, the significance of database system has increased in the implementation of diverse database applications. Database system comprises of many components which enables the development of database application according to requirement. For designing of database, numerous database models (ER model, Relational model, Object oriented mode, network model etc.) are used in respect of requirement types. In previous few years, it has observed that new database model evolved named multidimensional model which allow data representation in cubic form. Multidimensional model used in defining of data-warehousing. The integration of database technology with other information technologies results new kind of database system such as mobile database system, spatial, multimedia, Decision Support System and Distributed database system. Several information technologies used in implementation of advanced database system such as business intelligence, data warehouses, Extract Transformation & Load (ETL), OLAP, Data Mining, Grid Computing and Web Technology.

Post-2: Due to rapid evolution of computing peripherals and paradigms, database technology also require to align with this evolution. According to scalable and global access of database application over the internet require modern database approach and their implementation. For example develop distributed database application for cloud environment. Future database technology must be able to storing and analyzing diverse and high volume of heterogeneous data. It also requires revising current database approaches according to network based applications. Several data service providers such as Google, Facebook and Amazon deal with peta-bytes of data every day. This all happens by use of modern database technology. With this, implementation technology of database system is also changing over the period of time. The database implementation platforms and languages are evolved from QUEL, SQL, SQL92, OQL and XML. Apart from this, database technology research also focus on emerging field such as Big Data, Grid Computing, Web Technology and Business Intelligence.

PART- B

Entity Relationship Diagram

Based on the information provided in the case study several entities, its attributes with key constraints and relationships are identified.

All Entities

• Conference
• Attendee
• Speaker
• Catering Staff
• Venue

Attributes for each entity: Entity Name (Attribute Name [Type or Key ])

• Conference (Conference_Code [Primary Key attribute], Conference_Name, Conference_Date, Days, Duration, Venue [Foreign key referenced Venue_Id (Venue)])

• Attendee (Participant_Id [Primary Key attribute], Participant_Name, Phone_No [Multivalued Attribute] ,Address [Composite Attribute], Conference_Code [Foreign Key references Conference_Code(Conference)])

• Speaker (Speaker_Id (Primary Key attribute), Speaker_Name, Phone_No [Multivalued Attribute], topic_id,topic_name)

• Catering_Staff (Staff_Id ( Primary Key attribute), Staff_Name, Phone_No [Multivalued Attribute] , Position)

• Venue (Venue_Id (Primary Key attribute), Seating_Capacity, Seating_Style, Fax, Phone_No [Multivalued Attribute])
Relationships (Participating Entities)

• “Attended” Relationship (Attendee and Conference for each participant attended one or more conference)

• “Organized at” Relationship (Conference and Venue for each conference organized at a venue)

• “Get Rating” Relationship (Speaker and Conference where each speaker have assigned a rating for each conference)

• “Work_for” Relationship (Catering_Staff and Conference where catering staff work for each conference in number_of_hours )

Cardinality and Optionality of Each Relationship

• For “Attended” relationship, Many to Many (M:N) cardinality and optional for attending conference but mandatory for conference that means each conference has at-least one participant.

• For “Organized at” relationship, Many to One (M:1) cardinality and mandatory for conference that organized at least one venue but venue is optional it means no need of every venue used in conference.

• For “Get Rating” relationship, one to one (1:1) cardinality and mandatory for both speaker as well as conference.

• For Work_for” relationship, Many to Many (M:N) cardinality and optional both catering_staff and conference.

Entity Relationship Diagram (ER Diagram)

ICTICT426 Emerging Technologies and Practices Assignment Sample

Overview of assessment

This assessment is based on a scenario and requires you to write a response which is made up of 4 tasks. This assessment requires you to complete written tasks. You are required to complete all tasks in the order provided. You have been given a scenario based on a fictional farming business named “ASR Farms”.

You will play the role of ‘Business Analyst” for IT Works, an IT consultancy company. You are required to:

• access the sources of emerging technologies
• access practices of emerging technologies in the IT industry
• Identify and document emerging technologies to meet the requirements of ASR Farms.
Your lecturer will play the role of the Manager of ASR Farms and IT Works Project Manager.

Task/s to be assessed

1. Sources of Information
2. Overview of Emerging Technologies
3. Identification of Emerging Technologies
4. Identifying Emerging Technologies relevant to the organisation (video presentation)

4IEET – Assessment – Part 1

Identification of Emerging Technologies and Practices in IT

SCENARIO: Read the scenario carefully for assignment help then complete the assessment tasks.

Business Background

For 30 years, Mr. and Mrs. Roberts (Andrew and Suzie) have owned a 3000-acre farm far north of Adelaide. Its Registered Business name is ASR Farms. They have poultry, 250 cows as well as multiple crops on 2000 acres. They produce milk and have a team to sell their milk on open market.

There is a sales team who use computers to maintain their records electronically. Mrs Roberts uses a computer to keep track of the farm’s finances however her bookkeeping/accounting skills are self-taught, and she finds that dealing with finances is a stressful and time-consuming practice. All devices are stand alone as ASR Farms has no computer network, however they do have reasonably reliable internet access.

