Information and System Security Assignment 2022

Running head: INFORMATION AND SYSTEMS SECURITY
INFORMATION AND SYSTEMS SECURITY
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1INFORMATION AND SYSTEMS SECURITY
Table of Contents
Analysis of the motivations behind hacking and evolution.......................................................2
Analysis of evolution of hacking tools.......................................................................................3
Evaluation of malware cycle......................................................................................................5
Evaluation of moral issues related to white hackers..................................................................6
Integration of analysis and evaluation........................................................................................7
References..................................................................................................................................8

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Analysis of the motivations behind hacking and evolution
Attacks existing within the cyber world provided with a helping hand of causing $450
billion of damage to that of the economic conditions persisting within the global world
relating to the year of 2016 (Delfanti & Söderberg, 2015). This number has been predicted to
undergo much more increase as the technologies keep adding to the modern world.
However, the magnitude of this impact shall not be underestimated. The size of the
considering economies such as the likes of UAE or the Norway, which tends to make no
surprise to have a look at the organizations having put the major of the resources to shore up
the defenses working internally as well as the measures needed towards the reduction of the
threats.
Relating to our digitally world, which is connected by the means of the technological
innovations along with that of the Internet of Things as well as the lack of security being
upon the headlines belonging to the entire of the world. Attacks related to the security as well
as the breaches that occur with that of increasing the complexity along with the severity
(Söderberg & Delfanti, 2015). With the rise of the technology, the different methods for the
driving related to that of the cyber security attacks. The basic motivations provoking the
methods of hacking have been discussed below,
i) Curiosity- some of the hackers may opt for the trying of the hacking methods to
check the working or having an understanding of how a device works or how a
specific network works. Having this kind of a curiosity, the referred individuals
may utilize the technique of hacking every single mundane object because of the
fact that they can.
ii) Bragging- amateur hackers shall commit the acts of cyber-attacks for the prime
purpose of bragging (Reagle, 2019). Having an upper hand within their group of

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friends, such kids belonging to the group of amateur hackers do it having the only
purpose of having a different kind of reputation among their friends.
iii) Ethical hacking or Moral Compass- according to the recent studies, most of the
organizations are seeking with an active participation of a professional working
within the field of cyber security as a measure of keeping their organizations safe
from such referred attacks of hacking or cyber security (Cayubit et al., 2017).
iv) Financial Gain- nowadays, the hackers carry the resources of sophisticated
software as well as a collection of cyber weapons to provide them with an helping
hand of potentially reaping all of the related financial benefits.
Analysis of evolution of hacking tools
Referring to the past decade, the methods of ethical hacking as well as of the
penetration testing have been performed only by a handful of the experts working within the
field of security. The tools working or the ethical hacking provision the allowance of
scanning, searching as well as finding out all of the flaws as well as of the vulnerabilities
lying within any company to provide with a helping hand of making the systems and the
information much more secure (Owen, 2016). Some of the newly developed hacking tools
used by the hackers along the progressive timeline of evolution within the field of hacking
has been described in brief. These are,
i) John the Ripper- this is considered to be one of the most famous software meant
for the cracking of passwords referring to all the time. This is referred to as one of
the most preferred tools for the security measures to test the strength of a
particular password present within the operating system.
Particularly, this cracker for the password consists of the ability to detect the
specific type of encryption that is prevalently utilized within any of the commonly

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existing passwords. Specifically, this tool meant for the process of ethical hacking
refers to one of the intelligent tools utilized for the cracking of passwords.
ii) Metasploit- refers to an open source project within the field of cyber security that
provisions the allowance to the professionals to utilize the differently existing
tools meant for the procedure of penetration testing to discover the vulnerabilities
of the remote software.
This particular project has been written completely based upon Ruby enabling the
procedures of developing along with that of the testing as well as the execution of
exploits with ease.
iii) Nmap- commonly refers to an open source utilized as a security tool, which is free
for use by all the professionals working within the field of cyber security
(Nakashima, 2016). This tool is specifically used for the managing as well as
auditing the networks along with that of the operating system security aimed at
both the local as well as the remote hosts.
This software is regarded as one of the most effective mappers for the network all
around the globe, and is separately known for its fast as well as consistent delivery
during an investigation related to that of security.
iv) Wireshark- refers to a free software, which is also an open sources software
provisioning the allowance of analyzing the traffic present within a specific set of
network in real time monitoring. Wireshark is most widely referred consisting of
some extra features such as the effectiveness as well as the solvation of common
problems related to that of networking.
While following the sniffing method within a network, there exists the provision
of intercepting as well as reading of the results, which is easily readable by the
humans having identified potential problems.

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v) OpenVAS- is also commonly referred to as an open source network used
particularly for scanning meant for the detection of the vulnerabilities acting
within the remote hosts (Najera-Gutierrez & Ansari, 2018). This software is
referred to as one of the best scanners, which checks the vulnerabilities of the
network and is one of the prime popular software within the field of cyber security
preferred by the professionals working within the same field of action.
Evaluation of malware cycle
It is not more a hype to state the fact that the existence of every single problem can
relate to the fact of getting tracked back to every single personal computer existing under the
sun. A personal computer carrying an infection of either by a virus or maybe a malware can
be utilized then after by the criminals working online with the prime motive of causing harm
in a variety of existing ways that are possible. As a reason of this happening, the criminals
working within the cyber field utilize such infected personal computers as the proxies (Ablon
& Libicki, 2015). This provisions the hackers to hide their identities as well as the location
they are operating from, along with the amplification of the damage that they are about to
cause. Having set the personal computers as the proxy, the hackers start sending innumerable
emails as messages, giving rise to cycle of Malware.
However, the biggest challenge that is being faced by the owners is that the owners
have the least idea of their personal computers getting infected by such a virus (Kate &
Dhavale, 2015). While the original owners are fast asleep, their individual computers are
online getting worked by the hackers for the specific purpose they have been hacked for. To
solve such arrival of problems, there is the constant need for the breakage of the malware
cycle as suggested.

