CO4515 Trends in Cybercrime Assignment 2 – Research Paper Module Tutors: Ahmed Abubahia,...

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CO4515 Trends in Cybercrime Assignment 2 – Research Paper Module Tutors: Ahmed Abubahia, Christopher Finnigan and Albert Edward Cook Assignment start : 29th November 2021 Essay Submission : 3rd...

CO4515 Trends in Cybercrime

Assignment 2 – Research Paper

Module Tutors: Ahmed Abubahia, Christopher Finnigan and Albert Edward Cook

Assignment start
: 29th November 2021

Essay Submission
: 3rd January 2022 midnight via Turnitin on Blackboard

Feedback Due
: Within 3 weeks from the submission deadline

Weighting
: 60% of the module

Word limit: 2400 words in total (excluding reference list)

Section 1 - Learning Outcomes

This assignment contributes to the assessment of the following module learning outcomes,

LO1 - Critically evaluate methods and techniques used for cybercrime

LO4 - Critically analyse the extent to which methods and solutions to cybercrime, proposed in research papers, apply in practice and what are their limitations

Section 2 - Assignment Description

Write a research paper on one of the following topics:

1. Crypto-currencies and Cybercrime.

2. Spams and Cybercrime.

You must write a research paper on the chosen topic.

Stage 1 – Identify the Research Question

After choosing the topic above, your research paper should address one of the following
perspectives:

· Security

· Forensics and law

· Black market

You can choose the topic and the perspective that interests you most. For example, if you are interested in the encryption algorithms used by crypto-currencies then your topic and perspective would be “Crypto-currencies and Cybercrime” and “Security”, respectively; however, if you are interested in the tracing and prosecution of those who steal crypto-currencies then you would adopt the “forensics and law” viewpoint.

Once you have identified the perspective that interests you most, identify an appropriate research question. Section 3 contains some suggested research questions, although you can formulate your own research question based upon your own interests. The research question must be agreed with the module tutor before you begin.

The deadline for finalising your research question is
13rd December 2021

11:59pm

. Please send the tutor an email with the following subject in the email:

“CO4515 Assignment 2 – Research Question”

Stage 2 – Write a Research Paper

The research paper should contain a maximum of 2400 words (excluding
references) and should demonstrate your understanding of the issues relevant to the research question. The paper should clearly answer the research question, and all the content should be relevant to the research question.

The paper is supposed to be

a critical evaluation of the literature
, rather than a simple repetition of several sources using your own words. This means that you have to summarise, interpret, reflect and be critical about what you have read and about the sources, you actually use.

It is up to you to structure the paper logically and to ensure coherence among sections and paragraphs. The language used should be specific, precise, objective, direct and simple. Do not use colloquial language. Apart from short quotes, use your own words and use short sentences, appropriate for technical writing.

Your research paper should be submitted no later than
3rd January 2022 at 11:59pm.

Suggested structure of the research paper:

1. Abstract (very short summary of the paper, motivation, purpose, contribution)

2. Introduction (a summary about the context, the subject area)

3. Analysis of the related works (main body, structure is based on your creativity)

4. Discussion (your own view, opinion, ideas for the future work)

5. Conclusion.

Section 3 – Example Research Questions

This section contains some examples of research questions. This list is not meant to be exhaustive. You may choose a research question not contained in the list but which best suits your background, experience and interest, as long as you agree it with the module tutor.

Topic: Crypto-currencies and Cybercrime

Security

· How do bitcoin botnet-miners, like Miner Botnet [13], operate and what measures can be taken against them?

· What malware, e.g., Cryptolocker [6], have been used by cybercriminals to obtain cryptocurrencies, which vulnerabilities did they exploit and what mitigation can be adopted against them?

· What attack vectors have been used to exploit cryptocurrencies (e.g. Skype [11] and Yahoo [5]), and how to counter them?

· What attacks on cryptocurrencies have been theoretically identified (e.g., Double Spending Attack [9] and Block Discarding Attack [1]) and how could they be avoided/mitigated?

· What has evolved, and what are the differences and similarities between existing (and/or extinct) cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ripple and Peercoin [15]?

· What incidents affecting cryptocurrencies (e.g. security breaches on Mt. Gox [12] – the largest Bitcoin exchange, and on Bitcoinica [8] online trading site for Bitcoins) show us about risks and possible mitigations?

Forensic & law enforcement

· What methods and techniques are potentially valuable to de-anonymise cryptocurrencies’ users (e.g. Reid and Harrigan [14] proposed one method)?