Andrew obtained the farm in an inheritance and is still using traditional methods of agriculture – for example most of the crop planting, picking, packing, weeding etc is done by hand. Most of their farm equipment is not modern and is at the point where it is due to be updated soon. They use chemical fertilisers and a variety of machines for various purposes, but due to their old equipment they need to hire a great amount of labour. Due to increasing labour costs, their profit margins and crop yields are reducing day by day.

A variety of different crops, primarily vegetables have grown in their greenhouses. In the last 3 years they have increasingly specialised in gourmet tomatoes - also known as heirloom or cherry tomatoes. These tomatoes can be very profitable, however maintaining the ideal environment for growth is proving to be challenging. They haven’t been able to consistently produce enough crops to ensure a profit. The owners believe that if they could perfect their greenhouse practices, this would go a long way towards seeing the farm return to profitability, but they know this won’t happen using their traditional practices.

Greenhouse environment testing is labour intensive. They manually test soil for salinity, water levels and test the temperature and humidity every 4 hours. Sometimes if there is an emergency elsewhere on the farm the greenhouse environment testing does not occur, which can result in conditions that are not ideal for crops and reduces yields.

Machinery in use is dated so repair and maintenance costs are high. They don’t really have a schedule for machinery maintenance – servicing is done on an as needs basis when malfunctions occur. The manager has a written journal where he tries to keep track of machine servicing and maintenance, but it is not 100% reliable and servicing is not always done as often as it should be.

Another issue concerning the owners is that they have had several break-ins to the 8 greenhouses on the farm. This has resulted in loss of production due to theft and vandalism. They currently have no security monitoring in place for their greenhouses.

Use of technology is minimal on the farm, and staff and management freely admit they have minimal knowledge or experience when it comes to information technology.

One of the few recent investments in technology at ASR Farms has been to install a significant number of solar panels on various farm buildings. They have also invested in battery storage solutions to complement the solar panels. Andrew and Suzie’s aim was to make the farm self-sufficient as regards electricity by sourcing solar power. Currently they appear to be achieving this with their solar energy system just supplying enough energy for their daily needs.

ASR Farms comprises of

• Owner (Director) Suzie Roberts
• Owner (Manager) Andrew Roberts
• Cowherd X 8
• Grape growers X 40
• Sales X 5
• Delivery Driver X 5

Their family friend Peter Hall lives in the USA. He works as a Manager in a Large-scale commercial Farm in Texas. He and his wife recently visited Andrew and Suzie Roberts in Adelaide.

Peter told Andrew that in the USA farmers and agricultural companies are turning to the Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data and Robotic Process Automation and other emerging technologies for analytics and greater production capabilities.

He suggested Andrew take advice from an IT company to implement emerging technologies in his farm as that may help him to resolve his problems.

Andrew Roberts contacted ITWorks and discussed their interest in using emerging technologies and latest IT practices on their farm to increase production and increase their profit margins. You work at ITWorks as a Business Analyst. You will be working with your project manager to investigate potential new emerging technologies that may be used in ASR Farms.

Task 1: Access Sources of Information on Emerging Technologies

Question 1:

Visit the following open source community website: https://github.com/open-source

Access two (2) current projects that are currently listed by Github on their “Trending” page.

For each project that you access, you must provide the following information:

• The name of the project.

• A screenshot of the project page that shows the URL. If the full URL is not visible in the screenshot due to its length, please copy and paste the full URL below the screenshot.

• A brief description of the project (minimum 30 words) that explains its purpose – i.e. what the subject of the project can be used for.

• The number of Contributors that are listed as having been involved in the project. Include a screenshot showing the number of contributors. The URL of the page must be included in your screenshot.

Question 2:

Access the following Crowd funding site: https://www.kickstarter.com/

Use the Search tool on the Kickstarter site to enter the search term “Greenhouse automation”

From the “Greenhouse automation” search results, access one project and provide the following information:

• The name of the project.

• A screenshot of the project page that shows the URL. If the full URL is not visible in the screenshot due to its length, please copy and paste the full URL below the Screenshot.

• A brief description of the project (minimum 30 words) that explains its purpose – i.e. What the subject of the project can be used for.

• The monetary target/goal of the project and the current amount pledged. Provide a
Screenshot of where you located this information.

Task 2: Identify and Evaluate Emerging Technologies

Question 1:

List 3 characteristics that would define an “emerging technology”.

i. Click or tap here to enter text.
ii. Click or tap here to enter text.
iii. Click or tap here to enter text.

