Discuss the nature of the attacker
Software Engineering
Part of the responsibilities of a practising security engineer is to stay
abreast of developments in the eld, and to maintain awareness of emerging
threats, vulnerabilities and response capabilities. The aim of this assignment
is to demonstrate that you have begun to develop such an awareness, have
assimilated the ideas of the course and understand how they apply to
particular scenarios.
Write a report of around 1,500 words that discusses a major issue in security
engineering that that was illustrated by actual events that occurred during
this session, and which were reported in the popular or trade/technical press
during that time. In your report, you should do the following:
Give a description of the facts of the case, in your own words. Preferably,
you should draw on multiple sources of information. You should attempt to
provide more detail on the details of the incident than is reported in the
popular press, by using more technical sources that that take up discussion of
the incident and go into technical details. Cite your sources.
Relate the facts of the case to any relevant aspects of security engineering
discussed in class. For example, discuss the nature of the attacker, their
motivations, the nature of the vulnerability that they exploited, the assets
attacked, the consequences of the attack and any defensive actions that were
taken in response to the attack.
Reflect on what can be learned from this attack. If you were hired as a
security consultant to the organisation involved in this case, what speci c
recommendations would you make? Are there any lessons for the eld more
generally in this incident?