· What tools, methods and public information can be used to gather intelligence about criminals’ use of cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, for law enforcement? (e.g. Bitcoin Block Explorer tool –
http://blockexplorer.com/)

· What are the challenges that cryptocurrencies pose for digital forensics investigators and law enforcement [7], and which potential directions are most promising to address these challenges?

Black market

· How does anonymity in cryptocurrencies work and how it has been exploited by cybercriminals [2]?

· How do marketplaces, like Silk Road [4], operate and what measures can be adopted against them?

· What are the challenges posed by cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, for policymakers and regulators [3], and what advances have been made to address these?

· What do we know about the economics of bitcoins and e-Wallets as used by cybercriminals? (e.g., the economics of bitcoin mining [10])

Topic: Spams and Cybercrime

Security

· Combating web spam (e.g., based on trust rank [16])

· How to detect spam web pages? (e.g., based on content analysis [17])

· How to effectively mitigate email spam? (e.g., based on proactive methods [18, 20])

· Spam detection in social networks (e.g., Twitter [21], MailRank [23])

Forensics and Law enforcement

· Study spam emails with the focus on law enforcement forensic analysis. (e.g., based on data mining techniques approach [22])

· Anti-spam forensics methodologies (e.g., how data mining can help to detect spam domains and their hosts for anti-spam forensic purposes [24])

· Forensic investigation of spam campaign (e.g., [25])

Black market

· Investigate the incentives and economics behind spamming activities (e.g., [26])

· Investigate the entire spam value chain, and the full set of resources employed to monetize spam email (e.g., [27] )

Section 4: Suggested References

These references are a starting point for your research. You should find additional relevant material for yourself.

[1] L. Bahack. Theoretical Bitcoin Attacks with less than half of the Computational Power (draft). Technical report, Cornell University, US, December 2013. Permanent link:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1312.7013v1. last visited 29/10/2015

[2] F. Brezo and P. G. Bringas. Issues and Risks Associated with Cryptocurrencies Such as Bitcoin. In SOTICS 2012: In Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Social Eco-Informatics, pages 20–26. IARIA Press, 2012.

[3] J. Brito and A. Castillo. Bitcoin: A Primer for Policymakers. Mercatus Center - George Mason University, 2013.

[4] N. Christin. Traveling the Silk Road: A Measurement Analysis of a Large Anonymous Online Marketplace. In WWW’13: Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on World Wide Web, pages 213–224. International World Wide Web Conferences Steering Committee Press, 2013.

[5] CryptoNews Biz. Yahoo malware turned European computers into bitcoin slaves. Published online:
http://www.cryptonews.biz/yahoo-malware-turned-european-computers-into-bitcoin-slaves/
, last visited 29/10/2015.

[6] P. Ducklin. Destructive malware ”CryptoLocker” on the loose - here’s what to do. Published online by Sophos:
http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/ 2013/10/12/destructive-malware-cryptolocker-on-the-loose/, last visited 29/10/2015.

[7] FBI Directory of Intelligence. (U) Bitcoin Virtual Currency: Unique Features Present Distinct Challenges for Deterring Illicit Activity. Published online:
http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2012/05/Bitcoin-FBI.pdf
, last visited 29/10/2015.

[8] Infosecurity Magazine. Bitcoinica, twice hacked in 2012, is being sued. Published online:
http://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/view/27618/bitcoinica-twice-hacked-in-2012-is-being-sued/
, last visited 29/10/2015.

[9] G. O. Karame, E. Androulaki, and S. Capkun. Double-spending Fast Payments in Bitcoin. In CCS’12: Proceedings of the 2012 ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, pages 906–917. ACM Press, 2012.

[10] J. A. Kroll, I. C. Davey, and E. W. Felten. The Economics of Bitcoin Mining, or Bitcoin in the Presence of Adversaries. In WEIS’2013: In the Proceedings of the Twelfth Workshop on the Economics of Information Security, pages 1–21, 2013.

[11] Lucian Constantin. Bitcoin mining malware spreading on Skype, researcher says. Published online:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2033287/bitcoin-mining-malware-spreading-on-skype-researcher-says.html
, last visited 27/11/2014, 2013.

[12] Mt. Gox. Huge Bitcoin sell off due to a compromised account rollback. Published online: http://bitgear.co/blogs/blog/13602537-archive-huge-bitcoin-sell-off-due-to-a-compromised-account-rollback, last visited 30/10/2015.

[13] D. Plohmann and E. Gerhards-Padilla. Case Study of the Miner Botnet. In CYCON’2012: 4th International Conference on Cyber Conflict, pages 1–16. IEEE Press, 2012.