Question 2:

Provide an evaluation of the following three emerging technologies (Minimum of 100 words for each):

1. Internet of Things
2. Big Data
3. Robotic Process Automation

Each evaluation must include:

• The purpose of the technology
• Two attributes of the technology. (An attribute is a characteristic or inherent part of Something)
• Two features of the technology. (A feature is a prominent or distinctive part, quality, or Characteristic)
• Advantages (minimum of two) of using this technology for ASR Farms
• Disadvantages (minimum of two) of using this technology for ASR Farms
• Evaluate how the technology could be used at ASR Farms – i.e. which processes it could be
used to enhance or replace. Refer to at least two processes.

Task 3: Identification of Emerging Technologies Features and Functions

In this task you need to review and research the technologies that the owners of the ASR farms mentioned in their initial contact with IT Works.

Question 1:

One of your co-workers has done some research on the functions and features of emerging technologies, however their notes were partially deleted. They managed to recover part of their list of functions and features, but the list does not show which function and feature belongs to which technology.
Your task is to look at the recovered list below and enter each item into the correct position in the table that follows. In the table you are only focusing on functions and features of Internet of Things (IoT), Big data, and Robotic Process Automation (RPA). The list your co- worker created also includes functions and features related to other emerging technologies – ignore these unrelated items and only select those that relate to IoT, Big Data, and RPA.

Task 4: Reporting on Emerging Technologies Relevant to the organisation

Part 1:

Your supervisor has asked you to prepare a video summary of your findings which will be viewed by the owners of ASR farms.

Content requirements of the video are:

1. Introduce yourself by name and title (Business Analyst for IT Works) at the start of the video.

2. Describe 1 example for each technology (Internet of Things, Big Data, Robotic Process Automation) of where it could be used specifically in relation to current practices used at ASR Farms. Each technology should be related to a unique practice – i.e. you will mention 3 technologies and 3 affected practices.

3. For each technology (Internet of Things, Big Data, Robotic Process Automation) describe one advantage and one possible disadvantage that may arise if it is implemented at ASR Farms.

4. In your own words, request that the owners provide you with written feedback on the following:

a. Their thoughts on your examples of how the emerging technologies could impact practices on ASR Farms.

b. ASR Farms short-term and long-term requirements/goals.

c. What they feel is the most critical need of emerging technology in ASR farms – i.e., what specific application or individual piece of technology they would like to have in place.

Solution

Task 1:

Question 1:

According to trending page in github two projects are “ErickWendel/semana-javascript-expert06” that indicates “Spotify” project and “psf/black” indicates “The uncompromising Python code formatter”.

(Link- https://github.com/ErickWendel/semana-javascript-expert06.git)

Through Javascript and nodejs, a real time audio processing has been created where the stream deck is included within Spotify along with different kinds of features. In this project the full concept of Nodejs has been used for making static websites.

Contributors of this javascript project

(Link- https://github.com/psf/black.git)

This project is based on “The uncompromising code formatter” and by using Black it can be controlled over minutiae of hand-formatting. Besides, Black is able to manage determinism, speed, and freedom in case of pycodestyle nagging about the exact formatting. Both mental energy and time will be saved and that makes fast code review with producing the smallest diffs possible.

Contributors of python code project

Question 2:

The chosen project in Kickster search tools is “HarvestGeek -- Brains for your Garden”.

Link- https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2077260917/harvestgeek-brains-for-your-garden

The movement of local food has been effectively picking up with the special momentum. In this regard, over the country small scale agriculture is springing up in rooftops and backyards, altics, and basements, along with abandoned warehouses and lots in the vacant.

Task 2:

Three characteristics of “Emerging technologies”

? Radical novelty
? Relatively fast growth
? Coherence

Question 2:

IoT (Internet of Things):

In the current world, IoT technologies are growing rapidly along with its future trends in a significant manner. Different key technologies of IoT are like AI, 5G, blockchain, and cloud computing. All these are really meaningful to manage advancement of global connectivity with various features of this emerging technology.

Two major attributes of IoT are connectivity and intelligence.

Two features of IoT are lack of disposability or accountability, and ubiquity.

Two major advantages of Iot are cost reduction, productivity and efficiency and these are really useful for managing their farms (Spanias, 2017).

Two major disadvantages of IoT are viruses, hacking, cheating, and trolls, stalkers, bullying, and crime and these can be harmful for ARS farms.

ARS farms can manage their business production in managing electricity and solar energy systems through using IoT. These are increasing production, and increasing profit margin.

Big Data:

In order to increase the products’ market reaching speed and decrease the time and several resources for gaining the adoption of the market, target audiences and satisfying the customers.

Furthermore, the main attributes of this big data technology is volume and variety. In order to identify features of BigData, the volume of stored data is increasing day by day along with variety of data in a significant way. This is a big factor corresponding to big data to manage data varities (Kim et al., 2021).

In business operations, big data is too effective for reducing complexity by creating different types of visualisations.

In an ASR firm, big data has a great advantage in order to optimise energy production and energy distribution. Besides, unpredictable resources are notified by big data.

Moreover, the principle of privacy is violated by big data whereas for the manipulation of customers’ records, big data is utilised. Due to higher complexity, sometimes a false discovery rate is created and these are considered as disadvantages of BigData.

