View the research report on Increased Cyber Attacks During the Pandemic by Ducquon Hinds, Kiara Ortiz, Muztahid Sakif, Mamadou Sakho, and Olamide Yomi here.
Author: Muztahid Sakif
Instruction Manual for Creating a Virtual Network in Cisco Packet Tracer
My instruction manual for creating a virtual network in Cisco Packet tracer can be found here.
Expanded Definition of Cloud
To: Prof. Jason Ellis
From: Muztahid Sakif
Date: October 27, 2021
Subject: Expanded Definition of Cloud
Introduction
The purpose of this document is to define and explore the context/history around the term Cloud. The term cloud is used very often in the networking industry. Although cloud computing began with the military for national security purposes, itâs now increasingly growing in other sectors like business, education, health, and public and private organizations. In this document, I will compare and contrast various definitions of the word cloud from different sources. Also, I will be discussing context around the word cloud. Meaning, how this term applies to the field of networking and the importance of cloud computing for different users.
Definitions
According to Gale EBooks, âCloud computing refers to the use of a network of remote servers to store files and perform services. The use of the term the cloud signifies that the network is as common as the clouds in the sky, indicating that the network is ubiquitous, easy to access, and readily available anywhere in the worldâ [1, p.1]. This is a great, easy-to-understand definition. The comparison of the term âcloudâ to âcloudsâ shows the availability of Cloud in the modern world today. According to Britannica Academic, âCloud computing, method of running application software and storing related data in central computer systems and providing customers or other users access to them through the Internetâ [2, p.1]. The two definitions listed above are intended for different audiences. The first definition from Gale includes audiences that are outside of the computing field, whereas the definition from Britannica is more catered towards people in the computer science or related audiences. Both of these definitions include the concept of the exchanging and accessing data which is important to note. Data is a big component of the term cloud and the role of interacting with data through cloud is what makes it in demand in the current market today. The second definition is more specific as to how clouds are used in todayâs world. The use of different software applications was not prevalent in the context of the original definition of cloud.
Context
The following content expands on the usage of the word cloud in different contexts. According to the authors âCloud solutions can improve the quality of smart city services, offering support to store, analyse, and extract knowledge from the raw data. The increasing need for supporting interaction between IoT and cloud computing systems has also led to the creation of the edge computing model, which aims to provide processing and storage capacity as an extension of available IoT devices without the need to move data or processing to a data center.â [3, p.2].
The use of the phrase âCloud solutionsâ is important to note here. This phrase is often used in the context of the benefits of cloud, especially today. Improving the quality of smart city services through the cloud is very relevant, especially in New York City. Also according to the authors, âTogether with derived security data artifacts, this will support the Cloud provider community to implement a Security Manager system for a future Inter-Cloud environment and facilitate the adoption of these results in the private and public sectorâ [4, p.5]. In this context, the term cloud is mentioned in the context of security. With Cloud, thereâs always the question of security which increases with time. This is also relevant to my field (Cyber Security) where the use of Cloud is increasing.
Hereâs a quote example from IEEE Xplore: Cloud Computing Based Social Media Model, writers K. Goel and I. Goel wrote about the role and the importance of cloud in the social media space: âSo, to provide better data security, management,no worry of data management and also easy access of data will be required which can be only possible through cloud computingâ[5, p.9]. The use of the word cloud here refers to its reach in various fields, including Social Media. The growth of Social Media is ever growing and the influence of cloud can provide its user with better security, management and allow business to grow through Social Media. Businesses, especially today, rely on Social Media advertising for business growth and cloud helps with large sums of data to simplify the process.
Another quote example from the book Cloud Computing, writer Nayan Ruparelia wrote about cloud of things, which found in various âobjectsâ or technologies that we encounter âA cloud of things has inanimate objects, or things, as its scope; that is, it is a cloud that works with things instead of people or organizations. For example, you can have a cloud of public lightingâ such as street or car park lightingâ operated on a pay-per-use basis so that the lighting is available only to those who have paid for it and are in the vicinityâ [6, p.10]. In this context, the author mentions the term âcloud of thingsâ which is very relevant in the cloud business. Cloud of things can be an efficient way to manage lights as mentioned in the example. Meaning, the lights do not remain turned on all night and waste charge. The use of the term cloud refers to its influence on things instead of people or organizations. Cloud of things remotely monitor, manage and control the Internet of Things enabled devices like refrigerators, fire alarms, door locks, security systems, etc.
Working Definition
Cloud is a networking/information technology infrastructure where all of organizations’ networking resources are shared in a public/private platform that is managed by a service provider.