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Breaking of the malware cycle can be carried out in two ways with the utilization of
the CloudFlare as a defense mechanism. Firstly, the protection of the websites, which are
vulnerable to the cause of such attacks need to be provided with the specific protection
(Karapoola et al., 2019). Secondly, CloudFlare provisions the website with the special ability
to provide the infected users with the specific information of having a problem as well as
providing them with the necessary tools for the procedure of cleaning.
Evaluation of moral issues related to white hackers
White hacking specifically means the hacking, which is carried out maintaining all of
the ethical standards set by the code of conduct. Particularly, white hackers are commonly
referred to as those individuals who professionally work within the similar field of cyber
security and not barge in through the walls of security but provide with a lot better measures
of security towards an organization as a protection against the breach to the sensitive
information that is contained by the company.
However, the term white hackers refer to different meaning referring to different
people that exist. On one hand, the professionals working within the field of cyber security
related businesses have built their entire career abiding strictly to all the existing laws of
white hacking (Martin, 2017). All of these referred professionals carry rigid principles and do
not follow the procedures of scanning, probing as well as checking out of information
without the proper consent from the owner’s side. All of these white hackers working as
professionals follow rules strictly for the protection of both their reputation as well as their
future earnings from the same reliable field.
On the contrary, having pure intentions do not always abide by the principles of white
hacking. How much noble the intentions of a particular individual might be, methods related
to that of white hacking can cause harm to the system, be it unintentional (Payne, 2018). If

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the white hackers have been conducting a specific penetration test upon a critically working
system, there shall be a handy understanding regarding the fact that the professionals working
with security who have been carrying out with the penetration testing upon the system is
hundred percent safe as well as secure.
Integration of analysis and evaluation
The components of the malware cycle basically refer to the types of malware that
exist within the cyber world, which can affect any of the personal computer belonging to any
single individual and give rise to the start of the malware cycle (Subrahmanian et al., 2015).
The common types of malware are,
i) Adware- refers to a specific type of malware that has the only feature of
automatically delivering the system with a series of advertisements. The
commonly existing adware are the pop-up advertisements that are usually visible
upon the websites as well as the software.
ii) Bot- are specifically existing programs of software specifically created for the
automatic performance of specifically existing operations (Makandar & Patrot,
2015). While, some of the existing bots are created for the sole purpose of
harming nothing, the recent upcoming examples of bots have been used for
malicious activities as well.
iii) Bug- referring to the context of software, a bug refers to the production of an
undesired situation or outcome of any particular process. All of these flaws share
the typical existence within the source codes or specific compilers of related
programs.

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References
Ablon, L., & Libicki, M. (2015). Hacker's Bazaar: The Markets for Cybercrime Tools and
Stolen Data. Def. Counsel J., 82, 143.
Cayubit, R. F. O., Rebolledo, K. M., Kintanar, R. G. A., Pastores, A. G., Santiago, A. J. A., &
Valles, P. B. V. (2017). A Cyber Phenomenon: A Q-Analysis on the Motivation of
Computer Hackers. Psychological Studies, 62(4), 386-394.
Delfanti, A., & Söderberg, J. (2015). Repurposing the Hacker. Three Cycles of Recuperation
in the Evolution of Hacking and Capitalism. Three Cycles of Recuperation in the
Evolution of Hacking and Capitalism (June 23, 2015).
Karapoola, S., Rebeiro, C., Parekh, U., & Veezhinathan, K. (2019, July). Towards Identifying
Early Indicators of a Malware Infection. In Proceedings of the 2019 ACM Asia
Conference on Computer and Communications Security(pp. 679-681). ACM.
Kate, P. M., & Dhavale, S. V. (2015, August). Two phase static analysis technique for
Android malware detection. In Proceedings of the Third International Symposium on
Women in Computing and Informatics (pp. 650-655). ACM.
Makandar, A., & Patrot, A. (2015). Overview of malware analysis and
detection. International Journal of Computer Applications, 975, 8887.
Martin, C. D. (2017). White Hat, Black Hat: The Ethics of Cybersecurity. NEW TITLES
NOW AVAILABLE, 33.
Najera-Gutierrez, G., & Ansari, J. A. (2018). Web Penetration Testing with Kali Linux:
Explore the methods and tools of ethical hacking with Kali Linux. Packt Publishing
Ltd.

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Nakashima, E. (2016). Powerful NSA hacking tools have been revealed online. Washington
Post, 16.
Owen, K. (2016). MOTIVATION AND DEMOTIVATION OF HACKERS IN THE
SELECTION OF A HACKING TASK–A CONTEXTUAL APPROACH (Doctoral
dissertation).
Payne, B. K. (2018). White-Collar Cybercrime: White-Collar Crime, Cybercrime, or
Both. Criminology, Crim. Just. L & Soc'y, 19, 16.
Reagle, J. (2019). Hacking Motivation. Hacking Life.
Söderberg, J., & Delfanti, A. (2015). Hacking hacked! The life cycles of digital
innovation. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 40(5), 793-798.
Subrahmanian, V. S., Ovelgönne, M., Dumitras, T., & Prakash, B. A. (2015). Types of
malware and malware distribution strategies. In The Global Cyber-Vulnerability
Report (pp. 33-46). Springer, Cham.