For business analytics, and managing various data management of ARS farms, big data can be implemented significantly.

Robotic Process Automation:

RPA (“Robotic process automation”) is a technology to manage, deploy, easily build, and control software robots to emulate human actions along with digital systems (Nguyen et al., 2021).

Two attributes of RPA are simple bot creation interface, and security.

Two features of RPA are less automation script and debugging.

Reduction of errors and increasing agility are major advantages of RPA within ARS farms (Do?uç, 2021).
Error magnification and maintenance are two disadvantages of RPA and that indicates electricity production like ARS farms.

In order to evaluate a large number of production capabilities, and smart work with sensors and robots, RPA has been used in the case of ARS farms.

Task 3:

Question 1:

Task 4:

1. Examples of different emerging technologies that suit for ARS farms:

2. Advantages and disadvantages of emerging technologies in managing ARS farms:

3.Feedback of owner in the respect of suggestions of emerging technologies

a.
As per your suggestion, all the sensors and smart technologies regarding IoT, RPA, and big Data can be effective for ARS farms to manage energy production, energy transmission as well as distribution. We will try to implement all these things to provide a better customer’ experience and achieve business development regarding electricity production.

b.
Short term goal is to provide better electricity to customers in their specific areas and long term goal is to manage a better power grid to deliver huge amounts of electricity by using IoT, BigData and RPA as per the requirements of customers.

c.
In order to achieve emerging technologies in ARS farms, specific applications of IoT will be effective for the development of smart energy production to produce electricity.

Reference list:

Do?uç, Ö. (2021). RPA in Energy and Utilities.In Strategic Approaches to Energy Management (pp. 217-230).Springer, Cham.https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-76783-9_16

Kim, Y. S., Joo, H. Y., Kim, J. W., Jeong, S. Y., & Moon, J. H. (2021). Use of a big data analysis in regression of solar power generation on meteorological variables for a Korean solar power plant.Applied Sciences, 11(4), 1776.https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/11/4/1776/pdf

Nguyen, T. P., Nguyen, H., Phan, V. H., & Ngo, H. Q. T. (2021).Modelling and practical implementation of motion controllers for stable movement in a robotic solar panel dust-removal system.Energy Sources, Part A: Recovery, Utilisation, and Environmental Effects, 1-23. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15567036.2021.1934194

Spanias, A. S. (2017, August). Solar energy management as an Internet of Things (IoT) application.In 2017 8th International Conference on Information, Intelligence, Systems & Applications (IISA) (pp. 1-4).IEEE.https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10076703

MN623 Cyber Security and Analytics Assignment Sample

Assignment Brief

Assessment Title- Implementation and evaluation of penetration testing tools
Purpose of the assessment (with ULO Mapping)

This assignment assesses the following Unit Learning Outcomes; students should be able to demonstrate their achievements in them.

• Analyse cyber security vulnerabilities using ethical hacking methodologies.

Weight - 5%
Total Marks - 50 Marks
Word limit - 750 to 1000 words
Due Date Assignment 1- Week 3, 11:59 pm, 10/4/2022

Submission Guidelines

• Submit Assignment 1 in a word document in week3.

• All work must be submitted on Moodle by the due date

• The assignment must be in MS Word format, 1.5 spacing, 11-pt Calibri (Body) font and 2 cm margins on all four sides of your page with appropriate section headings.

• Reference sources must be cited in the text of the report and listed appropriately at the end in a reference list using IEEE Transactions on networking referencing style.

• Students must ensure before submission of final version of the assignment that the similarity percentage as computed by Turnitin must be less than 10% Assignments.

Purpose of Assignment

Assignment 1 is based on analysing cyber security vulnerabilities using ethical hacking methodologies and evaluating security testing tools. The students will explore skills in Ethical Hacking/Penetration testing by describing how weakness in the system can be exploited to hack a target system using security testing tools.

Assignment Structure and Submission Guidelines for Assignment Help

Assignment 1 is a formative assessment, and it focuses on the importance of penetration testing, industry leading tools used for penetration testing and a review of security testing tools. Students will be required to choose two security testing tools for further evaluation.

Assignment Tasks

1) Explain the different reasons and benefits of conducting penetration testing. (5 Marks)
2) What are some regulatory requirements for penetration testing? (5 Marks)
3) Present the industry leading tools used for penetration testing. (5 Marks)
4) Review three security testing tools. (10 Marks)
5) Choose two security testing tool and evaluate them. (10 Marks)
6) Describe how the two security testing tools can be used to exploit cyber security vulnerabilities and hack the system. (10 Marks)
7) References (5 Marks)

Solution

Implementation and evaluation of penetration testing tools

Introduction

Penetration testing even termed as pen testing or ethical hacking is a launch of intentional cyber-attacks that look towards vulnerabilities that is exploitable in the computer system, websites and other applications. The aim of the assignment is to focus on the utility of penetration testing, the leading tools in the industry that is used for it and the evaluation of such tools.

