IT Security: Countermeasures - Review of Security Protocols Report

This report examines IT security countermeasures, focusing on password management, authentication, and associated vulnerabilities. It analyzes three key references: the first discusses the security of password managers, exploring potential attacks and proposing enhancements; the second investigates offline dictionary attacks on smart card-based authentication schemes, highlighting vulnerabilities in existing systems; and the third reviews the evolution of password-based authentication, discussing its ongoing relevance and challenges in the face of evolving security threats. The report synthesizes these findings to provide a comprehensive overview of current security issues and potential solutions in the field of IT security. The report provides a critical analysis of each reference, summarizing the core arguments, methodologies, and conclusions presented by the authors. Furthermore, the report evaluates the implications of these findings for the development of more robust and secure IT systems, emphasizing the need for continuous improvement and adaptation in response to emerging threats.

Running head: IT SECURITY: COUNTERMEASURES
IT Security: Countermeasures
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Author Note

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IT SECURITY: COUNTERMEASURES
Reference 1:
Title: Password Managers: Attacks and Defenses
Reference: Silver, D., Jana, S., Boneh, D., Chen, E. Y., & Jackson, C. (2014, August).
Password Managers: Attacks and Defenses. In USENIX Security Symposium(pp. 449-
464).
Summary:
The journal has been written keeping in mind the security protocol, which is followed by
many of the famous password manager software, which can automatically fill up web
passwords. The authors of the journal has researched on different managers and studied
their auto fill policies. Many of such policies will lead to disastrous effect on the users. The
authors has studied the possible attacks that can happen due to these policies. The authors
after the evaluation of these policies has provided an enhancement for the existing
managers, which can be added to safeguard the passwords.
Reference 2:
Title: Offline Dictionary Attack on Password Authentication Schemes using Smart Cards
Reference: Wang, D., & Wang, P. (2015). Offline dictionary attack on password
authentication schemes using smart cards. In Information Security (pp. 221-237). Springer,
Cham.
Summary:
The authors in this research journals has discussed about the recent proposals in the area of
smart card based password authentication. The authors have taken up two proposals named
Hsieh-Leu’s scheme and Wang’s PSCAV scheme. Both the schemes have the ability to be
attacked by the use of offline dictionary attacks. The attacker can get temporary access to
the users’ credentials if they get access to the victim’s smart card. Apart from this, the
authors have also explained in their journal about the importance of using smart cards
rather than basic flash storages.
Reference 3:
Title: Passwords and the Evolution of Imperfect Authentication
Reference: Bonneau, J., Herley, C., Van Oorschot, P. C., & Stajano, F. (2015). Passwords
and the evolution of imperfect authentication. Communications of the ACM, 58(7), 78-87.
Summary:
The authors in this journal has discussed about the lagged practice in the field of
passwords. Authentication of passwords is a problem, which is directly related to the
working of machine learning. The use of passwords will be there for a long time in the
future that will be able to stop attacks from hackers and reduce the hard at a small cost.

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IT SECURITY: COUNTERMEASURES
References
Bonneau, J., Herley, C., Van Oorschot, P. C., & Stajano, F. (2015). Passwords and the
evolution of imperfect authentication. Communications of the ACM, 58(7), 78-87.
Silver, D., Jana, S., Boneh, D., Chen, E. Y., & Jackson, C. (2014, August). Password
Managers: Attacks and Defenses. In USENIX Security Symposium(pp. 449-464).
Wang, D., & Wang, P. (2015). Offline dictionary attack on password authentication schemes
using smart cards. In Information Security (pp. 221-237). Springer, Cham.