References
[1] Foyle, Harvey C. “Cloud Computing.” The SAGE Encyclopedia of Educational Technology, edited by J. Michael Spector, vol. 1, SAGE Reference, 2015, pp. 100-103. Gale eBooks, link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX6197800053/GVRL?u=cuny_nytc&sid=bookmark-GVRL&xid=8a12ab4f. Accessed 6 Oct. 2021
[2] Carr, Nicholas “Cloud Computing.” [Online]. Britannica Academic, Available: https://academic-eb-com.citytech.ezproxy.cuny.edu/levels/collegiate/article/cloud-computing/474374 [Accessed: 06-Oct-2021].Â
[3]. M. Fazio, R. Ranjan, M. Girolami, J. Taheri, S. Dustdar and M. Villari, “A Note on the Convergence of IoT, Edge, and Cloud Computing in Smart Cities,” in IEEE Cloud Computing, vol. 5, no. 5, pp. 22-24, Sep./Oct. 2018, doi: 10.1109/MCC.2018.053711663.
[4] M. Kretzschmar, M. Golling and S. Hanigk, “Security Management Areas in the Inter-cloud,” 2011 IEEE 4th International Conference on Cloud Computing, 2011, pp. 762-763, doi: 10.1109/CLOUD.2011.83.
[5]. K. Goel and I. Goel, “Cloud computing based social media model,” 2016 International Conference on Inventive Computation Technologies (ICICT), 2016, pp. 1-3, doi: 10.1109/INVENTIVE.2016.7823184.[6] Ruparelia, Nayan B.. Cloud Computing, MIT Press, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/citytech-ebooks/detail.action?docID=4527741.
500-word Summary of Article About Cyber Attacks
To: Prof.Ellis
From: Muztahid Sakif
Date: Oct. 6, 2021
Subject: 500-word Summary of Article About Cyber Attacks
The following 500-word summary of the article âCovid-19 Pandemic: A New Era of Cyber Security Threat and Holistic Approach to Overcomeâ by Jabber Ahmed highlights the increased threat of cyber-attacks during the Covid 19 pandemic. With countries across the world going into lockdown, the usage of computers and internet has increased significantly, making cyber criminals more active. The attacks are more prevalent with the lack of personal safety precautions in using the internet. Cyber criminals have found multiple ways to access data causing many banking, government, and non-government organizations to suffer cyber-attacks. This article focuses on safety precautions to protect personal and organization data from cyber criminals.
2020 was the year of pandemic that led to a âNew Normalâ by forcing many to work and learn from home. Cyber attackers are capitalizing off the pandemic by launching their cyber-attacks across the continents, especially in developing countries. Ahmed supports this using a bar graph which shows the percentage of attacks faced by the different continents. Europe faced 42% of the attacks, America faced 12%, Asia Pacific with 19%, Africa with 17% and the Middle East facing 10% of the attacks. Due to the lack of awareness in developing countries, many sites have been visited by people without security precautions.
Ahmed mentions specific sectors that were attacked during the pandemic including, healthcare and medical sectors, financial sectors, and educational sectors. With the health care system already weakened by the pandemic, attacks saw this sector as the ideal place to attack. With the increase of the remote care system, the hackers were active in getting to the healthcare system around the world. Financial sectors have suffered the attacks with the increased use of online support. Most employees were working from home with an unsecured network which exposed them to attacks. Educational sectors were also affected with students from all levels being dependent on e-learning with the use of independent applications like Zoom which was vulnerable to malware attacks.
Common types of cyber-attack include DDoS Attack, phishing, malware, and ransomware. DDoS attacks are used to make an online service unavailable for the user by increasing traffic. According to the author, â In the first quarter of the year 2020, the total number of reported DDoS attacks was 242, and in the second quarter, the number was increased to 300 [12] [13]â [1, p. 14]. Phishing hackers send emails to individuals with fake web pages that can capture details of an individual. Attacks spread malware in devices of the users during the pandemic. Malware can create a âbackdoorâ in the user’s device, allowing criminals to take all personal credentials/ passwords.
Ahmed highlights some ways of preventing these attacks. Ransomware can be prevented with an Updated OS that provides an updated patch file for prevention. To prevent DDos Attacks, users can keep the firewall on which can detect the source of IP address range to control the overflow. Phishing attacks can be prevented by having adequate knowledge of phishing emails, not clicking phishing links, and not providing credentials to unsecured websites.
Reference: [1] J. Ahmed and Q. Tushar, “Covid-19 Pandemic: A New Era Of Cyber Security Threat And Holistic Approach To Overcome,” 2020 IEEE Asia-Pacific Conference on Computer Science and Data Engineering (CSDE), 2020, pp. 1-5, doi: 10.1109/CSDE50874.2020.9411533.
