When answering the assignment, layout your answers in a readable format and include all relevant working. If you make use of resources other than the lecture slides you are required to properly cite thee resources, as this is a networking unit you should useIEEE referencing style.
Note that failure to include citations is a form of plagiarism. Significant sanctions may apply to cases of plagiarism up to and including exclusion from further study towards your degree.
Your assignment will be submitted electronically via TurnItIn on the unit's iLearn page. Ensure that you adhere to the following requirements:
- The filename should be in the following format: (assuming your student ID is 44332211)
- Unlike assignment 1 this assignment should be submitted as a single document to a single submission box.
- All submissions must be in PDF format -- do not submit a MS-Word file (or anything else other than PDF).
- Do not include a cover sheet of any kind.
- Do not include the text of any of the questions in your submission.
- Do not use double-spacing.
- Use a sensible, clean font, 10-12 pt in size.
- Hand-written or scanned submissions will not be accepted.
- Your report should not exceed 10 pages (excluding any bibliography).
- How much you write for each question is up to you.
- However each question has some guidance to the amount you should expect to write.
- Please be aware that this is purely indicative and should be treated as a guide only.
- The 10 page limit for the entire report is however a strict limit.
Failure to follow any of the above requirements will result in a loss of 10 marks for each infraction.
Also note that citation of a non-reliable source may also incur a penalty (eg. Wikipedia).
Finally, please note that late submissions will not be accepted without an approved special consideration request.
Assessment
For all questions in this assignment not onlycontentbut alsopresentationwill affect your mark. You will lose marks if there are problems with the presentation, particularly with clarity. This means that your answers to each question should be a coherent statement and that the spelling and grammar of your submission will be taken into account in assessing its presentation.
For full marks, your answers should be well argued, clear, and coherent.
The standards of marking described in the unit outline will be applied to this assignment as relevant to the assignment topics. In addition, the following particular standards will be applied in marking this assignment:
- Spelling and grammar:
- Assignment submissions with multiple more than 4 spelling or grammatical errors will not achieve a grade higher than distinction; submissions with more than 8 such errors will not achieve a grade higher than credit.
- Clarity:
- Ambiguous or poorly worded answers will receive a grade no more than a pass for the individual question.
- Minor issues of clarity will receive a grade no more than credit for the individual question.
- Correctness of approach taken and answer obtained:
- Incorrect answers with the correct logic or approach will receive no more than a pass for the individual question.
- Correct answers with incorrect logic or approach will receive no more than pass for the individual question.
- Incorrect answers with no explanation of the approach taken or with the incorrect approach will receive a fail grade for the individual question.
The questions will be marked individually, the marks totaled, and a final grade assigned that is no more than indicated by the total marks, and no more than allowed by the standards specified above and in the unit outline.
Submission
Submit on the iLearn page under ‘Assignments Section’. The submission is with a tool called TurnItIn. This cross checks for online papers and other student papers for any plagiarism (copying). In short –DON’T COPY– or get others to do your assignment, we are pretty good at catching people out and the consequences can be severe. Do not trust anyone who will take money to do assignments. They can take money from several students, return the same assignment, and you get caught. They don’t care about you, but we do!
Assignment 2 Questions
Notes about the network diagram
- The red lines indicate WAN connections - as we have not covered this yet you do not need to discuss or describe what these are aside from them simply being a WAN connection.
- There is no direct connection between the Canberra and Perth offices, the red line from Perth to the Data Center passing under the Canberra node is simply an artefact of how the diagram was laid out.
- The tall box-like icons such as those for Web, Mail, Time, FTP, SOS, etc., are hosts (servers).
Question 1 [20 marks] — Backbone (Approximately 1 - 3 pages depending upon how you organise your answer)
Consider each of the devices with a question mark icon (Core, DistributionA, DistributionB, AccessA, AccessB, DCG, SOD, MOD, POD, BOD, COD, HOG)
For each of these devices, make a choice as to which kind of network function (see the note below) should be implemented by the device. Your answer should include a brief (1-2 sentence) explanation of your choice for each device.
Note the following:
- Examples of network functions include router, switch, hub, firewall, IDS, IPS, NAT, access point, etc.
- Some devices may implement more than one network function.
- If you decide that two or more of the devices in the list should implement the same network function(s) for thesame reasons, then you may choose to group them.
Question 2 [10 marks] — Wireless (Approximately 1/2 - 1 page)
The home office user has installed a second access point so that they can work whilst sitting on their back deck. The back deck is located 12m from their home office.
Since installing the access point the home user has found that wireless network access no longer works reliably no matter which access point the home user attempts to connect to. What might be the cause of this unreliability and what single change can be made to correct this?
Question 3 [30 marks] — Security (Approximately 1 - 3 pages depending upon how you layout your spreadsheet)
Perform a risk analysis of the entire network (including the home office) and create a control spreadsheetas described in the week 8 lecture:
Risk Analysis
- Identify assets
- Prioritise the relative importance of each asset
- Identify threats
- Assign level of risk to various threats
- By comparing the nature of threats to the controls designed to reduce them
- Assign controls
Control Spreadsheet
- List down network assets on the side
- List threats across the top
- List the controls that are currently in use to address each threat in the corresponding cells
(note that the spreadsheet should be embedded in your report and not submitted separately).
(the following is the example from the week 8 lecture slides do not blindly copy this)
Note (added 25th May)
A number of students have asked for clarification on how to answer question 3, so I'm including the most recent response here for everyone.
Probably the best way to think about question 3 is to imagine that you are a consultant, and further, that you have been hired by the company to perform a security analysis. Your report should include not only existing controls, but also controls for those risks you have identified that currently have no mitigation. So, in your response, suggesting additional controls that are currently not implemented in the network are something you are proposing that the company (your client) should consider doing. Of course, your client can choose not to implement your proposed changes but that isn't really the point here. What you need to do is simply identify what are the risks and the most appropriate controls to mitigate those risks.