Understanding Ransomware: A Global Threat to Information Security

Ransomware represents a formidable challenge to global cybersecurity, leveraging vulnerabilities within information systems to encrypt data and demand ransom payments, typically in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Notably impactful events include attacks on healthcare facilities worldwide, causing disruptions in patient care by locking critical medical records. This essay elucidates the mechanisms of ransomware propagation, examines its broad socio-economic impacts, and proposes comprehensive strategies for prevention. These encompass regular software updates, employee education, and the implementation of advanced cybersecurity measures such as multi-factor authentication and robust backup solutions to mitigate data loss risks.

Running head: ICT SERVICE MANAGEMENT
ICT SERVICE MANAGEMENT
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Table of Contents
Week 1...............................................................................................................2
Week 2...............................................................................................................4
Week 3...............................................................................................................6
Week 4...............................................................................................................8
Week 5.............................................................................................................10
Week 6.............................................................................................................12
Week 7.............................................................................................................14
Week 8.............................................................................................................16
Week 9.............................................................................................................18
Week 10...........................................................................................................20

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Week 1
The text discusses the elements of modern computing architecture however is largely
silent on the individuals who played a role in its development. Find and summarise a
resource that describes ONE such individual. The individual should have had a significant
influence on the development of computers and/or components of modern computing
architecture.
Tim Berners Lee
References
Berners-Lee, T., and O’Hara, K. (2013). The read–write Linked Data Web. Phil. Trans. R. Soc.
A, 371(1987), 20120513.
Shadbolt, N., O'Hara, K., Berners-Lee, T., Gibbins, N., Glaser, H. and Hall, W., 2012. Linked open
government data: Lessons from data. gov. uk. IEEE Intelligent Systems, 27(3), pp.16-24.
URL: http://www.biographyonline.net/business/tim-berners-lee.html
Tim Berners Lee is a computer scientist from Britain who has invented the world wide
web(WWW). The main notion is to view web pages which are hypertext documents through internet.
Internet has been developing since the 1960s which is used as a method to transfer information across
various systems working in different locations. Tim Berner Lee thought to combine hypertext and with
the internet nodes the internet nodes (Shadbolt et al. 2012).
Later on, with the help of Robert Cailliau he produced the first version of World Wide Web.
Because of the discovery of World Wide Web, people from all across the globe can view web pages
from any location on the internet. The important elements for this development are URL, HTML, and
HTTP. URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is mainly used for recognising the location of various web
pages. HTML (Hyper Text Mark Up Language) is mainly used for publishing various web pages.
HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is mainly used for serving up the web pages on the request from
user (Berners-Lee and O’Hara2013).
In the year 1994Berner Lee founded an organisation known as W3C (World Wide Web
Consortium) at the computer laboratory of Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, USA.

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The ultimate goal of this organization is to improve the quality and standard of worldwide web.
Berner has a great contribution in shaping a free and open source network for various people of the
globe (Shadbolt et al. 2012).
Week 2
The text discusses the components and activities of operating systems however is
largely silent on the individuals who played a role in their development. Find and summarise
a resource that describes ONEsuch individual. The individual should have had a significant
influence on the writing or development of operating systems.
Linus Benedict Torvalds
References
Takahashi, N. and Takamatsu, T., 2013. UNIX license makes Linux the last major piece of the

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puzzle. Annals of Business Administrative Science, 12(3), pp.123-137.
Castro, J.D., 2016. Deconstructing a Linux Distro. In Introducing Linux Distros (pp. 3-15). Apress
URL: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Linus-Torvalds
Linus Benedict Torvalds is a Finnish-American software engineer who is a creator and
principal developer of Linux Kernel (Castro, 2016). Later on, Linux kernel become the core operating
system for various OS like Linux, Android and chrome. The first version of Linux OS that is 1.0 was
released in the year of 1994. In the beginning Torvalds wanted to name his kernel as Freax (a
combination of the word free and freak with letter X at the end). Later on, receiving an advice from his
friend Ari Lemmke he changed the name (Takahashi and Takamatsu, 2013).
In the year of 2006, a report stated that about two percent of the Linux kernel was hand
written by Torvalds. On comparing others contribution to the development of Linux his percentage
was highest among all (Castro, 2016). Later on, in the year 2012 he stated that his own developed
codes are merging with the codes written by others. Till now Torvalds has the highest authority to
decide that which code should be implement in the Linux kernel for its better performance (Takahashi
and Takamatsu, 2013).
Operating system like Linux is not as easy as other operating system like Windows, Apple’s
Mac OS or IBM OS/2 (Castro, 2016). On the contrary Linux OS offer some advantages like it rarely
crashes. Linux OS is more reliable and efficient compare to another OS (Takahashi and Takamatsu,
2013).