[14] F. Reid and M. Harrigan. An Analysis of Anonymity in the Bitcoin System. In PASSAT’2011: In the Proceedings of Third International Conference on Social Computing, pages 1318–1326. IEEE Press, 2011.

[15] I. Steadman. Wary of Bitcoin? A guide to some other cryptocurrencies. Published online:
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-05/7/alternative-cryptocurrencies-guide
,

last visited 29/10/2015.

[16] Zoltán Gyöngyi, Hector Garcia-Molina, and Jan Pedersen. 2004. Combating web spam with trustrank. In
Proceedings of the Thirtieth international conference on Very large data bases - Volume 30
(VLDB '04)

[17] Alexandros Ntoulas, Marc Najork, Mark Manasse, and Dennis Fetterly. 2006. Detecting spam web pages through content analysis. In
Proceedings of the 15th international conference on World Wide Web
(WWW '06). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 83-92.

[18] Shobha Venkataraman, Subhabrata Senf, Oliver Spatscheckf, Patrick Haffnerf, Dawn Song. "Exploiting Network Structure for Proactive Spam Mitigation". USENIX Security 2006.

[19] Daniel V. Klein. “A Forensic Analysis of a Distributed Two-Stage Web-Based Spam Attack”. The Proceedings of the 20th Large Installation System Administration Conference (LISA '06), December 3-8, 2006.

[20] Jeremy Blosser and David Josephsen. “Awarded Best Paper! - Scalable Centralized Bayesian Spam Mitigation with Bogofilter”. In
Proceedings of the 18th USENIX conference on System administration
(LISA '04). USENIX Association, Berkeley, CA, USA, 1-20., 2004.

[21] Alex Hai Wang, “Don't follow me: Spam detection in Twitter”. Proceedings of the 2010 International Conference on Security and Cryptography (SECRYPT’10), 2010.

[22] Chun Wei, Alan Sprague, Gary Warner, and Anthony Skjellum. “Mining spam email to identify common origins for forensic application”. In
Proceedings of the 2008 ACM symposium on Applied computing
(SAC '08). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1433-1437, 2008.

[23] Paul-Alexandru Chirita, Jörg Diederich, and Wolfgang Nejdl. 2005. MailRank: using ranking for spam detection. In
Proceedings of the 14th ACM international conference on Information and knowledge management
(CIKM '05). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 373-380.

[24] Chun Wei. “Clustering Spam Domains and Hosts – Anti Spam Forensics with Data Mining”, Dissertation, The University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2010. (Accessed 29/10/2015)

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?rep=rep1&type=pdf&doi=10.1.1.210.9569

[25] Son Dinha, Taher Azeba, Francis Fortinb, Djedjiga Mouheba, Mourad Debbabia. "Spam campaign detection, analysis, and investigation", Digital Investigation. Volume 12, Supplement 1, March 2015, Pages S12–S21.

[26] Justin M. Rao, David H. Reiley. “The Economics of Spam”, Journal of Economics Perspectives, Volume 26, Number 3, pp. 87 – 100.

[27] Kirill Levchenko, Andreas Pitsillidis, Neha Chachra, Brandon Enright, Márk Félegyházi, Chris Grier, Tristan Halvorson, Chris Kanich, Christian Kreibich, He Liu, Damon McCoy, Nicholas Weaver, Vern Paxson, Geoffrey M. Voelker, and Stefan Savage. 2011. “Click Trajectories: End-to-End Analysis of the Spam Value Chain.” In
Proceedings of the 2011 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy
(SP '11). IEEE Computer Society, Washington, DC, USA, 431-446.

Section 5 – Submission

Learning to write concisely is an important skill to develop and is useful throughout your academic and professional career. Your mark will be
penalised heavily if you exceed word or page limit.

For every 10% you exceed your word limit, you will have 10% of your marks removed until a maximum of 100%. Your page limit does not include references, but does include citations (quotes).

You should use
Microsoft Word
to complete this assignment. If you use a word processor other than Microsoft Word then you should check to ensure that the document layout is the same as Microsoft Word. Microsoft Word is available on the University network.

Your Word document should be set to the default settings when you open MS Word.

The assignment work should be submitted as a .docx for the assignment submission slot on BlackBoard by the deadline.

Please use
in-text citation
where required (not enough just listing the references at the end of the), based on the
Harvard referencing style[1]
.

Section 6 – Late Submission

Except where an extension of the hand-in and/or discussion deadline dates have been approved (using extenuating circumstances forms), lateness penalties will be applied in accordance with University policy as shown in Table 1[2].