Different reasons and benefits of penetration testing

• Conformity to Industry Codes and Procedures - One of the most significant advantages of penetration testing is that it meets the legal and management requirements stated in business laws and standards such as FISMA, ISO 2700, PCI, and HIPAA. Pen-testing can establish how a hacker obtained sensitive information and intellectual goods [5]. Furthermore, if a corporation employs pen-testing for constant inspection and validation and ensure the privacy of credit card information.

• A Penetration reveals critical flaws - A Penetration test should be performed once a year to look for key vulnerabilities in IT assets. Various methods and technologies can test IT assets to detect which security flaws are in the system [3].

• Provide a prospect to fix vulnerabilities - Once a company has identified the vulnerabilities, security specialists can start repairing the significant problems in the networks and apps [3].

Some of the regulations that apply to penetration testing

• GDPR - The one rule that affects practically every organization. The GDPR addresses many areas of data security, but one of its many mandates is that businesses that manage private information strengthen cybersecurity and accountability. GDPR Article 32, in particular, requires firms to establish a "method for regularly testing, measuring and assessing the efficacy of technical and institutional safeguards for preserving data handling protection.

• ISO 27001- A member of the ISO/IEC set of guidelines is a global data security standard that defines a management structure for Security Management System (ISMS). Organizations must establish a suite of security protocols to prevent and resolve potential risks throughout their networking, and ensure they satisfy evolving safety needs account to get licensed.

• PCI DSS – This is a series of minimal rules created to aid businesses in safeguarding client card information. All businesses that accept or handle electronic card payments must conduct an annual PCI safety check to achieve compliance.

Industry-leading tools used for penetration testing

? Netsparker – This is a major web application for automated pen-testing. The program can catch everything, including cross-site programming to SQL injection. Programmers can use this tool on web pages, online services, and web applications.

? Wireshark - Wireshark is a network scanner that has 500 writers. Programmers can use this application to record and analyze data packets swiftly. The software is open and accessible, and it is useful for a range of computer systems, including Microsoft, Solaris, FreeBSD, and Unix [4].

? Metasploit - This assists pro players in verifying and monitoring security audits, bringing awareness, and arming and empowering attackers to keep up with the competition. It is beneficial for evaluating the safety and identifying faults, as well as for establishing a defense. The technology allows social engineers to recreate web pages [4].

Evaluation of the three security testing tools

• John The Ripper Password Cracker - Passwords are amongst the most common vulnerabilities. Username and passwords can be used by criminals to obtain identities and gain access to sensitive systems. John the Ripper should be a must tool for password protection and offers a variety of systems for this purpose [6].

• Aircrack – The tool is intended to break weaknesses in wireless connections by collecting data packets and transferring them via text files for study. This program is compatible with various operating systems, including windows, and supports WEP dos attacks. It outperforms most other penetrating tools in tracking performance and supports multiple devices and adapters.

• W3af - W3af web application exploitation and auditing modules are designed to detect security flaws in all web apps. There are three types of WordPress plugins: attacker, auditing, and detection [6]. The program then sends these to the audit tool, which checks for security concerns.

Selection of two security tools and assessment

W3af is a Web application security scanner and exploiting software. W3af is separated into two sections: the core and plugins. It delivers security vulnerability information for use in vulnerability scanning operations. The scanner has both a visual and a command-line interface. Fast HTTP queries, incorporation of web and proxies’ services into the script, injecting payloads into different kinds of HTTP requests, and so on are among its characteristics. It runs on Linux, Apple Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows and has a command-line interface [2].

Aircrack-ng is a comprehensive set of criteria for assessing WiFi network cybersecurity. It includes a wide range of aspects of WiFi security: Attacking, Testing, Monitoring, and Cracking. All tools are command-line interface only, allowing for extensive programming. This functionality has been used by a large number of graphical user interfaces. It runs mostly on Linux and Windows, macOS, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and Solaris. In hacking, developers can de-authenticate, create phony entry points, and launch replay assaults [1] [7]. To use AirCrack-ng correctly, programmers must catch certain packets, which must be acquired via the WiFi network adapter. Depending on whatever PC card developers have to install, guidelines for various cards and software are needed.

Utilization of the two security testing tools and the manner in which they exploit cyber security vulnerabilities
Aircrack is performed to demonstrate the existence of vulnerabilities and the potential damage that could be caused if these flaws were exploited. It also supports recording and injection, which is essential for evaluating network cards and their performance [1]. Furthermore, IT professionals can use it to assess the dependability of WPA-PSK and WEP keys. It also performs additional activities such as detecting fraudulent access points, evaluating controller capacities and WiFi cards, etc. Here's how AirCrack security testing tools could be used to attack cyber security flaws and hack the device.

On the other hand, W3af includes plugins that connect. For instance, in w3af, the identification plugin searches for various URLs to test for flaws and provides them to the auditing plugins, which further search for flaws. Through its Intuitive and Automatic requests generating features, it alleviates some of the hassles associated with manual web applications. It can also be set up to act as a MITM gateway. It also includes features for finding loopholes that it discovers. Here's how W3af security testing tools could be used to attack cyber security flaws and hack the device.