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Week 3
The Internet didn’t just appear – it was an evolution from earlier networks. Find and
summarise a resource that describes ONEof the networks that led to the development of the
modern Internet.
ARPANET
References
Barbaroux, P., 2012. Identifying collaborative innovation capabilities within knowledge-intensive
environments: insights from the ARPANET project. European Journal of Innovation
Management, 15(2), pp.232-258.
Fidler, B. and Currie, M., 2016. Infrastructure, Representation, and Historiography in BBN's Arpanet
Maps. IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, 38(3), pp.44-57.
URL: http://www.newmedia.org/history-of-the-internet.html
ARPANET is considered as the predecessor of internet and has been created by US department
of Defence’s Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA). During the early 1960s, the first fully
packet switching network ARPANET has been designed to provide facility of communication between
the terminals of ARPA. On the contrary due to high price of computers it reduced its widespread usage
(Barbaroux, 2012).
After many years of successful research, the stable link has been established across various
systems using ARPANET in the year of 1969.ARPA has been consider as the primary point for
computer development and its research. In the early centuries, computers have been considered as the
most the expensive gadget. They operated from distance which forces the user to physically travel
with information to multiple computers. The ultimate goal of ARPA was to efficiently link multiple
computers together which will allow the user to access the specified function of various system which
will ultimately reduce the cost of travelling and time (Fidler and Currie, 2016).

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Later on, in the year 1980, ARPANET has been handed over to military and defence network.
In the year 1971 ARPA changed its name to Defence Advance Research Project Agency (Barbaroux,
2012). ARPANET can be considered as one of the important factors of network which led to the
development of internet.

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Week 4
Ethernet is an example of a Layer Two (L2) data link protocol that is discussed in the
text. Find and summarise a resource that describes the features and uses of ONE other L2
protocol that is not discussed in the text (i.e. NOT Ethernet).
Media Access Control
References
Cao, B., Feng, G., Li, Y. and Wang, C., 2014. Cooperative media access control with optimal relay
selection in error-prone wireless networks. IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, 63(1),
pp.252-265.
Wu, J. and Li, G.Y., 2013. Collision-tolerant media access control with on-off accumulative
transmission. IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, 12(1), pp.50-59.
URL: https://www.juniper.net/documentation/en_US/junos/topics/concept/mac-qfx-series-
understanding.html
Layer 2 refers to the data link layer which commonly called as a multilayer communication
model of Open system. This datalink layer is mainly attached with physical links present in the
network (Wu and Li, 2013). In a network a switch is mainly used to redirect messages at level 2
using MAC address to check where message goes directly. The data link layer contains two further
subdivided layer that is media access control sublayer and Logical link control sublayer (Cao, Feng and
Wang, 2014).
The data link layer checks the initial connection and divides the output data
into data frames. It also verifies and checks whether the incoming data has been
received successfully by analysing the bit patterns present in the frame.
Media access control (MAC) can by various devices to control their access to various
network medium (Wu and Li, 2013). Many networks use a shared medium like a single cable or a

