University Data Communication and Networking Assignment Solution

This document provides a comprehensive solution to a networking and advanced data communications assignment. The solution covers a wide range of topics including checksums, various types of security attacks such as SYN floods, Trojan horses, DNS spoofing, denial of service (DoS) and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, and rootkits. It also explores the characteristics of program and macro viruses, polymorphic malware, and the differences between viruses and Trojan horses. Furthermore, the solution delves into attacks like man-in-the-middle, pharming, spoofing, waterhole attacks, hijacking, phishing, and sniffing, as well as DNS caching poisoning. The document also provides practical examples such as nslookup queries. Overall, the solution provides a detailed understanding of networking concepts and security threats.

Running head: NETWORKING AND ADVANCE DATA COMMUNICATIONS
Networking and Advance Data Communications
Name of Student-
Name of University-
Author Note-

1NETWORKING AND ADVANCE DATA COMMUNICATIONS
1) Number of bits that are included in the transmission unit is known as checksum. Checksum is
a unit that is used in the transmission unit for the receiver so that they can check whether same
counts of bits are arrived by the checksum process. If the count that comes after calculating
matches, then it is assumed that complete transmission was done properly. In communication
layer, TCP layer and the UDP layer gives the count of checksum and also verification for one of
the services they deal with. Checksum is considered as outcome of the running algorithm of
which is known as cryptographic hash functions that is usually created on a single file as a single
piece of data. By comparing the source of file that are present with the checksum that will be
generated from the file, the copy that is received is tested weather it is genuine or not and also it
is checked that the file is error free or not. Checksum has hash sum and also has hash value, hash
or hash code.
A checksum is used to detect viruses by calculating binary values for a particular packet
of data or may be other block of data which is done by some algorithms and also stores the result
with data. When some data is retrieved from a memory or are received on other end of the
network, new checksum is generated and calculated with the checksum that already exits. When
the checksum does not match, it is considered as error. There might be some error that is present
in the packet of data.
Metamorphic viruses transforms the code that they propagate, which evade the detection
of viruses that are signature based and also have potential to give a breed of malicious programs
which are not detectable virtually. The metamorphic viruses use techniques such as code
obfuscation so that they can challenge the static analysis and can also challenge the dynamic

2NETWORKING AND ADVANCE DATA COMMUNICATIONS
analyzers which include emulators. These are done by changing their behavior when the virus
detect that they are mainly executing under an environment that is fully controlled.

3NETWORKING AND ADVANCE DATA COMMUNICATIONS
2) SYN Flood
3) Trusted relationships can be voided by Trojan horse which is a virus that records all the
materials that the user types in their system and send all the data back to hackers. It also sends
emails that are spam for attacking other computers.
4) None of the above because the attack which modifies the DNS of the website is the spoofing
attack.
5) Denial of service attack is the type of attack that crashes the system server.
6) DOS and DDOS attack
7) True because without knowing the system configuration, the attackers will not be able to
target the organization. The hactivists must have the configuration of the system.
8) DDOS attacks because these attacks carries actors of diverse threat that ranges from criminal
hackers to crime rings and the government attacks that are organized. In those situations, the
DDOS relate with poor coding, unstable systems and also misses patches.
9) Rootkit
There is a need of separation of duties because the separation of duties has two main
objectives. The conflict that arises regarding the interest, appearance of the interest, wrong acts,
frauds, errors and abuse are all prevented. The control failure that occurs including the security

4NETWORKING AND ADVANCE DATA COMMUNICATIONS
beaches, security control circumvention and information theft is also detected by separation of
duties. To safeguard the information system from the attacks against confidentiality, availability
and integrity is known as security control.
10)
John’s attack is a type of hacktivism.
11) Program virus characteristics:
 The program virus is capable to infect many records of the infected computer.
 The virus is polymorphic.
 The virus can reside in memory.
 Program viruses are furtive.
 These viruses can bring other viruses as well.
Macro Virus:
 Macro virus mainly infects Microsoft Word.
 These viruses mainly cause sequence of actions that are to be performed.
 Relatively harmless virus.
 Usually spread through email virus.
12) False because virus reproduce themselves by copying themselves and become a part of
different programs in that system. Virus keeps on copying files until the user uses the system.