Conclusion

The aim of the assignment was to focus on the utility of penetration testing and the usage of the security tools in the industry. From the complete assignment it can be concluded that pen testing is a security exercise and have significant advantages. Moreover, security tools helps in combating the issues and attack security flaws. The selection of the same depends on the user.

References

[1]. G. Kaur and N. Kaur, "Penetration Testing - Reconnaissance with NMAP Tool," International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science, vol. 8, (3), 2017. Available: https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/penetration-testing-reconnaissance-with-nmap-tool/docview/1901458135/se-2?accountid=30552.

[2]. J. D. Kramer and T. J. Wagner U.S.A.F., "DEVELOPMENTAL TEST and REQUIREMENTS: Best Practices of Successful INFORMATION SYSTEMS USING AGILE METHODS," Defense AR Journal, vol. 26, (2), pp. 128-150, 2019. Available: https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/developmental-test-requirements-best-practices/docview/2214889819/se-2?accountid=30552. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22594/dau.19-819.26.02.

[3] J. V. Olson, "Software Validation: Can an FDA-Regulated Company Use Automated Testing Tools?" Journal of Validation Technology, vol. 18, (3), pp. 49-51, 2012. Available: https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/software-validation-can-fda-regulated-company-use/docview/1055111478/se-2?accountid=30552.

[4]. S. Zhou et al, "Autonomous Penetration Testing Based on Improved Deep Q-Network," Applied Sciences, vol. 11, (19), pp. 8823, 2021. Available: https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/autonomous-penetration-testing-based-on-improved/docview/2580965017/se-2. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/app11198823.

[5]. T. M. Chen, "Reinforcement Learning for Efficient Network Penetration Testing," Information, vol. 11, (1), pp. 6, 2020. Available: https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/reinforcement-learning-efficient-network/docview/2548413764/se-2. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/info11010006.

[6]. X. C. Li, D. Farson and R. Richardson, "Weld penetration control system design and testing," J. Manuf. Syst., vol. 19, (6), pp. 383-392, 2000. Available: https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/weld-penetration-control-system-design-testing/docview/197657176/se-2?accountid=30552.

[7]. Z. Ren et al, "Study on practical voltage secondary loop testing tool," IOP Conference Series.Earth and Environmental Science, vol. 354, (1), 2019. Available: https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/study-on-practical-voltage-secondary-loop-testing/docview/2558041287/se-2. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1755-1315/354/1/012090.

BIS3005 Cloud Computing Assignment Sample

Group/individual: Individual
Word count: 2000
Weighting: 30%

Answer each of the questions below for assignment help -

Describe the difference between a locally hosted school (ie. in an enterprise data centre) and a school service provided using a SaaS provider. What are the critical points, other than cost, that an enterprise would need to consider in choosing to migrate from a locally hosted service to an SaaS service?

Describe the difference between locally hosted university infrastructure (ie. In an enterprise data centre) and a university infrastructure provided using an IaaS provider. What are the critical points, other than cost, that an enterprise would need to consider in choosing to migrate from local hosted infrastructure to an IaaS service provider?

ECA, wants to investigate moving two of its educational arms to a service- based model where many of its services would be supplied to its clients as a service, in addition to its plans to move to an IaaS model. There are several infrastructure models that could possibly be used to achieve this. Some of these models are:

1. Local hosted infrastructure and applications.
2. Local hosted infrastructure with some SaaS applications.
3. Hybrid infrastructure (some locally hosted infrastructure with some IaaS) and applications.
4. Hybrid infrastructure and applications with some SaaS applications.
5. Full IaaS model with some with SaaS apps.
6. Full SaaS model.

You are required to choose an infrastructure model that you think will achieve the ECA Roadmap; Describe the benefits and drawbacks, excluding costs, of your chosen infrastructure model.

Solution

Describe the difference between a locally hosted school (ie. in an enterprise data centre) and a school service provided using a SaaS provider. What are the critical points, other than cost, that an enterprise would need to consider in choosing to migrate from a locally hosted service to an SaaS service?

Software as a Service is an internet based service which is provided and maintained by the service providers rather than in house enterprises. This is an approach to software distribution which is created by the software providers where they create and host a combination of software, database and code to create an application which can be accessed by anyone, anywhere (Palanimalai, & Paramasivam, 2015). This gives the liberty to the firms to work from anywhere around the world where there is an access to the internet. In a school there are several things that needs to be recorded as well as updated. There are several outputs that are required such as results, scores and performance in the class for both the teachers as well as the students with the help of a software. There should also be forums where students as well as the teachers can interact. Moreover, most important thing is the uploading of the class lectures that will be helpful for the students after the class. All of these things are required in a school and this required a software. Now the question arises is that there are a lot of host service providers that provides supports using SaaS which can be an option, and there are locally hosting servers can also be an option. Below are the comparison done between migrations from local server to a SaaS service provider in a school.

