Categories
Advanced Network Security

FIT5037 – Advanced Network Security Week 4

After a review of some of the previous weeks discussion on ECC week 4’s lecture focused on Intrusion Detection Systems [IDS]. The initial slide of the lecture featured a great summary of IDS:

Intrusion Detection System
Intrusion Detection System- source week 4 lecture notes

The concepts behind IDSs are not overly complicated; analyse incoming traffic, compare it to known bad traffic and take action accordingly. Unfortunately implementation of such a system is not so simple, some of the primary difficulties are:

  • To what extent can we generalize on bad.malicious traffic recognition?
  • How much time/computational resources can be spent on each incoming packet?
  • How can knowledge base and analysis engines communicate in real-time without slowing the network?
  • How can definitions/knowledge bases keep up with new exploits?

To help deal with these difficulties IDS systems are modularized into:

  • Host Based IDS [HIDS] – Examines all packets flowing through a network (ie: Tripwire, AIDE)
  • Network Based IDS [NIDS] – Examines process activity on a system, identifying malicious process behavior

Snort, the IDS we have been experimenting with in labs, was introduced in the lecture as an example of a NIDS. It strengths were identified as being an open-source option the is extremely fast and lightweight in comparison to it’s competition.

The rest of the lecture discussed how snort rules work and how to write them. A detailed version can be found in chapter 3 of: http://www.snort.org/assets/166/snort_manual.pdf

Categories
IT Research Methods

FIT5185 – IT Research Methods Week 4

IT research method’s fourth week was presented by Joze Kuzic providing a detailed introduction to surveys (or ‘super looks’ as the translation demands). First off we clarified that surveys are not limited to forms that managers and students need to fill out! There are many types of surveys,  ie:

  • Statistical
  • Geographic
  • Earth Sciences
  • Construction
  • Deviation
  • Archaeological
  • Astronomical
These are just a few types of non-form surveys. So with this broader view we can see that most anyone conducting research will need to have a good understanding of how to create effective surveys. Interviews were listed as a method for conducting surveys although I imagine this would in most cases be quite dubious if used alone. Anonymous surveys appear to be the most common form of surveys for people.
After discussing some of the obvious pros and cons of mail surveys, the lecture moved into population sampling.
Considering sample sizes – source week 4 lecture notes
Likert scales where subsequently introduced along with nominal , interval and ration frames for question responses.
Finally the format of surveys was raised, specifically the demonstrated effect format has on results.
The test for week 5 on this subject will be on experiments and surveys.