Table 1: Late submission penalty

Section 7 – Extenuating Circumstances

If you believe that there are circumstances that justify an extension of the hand-in deadline for assignment work, you are required to use the Extenuating Circumstances forms (available online based on the EC request procedure via myUCLAN[3]) Extensions are granted when there are serious and exceptional factors outside your control. Everyday occurrences such as colds and hay fever do not normally qualify for extensions. Where possible, requests for extensions should be made before the hand-in date.

The school considers extenuating circumstances to be conditions that significantly impact on your work. Typically these will cover more than one module. Requests for consideration of extenuating circumstances in respect of assignment work submission, should be made using the extenuating circumstances envelope. You are advised to speak to your Course Leader/ pastoral tutors prior to completing these envelopes. Whilst extenuating circumstances are being considered, you are advised to inform relevant staff members, and continue with the assignment.

Extenuating circumstances should be submitted following the guidance on the UCLan website[4].

Section 8 – Unfair Means to Enhance Performance

The University operates an electronic plagiarism detection service (Turnitin) where your work will be automatically uploaded, stored and cross-referenced against other material. You should be aware that the software searches the World Wide Web, extensive databases of reference material and work submitted by members of the same class to identify duplication.

To avoid accusations of plagiarism, give an in-text citation and provide bibliographic details of any source used in the references list. Remember that you can reuse ideas from different sources but not literal text.

Plagiarism is
not acceptable
and you will face consequences when it is detected. For detailed information on the procedures relating to plagiarism, please see the current version of the University Academic Regulations[5].

Section 10 – Reassessed Work

Reassessment in written examinations and coursework is at the discretion of the Course Assessment Board and is dealt with strictly in accordance with University policy and procedures. Revision classes for referrals will take place during ’reassessment revision, appeals and guidance week’ as marked on the academic calendar.

The mark for the reassessed module is subject to a maximum of 50%.

Please see the UCLAN Academic Regulations and Assessment Handbook for information and penalties related to “unfair means to enhance performance”[6].

MARKING SCHEME

CO4515-Assignment 2

Research Paper

To be awarded a
failing grade (less than 50%)
your work will not have met the required standard.

The following (non-exhaustive) list contains examples that may cause your work to fail.

· Used very low quality/number of sources/no main findings/results identified/no critical reasoning

· Very badly structured, no paragraphs/sections/subsections, or badly structured, very few (and long) paragraphs/sections/subsections.

· Very badly written \ cannot understand\ many typos and grammatical issues

· No or very limited in-text citation or not Harvard style at all.

To be awarded a
pass mark (52, 55, 58)
your work will be of a competent standard.

· Used acceptable quality/number of sources/acceptable quality discussion of main findings/results identified/contain critical reasoning but missing some or contain unnecessary parts

· Acceptable structure, some paragraphs sections/subsections but still miss some sections/subsections/paragraphs

· Acceptable sentences\may contain few typos and grammatical issues\understandable writing skill

· Acceptable number and style of in-text citations, but several may be inappropriate.

Your research paper structure and writing style (compact/focused) will be used to determine whether you receive a low (52), mid (55) or high (58) pass grade.

To be awarded a
merit grade (62, 65, 68)
your work will be of a very good standard.

You must also:-

· Used high quality/number of sources/identified main findings/results identified/compact critical reasoning

· Well structured, but not perfect logically

· Good sentences\ but lacks of ”professional” writing skill (not sufficiently focused/compact)

· High number and appropriate in-text citations, but also some unnecessary. Reference list is good but could contains more high impact journals.

Your research paper structure and writing style (professional/compact/focused) will be used to determine whether you receive a low (62), mid (65) or high (68) merit grade.

To be awarded a
distinctive grade (74, 81, 89, 96, 100)
your work will be of an excellent standard.

You must also:-

· Used very high quality/number of sources/identified main findings/results identified/clear & compact critical reasoning.

· Well and logically structured with all the necessary paragraphs, section\subsections.

· Very well-written\ professional and compact, clear.

· Very high number and appropriate in-text citations and outstanding reference list with high impact journal papers.

Your research paper structure and writing style (professional/compact/focused) will be used to determine whether you receive a low (74), mid (81), high (89), very high (96) or “perfect” (100).

[1] [1]Referencing guides (link to Anglia Ruskin University),
https://www.uclan.ac.uk/students/library-it/faq/guides_forms.php

[2]
http://www.uclan.ac.uk/aqasu/academic_regulations.php

[3] https://www.uclan.ac.uk/students/support/extensions.php

[4] https://www.uclan.ac.uk/students/support/extensions.php

[5] https://www.uclan.ac.uk/study_here/assets/assessment_handbook_1819.pdf

[6] https://www.uclan.ac.uk/study_here/assets/assessment_handbook_1819.pdf