Time efficient: In a traditional on premise deployment it takes a lot of time to setup a particular software in a school. It is not limited to that as this requires a number of people who are expert in this field. This will make an addition to a department in a school which is absolutely unnecessary. The software will need a lot of time to build and will take time to implement it at the same time. The resources will be extra that will be required for this venture. These resources can be put to use for the school and student welfare. The extra services that will be required cannot not be shared always and the school have to compromise because of the time that it will take to be developed. In case of SaaS, the software is already installed and configured all the school have to do is to provision the server into the cloud and the system will be up and running and ready to use (Nakkeeran, et.al. 2021).

Higher Scalability: Unlike the local server the SaaS has a higher scalability which means that for an extra service the school needs to by a new SaaS and merger it with the previous one. The new SaaS will be owned by the service provider or the host as they will maintain the whole thing for them. For an instance, during the pandemic all the schools needed to conduct online classes but the schools authority did not have that feature. For the inclusion of this feature the schools authority should only have granted for a new SaaS that will be owned by the host but in case of a local server the whole thing was needed to develop first and then merge with the local server that can be accessed using a different link.

Upgrade: SaaS gets auto updated as the host will maintain the whole system for the school. The effort associated with the upgrading of the system is much less in case of SaaS and also cost efficient at the same time. In a traditional model the school will have to buy the upgrade and then install it into the system where as in SaaS the provider will do everything for the school at a very low amount of time.

Proof-of-Concept: This is a feature in SaaS where the users can see and learn about the updates prior to its launch (Kaltenecker, 2015). The functionality can also be tested to understand its functionality. In case of local server this is not an option as the software can only be tested once it is upgraded into the system.

The above differences will give an idea about the difference between and advantages of a SaaS service provider over the local enterprise system. In an enterprise like school it would be a little much to go for SaaS but a lot of things will be easier for the school. The SaaS service is more upgraded nowadays. Many a firms including schools and colleges are interested in using SaaS as their system software. Due to pandemic every institution has started to understand the usability of Software as a Service. Institutes has also started using IaaS as their new system solution which is a better solution. That is been discussed in the next question. Describe the difference between locally hosted university infrastructure (i.e., in an enterprise data center) and a university infrastructure provided using an IaaS provider. What are the critical points, other than cost, that an enterprise would need to consider in migrating from locally hosted infrastructure to an IaaS service provider?

Computing infrastructure includes hardware such as computers, modems, networking cables/wires, etc. Resources such as offices and staff are required to run a firm. To start an IT firm, one must have an infrastructure. Designing, finishing, and executing the designs and requirements need much planning (Rodriguez, 2014). It also demands a significant investment in land and other technological devices. A locally hosted infrastructure may install and deploy numerous software applications using one's hardware, networks, and storage devices. However, as cloud computing advances in the technological world, organizations may rent physical amenities such as functional connections and hardware facilities monthly. Infrastructure as a Service (IAS) is an IT infrastructure available through various cloud-based solutions. Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) providers provide hardware and other essentials in return for service. It is essential to examine and analyze the whole service details for better implications and results.

The essential idea contributing to the mobile infrastructure IaaS prototype is to employ a simulated notion that allows equipment assets to be shared by several firms for various servers held by IaaS suppliers rather than arranging for hardware and organization demands as with nearby hosted groundwork.

The Benefits and Drawbacks of IaaS Analyzing particular benefits and drawbacks can lead to better choices and implications, in a real-life scenario. On the other hand, organizations will get the highest benefit, by building the most appropriate and compatible infrastructure. Cloud technology is already hard to manage and control in an organization. In that case, the analysis will also provide better clarity and operational benefits. Several studies show that cloud storage is growing increasingly popular among enterprises. Clients can rent infrastructure and platform services in addition to software from the cloud facility. In addition to cost reductions, using Infrastructure-as-a-Service may provide several other benefits. There is no one source of dissatisfaction, no hardware venture, and so on. No need to consider where the infrastructure will be placed, regardless of location. Serve that exact are stored in the same area as the company's other business activities is a huge hassle. There is no reason to lease or rent space when infrastructure is hosted in the cloud.

Hardware safeguards

There will be no need to keep an eye on the physical apparatus to ensure security. CCTV and security staff are used by businesses to secure their physical assets (Vaquero, Rodero-Merino, & Morán, 2011). IaaS services, on the other hand, are accessed via a cloud platform, and the company that employs them is indifferent to the physical security of the equipment. The failure of one or two switches does not affect the overall performance of a cloud-hosted network. IaaS providers have the redundant infrastructure to safeguard their consumers. If a single data center fails, the infrastructure may be automatically relocated to other data centers so that users can continue accessing it.