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series of cables. It is necessary to have certain rules for managing medium to ignore conflicts among
various networks (Cao, Feng and Wang, 2014).
A MAC address is nothing but a 12-digit hexadecimal number (48 bits) which is a general
format. The first part of a MAC address contains the Id number of the adapter manufacturer (Wu and
Li, 2013). While the second half of the MAC represent represents the number provided to adapter by
the respective manufacture (Cao, Feng and Wang, 2014).
Week 5
The text mentions the role of hackers in attacks on networked infrastructure. Find and
summarise a resource that describes ONE famous or well-known hacker.
Gary McKinnon
References
Grayson, P.C., Maksimowicz-McKinnon, K., Clark, T.M., Tomasson, G., Cuthbertson, D., Carette, S.,
Khalidi, N.A., Langford, C.A., Monach, P.A., Seo, P. and Warrington, K.J., 2012. Distribution of arterial
lesions in Takayasu9s arteritis and giant cell arteritis. Annals of the rheumatic diseases, 71(8), pp.1329-1334.
Träger, U., Andre, R., Lahiri, N., Magnusson-Lind, A., Weiss, A., Grueninger, S., McKinnon, C.,
Sirinathsinghji, E., Kahlon, S., Pfister, E.L. and Moser, R., 2014. HTT-lowering reverses Huntington’s
disease immune dysfunction caused by NFκB pathway dysregulation. Brain, 137(3), pp.819-833.
URL: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-of-the-worlds-most-famous-hackers-what happened-to-them
Gary Mckinnon is also known as Solo on the internet, who become the largest military hacker of all

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time. During the period from February 2001 and March 2002, this hacker named Mckinnon hacked 97
computers from U.S army and NASA. When he got caught by security guys he tackled the situation by
saying that he was looking for free energy suppression and UFO cover-ups. On the contrary security officials
claimed that he deleted a number of files containing important data and kept 300 computers out of order. This
operation resulted a damage of 700,000dollar to the government of United States (Grayson et al., 2012).
This hacker belongs to Scotland and has been operating out from United Kingdom. On the contrary,
he become successful to dodge American government. A report claimed that between the year 2001 and 2002
this hacker hacked a dozen of US army, navy, air force and department of defence computers. He also become
successful in breaching the important data relating to UFO’s and extra-terrestrial life during his attack into
the system. Later on, has gained the access to various domain which has the ability to search files and folders
present in every system (Träger et al., 2014).

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Week 6
Society is increasingly reliant on networks and network technologies but they are
evolving at a rapid pace. Find and summarise a resource that describes ONE example of
a future networking technology or trend that will impact society.
Li-Fi
References
Haas, H., Yin, L., Wang, Y. and Chen, C., 2016. What is LiFi?. Journal of Lightwave
Technology, 34(6), pp.1533-1544.
Zhou, Z., Yang, Z., Wu, C., Sun, W. and Liu, Y., 2014, April. LiFi: Line-of-sight identification
with WiFi. In INFOCOM, 2014 Proceedings IEEE (pp. 2688-2696). IEEE.
URL: https://www.sitepoint.com/li-fi-lighting-the-future-of-wireless-networks/
Li-Fi stands for light fidelity which is new technology of wireless communication in the
near future. This new technology uses light signal for communication of data among various
users (Zhou et al., 2014). Li-Fi differs from Wi-Fi in the matter of speed. During experiments in
the laboratory, Li-Fi has reached a speed of 224 gigabits per second. During the year of 2011 was
introduced by professor Herald Hass. The ultimate goal of the professor is to modify the light bulbs
of the world into routers (Haas., 2016).
Herald Hass has proved that light can be used as a medium to transfer data. Li-Fi method
mainly uses infrared and ultra-violet waves for communication. These two waves are preferred
over the radio –frequency as they can carry more information (Zhou et al., 2014). This is reason
behind the speed of Li-Fi. At present Li-Fi mainly focuses on using light from LEDs (light
emitting Diodes). In the coming future LED lights of home and offices will turn into wireless
router. Visible light communication (VLC) can be used to control the current of the LED bulb
which flicks at very high rate. The flicking of light takes place at a very high rate date so human
eye cannot detect it (Haas., 2016) .
Another key point of Li-Fi is that it depends on light spectrum not on radio frequency, so
no emission of electromagnetic waves takes place. Data is put into an LED bulb which is adjusted
with a technology known as signal processing. Professor herald Haass always wanted to build a

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technology that could be easily adjusted into everyday life. Although Li-Fi has greater speed
compare to Wi-Fi on the contrary it has very short-range coverage. Li-Fi is limited as it cannot
penetrate walls. In the coming future Li-Fi can be used in densely populated area like shopping
mall, sport stadium (Zhou et al., 2014). Due to the invention of this technology rich media of
communication like streaming of live video is possible (Haas., 2016).