COMP30251 Security in Practice

This assignment allows you to build your knowledge and understanding of the security threats to computer systems and the technologies used to detect and combat them. To pass the coursework you must demonstrate your understanding of a security- related news story of your choice and suggest ways in which the organisation identified in the article may have prevented the incident and/or may improve their security in the future.

To fulfil your task, you should conduct extensive research into the challenges raised by the news article and related issues in Computer Security. You are to produce a poster (one-side only) to effectively communicate your findings to non-expert users.

You are allowed to make use of any references during your research but are encouraged to use academic sources such as conference and journal papers. This is a group-based coursework.

With the interconnected nature of technology today, securing our systems against attack is a major concern for users and organisations alike. Understanding attacks on our data, computers, and networks enables us to put in place proper security policies and countermeasures, as well as plan for the secure future of our systems. In addition, the ability to effectively communicate potentially complex issues related to computer security to expert and non-expert users alike can facilitate understanding and prevent further security issues.

In groups of 3 or 4, you are to produce a poster critically analysing a news article of your choice related to a security event. The news article must be from a credible source, such as a UK national media company or specialist IT news organisation. Your poster should explain the security issue detailed in the article, for example, highlighting the areas of security to which it relates, why this is an issue of note or any other information that elucidates the article within a security context. In addition, you are to make recommendations for the prevention of the issue highlighted in the article affecting similar users or organisations and how they should structure their security effort to prevent such incidents in the future. For example, you may outline security tools and techniques that could have prevented the issues identified or actions that users or an organisation could take to remediate such an incident. The poster should be targeted towards users who have little or no knowledge of computer security as a field of study. Finally, you are to present your poster to an audience and answer questions related to your work in a viva session.

Your poster should not exceed one side to be projected on to a screen. You are encouraged to link the news article with related academic literature and include correct and appropriate references. You are also required to submit a PDF copy of your poster to the module Dropbox on now before the submission deadline. A viva session will be taken place online via MT on Tuesday 23^rd November 2021 after the now submission deadline. All group members are required to attend the viva to present the work and answer questions from the module tutor and audience.