Flexible

As needed, infrastructure may be scaled up or down. If the company expands, it won't have to acquire more equipment to meet demand, as is the case with locally hosted infrastructure. However, with IaaS, organizations need to take a few simple actions to access extra resources immediately. This functionality considerably improves IaaS scalability as compared to locally hosted infrastructure.

Cloud computing technology is also resource and cost-efficient, as all the data are saved and monitored by cloud servers. In that case, the cost of big data centers is saved. Database management, system optimization and changes also become easier and more organized. This will help in other financial investments like inventory. The project managers can also plan new system updates and categorizations that can easily connect new suppliers and other stakeholders with the system. Building financial and sales reports will also be more accurate and easier by implementing the particular technology. In that case, the business leaders and management team will be able to prepare a most market-compatible and effective strategy.

Availability

It offers round-the-clock support with access to the company's selected infrastructure to store and install the software. Because of this concern, infrastructure is always accessible. Companies and customers can access infrastructure from anywhere in the world. This also improves the networking model and connectivity between the stakeholders and organizational authorities. In a cloud environment, organizations may manage their infrastructure more efficiently. This is because they are in charge of managing and making such resources available on demand (Vaquero, Rodero-Merino, & Morán, 2011). Infrastructure Management Requires Fewer Employees because the IaaS provider collects the infrastructure. Before making arrangements to relocate from local hosting, businesses must examine many critical aspects. This is also essential for organizational and system security management. The operation will require system encryption, a developer support team, regular system checkups, system verification, etc. The project managers will also be responsible to prepare particular system policies that can satisfy the security management requirements and implementation requirements. ECA wants to investigate moving two of its educational arms to a service-based model where many of its services would be supplied to its clients as a service, in addition to its plans to move to an IaaS model. Several infrastructure models could be used to achieve this. Some of these models are:

1. Local hosted infrastructure and applications.
2. Locally hosted infrastructure with some SaaS applications.
3. Hybrid infrastructure (some locally hosted infrastructure with some IaaS) and applications.
4. Hybrid infrastructure and applications with some SaaS applications.
5. Full IaaS model with some SaaS apps.
6. Full SaaS model.

You are required to choose an infrastructure model that you think will achieve the ECA Roadmap; describe the benefits and drawbacks, excluding costs, of your infrastructure model selected.

Hybrid infrastructure (some locally hosted infrastructure with some IaaS) and applications There are various advantages of employing hybrid architecture and technologies in IaaS services. The Hybrid cloud method with special IaaS features provides several benefits. It is a strength to serve both public and private clouds. It offers round-the-clock support for access. Outline the merits and disadvantages of the hybrid approach, excluding prices. This method has a significant advantage since it can be used for both. Private and public cloud infrastructures can coexist, and sensitive and non-sensitive data can be isolated (Williams, 2013).

It offers round-the-clock help for gaining access to improved Mobility. Choosing a hybrid cloud is also helpful in terms of change or upgrade. A small testing project is planned so that infrastructure may be easily adapted to suit future demands. Increased Development/Testing Capacity contends that hybrid clouds provide the best of both worlds in terms of scalability, adaptability, elasticity, and Location independence. A hybrid cloud option is also available worldwide, making it easier to use (Williams, 2013). The accessibility of on-site servers is another advantage for the company that it may utilize its existing servers. As a result, selecting a technical model compatible with some IaaS applications that suffer from the drawbacks of hybrid infrastructure and software is a good mixture (Manvi, & Shyam, 2014). In addition to its many benefits, the chosen model has several downsides, like identification and Personal Information Protection. As previously said, hybrid clouds provide the benefits of leveraging private and public cloud resources but also require substantial administration work. When determining what is public and private, extreme caution must be exercised (Khajeh-Hosseini, Greenwood, & Sommerville, 2010).

REFERENCES

Rodriguez, M., 2014. Advantages and Disadvantages of Hybrid Cloud Computing in Business: A survey. IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, 26(5), pp.1477-1494.

Williams, P., 2013. Public vs. Private vs. Hybrid Cloud — what are the Pros and Cons?

Palanimalai, S., & Paramasivam, I., 2015. An enterprise oriented view on the cloud integration approaches–hybrid cloud and big data. Procedia Computer Science, 50, pp. 163-168.

Nakkeeran, A., Niranga, M., & Wickramarachchi, R., 2021. A Model for On-Premises ERP System and Cloud ERP Integration.

Kaltenecker, N., 2015. Managing disruptive change: Successful transformation from on-premises to SaaS in B2C software companies.

Manvi, S. S., & Shyam, G. K., 2014. Resource management for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) in cloud computing: A survey. Journal of network and computer applications, 41, pp. 424-440.

Khajeh-Hosseini, A., Greenwood, D., & Sommerville, I., 2010. Cloud migration: A case study of migrating an enterprise it system to iaas. In 2010 IEEE 3rd International Conference on cloud computing pp. 450-457. IEEE.

Vaquero, L. M., Rodero-Merino, L., & Morán, D., 2011. Locking the sky: a survey on IaaS cloud security. Computing, 91(1), pp. 93-118.