5NETWORKING AND ADVANCE DATA COMMUNICATIONS
13) Polymorphic malware is a type of malware which much more harmful, destructive and
intrusive to computer software. Viruses such as Trojan, spyware, worm and virus are
polymorphic viruses. These viruses are difficult to detect by the help of anti malware programs.
14) The difference between virus and Trojan horse is:
Virus is small program that is written to change the way of working process of a
computer. This is done without the permission of the user or the owner. Whereas Trojan Horse
are files that are desirable but are actually malicious. Trojan Horse do not replicates itself as
viruses does. Codes are present in Trojan Horse which when clicked causes loss.
15)
Man in the middle attack
16)
Pharming is an attack in which the attacker does not have to authenticate themselves to
get the control over the system. Pharming is usually a practice of installing malicious code in the
system or the server for misdirecting users to fraud websites without the knowledge of the user.
17)
All of the above because all those attacks are related to physical access to the network.
18)
Spoofing because in spoofing attack infectious party enters into another device to attack
that device.

6NETWORKING AND ADVANCE DATA COMMUNICATIONS
19)
None of the above. The number A will be 1301 and number B will be 2801
20)
None of the above
21)
Waterhole attacks because in this type of attack the attacker observers and guesses the
website that the user often uses and then infects those websites with some malware.
22)
Hijacking attack because in this type of attack the attacker takes the full control on the
communication by taking the encryption key and changing the content of the communication.
23)
Relay attack
24)
Phishing attack because in phishing attack only the attacker tends to get all the username
and passwords and all the credentials of the user by misguiding the user. Phishing attack is
generally carried out by instant messaging and email snoofing. In this condition, phishng was
done over voice calling.

7NETWORKING AND ADVANCE DATA COMMUNICATIONS
25)
Sniffing
26)
C:\>nslookup
> eiu.edu
Name: eiu.edu
Address: 139.67.8.125
> cnn.com
Name: cnn.com
Addresses: 2a04:4e42:600::323
2a04:4e42::323
2a04:4e42:200::323
2a04:4e42:400::323
151.101.65.67
151.101.129.67
151.101.1.67
151.101.193.67
> amazon.com

8NETWORKING AND ADVANCE DATA COMMUNICATIONS
Name: amazon.com
Addresses: 54.239.17.7
54.239.17.6
54.239.25.208
54.239.25.200
54.239.26.128
54.239.25.192
> google.com
Name: google.com
Addresses: 2404:6800:4009:800::200e
172.217.27.206
27)
go.adversal.com
----------------------------------------
Record Name . . . . . : go.adversal.com
Record Type . . . . . : 1
Time To Live . . . . : 4012

9NETWORKING AND ADVANCE DATA COMMUNICATIONS
Data Length . . . . . : 4
Section . . . . . . . : Answer
A (Host) Record . . . : 67.192.42.10
Record Name . . . . . : ns2.rackspace.com
Record Type . . . . . : 1
Time To Live . . . . : 4012
Data Length . . . . . : 4
Section . . . . . . . : Additional
A (Host) Record . . . : 65.61.188.4
Record Name . . . . . : ns.rackspace.com
Record Type . . . . . : 1
Time To Live . . . . : 4012
Data Length . . . . . : 4

10NETWORKING AND ADVANCE DATA COMMUNICATIONS
Section . . . . . . . : Additional
A (Host) Record . . . : 69.20.95.4
www.eiu.edu
----------------------------------------
Record Name . . . . . : www.eiu.edu
Record Type . . . . . : 1
Time To Live . . . . : 19869
Data Length . . . . . : 4
Section . . . . . . . : Answer
A (Host) Record . . . : 139.67.8.125
Record Name . . . . . : eiunss.serv14.eiu.edu
Record Type . . . . . : 1
Time To Live . . . . : 19869

11NETWORKING AND ADVANCE DATA COMMUNICATIONS
Data Length . . . . . : 4
Section . . . . . . . : Additional
A (Host) Record . . . : 139.67.14.126
DNS caching poisoning happens when a domain name and IP addresses are mainly
inserted into the system. Poising directs the user in a wrong path.