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COMS3000 2008 Exam UQAttic[Chat]

COMS3000: 2008 exam answers


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Q1) [4 marks] Describe the main MAC security enhancements provided in the IEEE 802.11s amendment.

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COMS3000 2008 Exam UQAttic[Chat]

It introduces wireless frame forwarding and routing capabilities at the MAC layer. It extends the IEEE 802.11 MAC standard by defining an architecture and protocol that support both broadcast/multicast and unicast delivery using "radio-aware metrics over self-configuring multi-hop topologies." IEEE 802.11s is an IEEE 802.11 amendment for mesh networking, defining how wireless devices can interconnect to create a WLAN mesh network, which may be used for static topologies and ad-hoc networks. Q2) [2 marks] What is the purpose of an X509 digital certificate? Certify that the owner is who they say the are, part of the public key infrastructure. Part of the web of trust. A digital certificate is an electronic "credit card" that establishes your credentials when doing business or other transactions on the Web. x.509 is a standard for certificates. Some digital certificates conform to a standard, X.509. Q3) [2 marks] Given an ideal (random oracle model) cryptographic hash function h() with 16bit output, what is the probability of a collision between two randomly selected inputs? 1 / 2^16 Q4) [2 marks] What is the Discrete Logarithm of 4 to the base 3 if we are calculating modulo 5, i.e. log4 mod 5 = 31 mod 5 = 3 32 mod 5 = 4 Therefore log3 4 mod 5 = 2 Q5) [6 marks] A biometric system has the following parameters: FRR : 0.03, FAR = 0.05. We further know that in 98% of all cases, genuine users are trying to use the system, and in 2% of the cases we have an impostor trying to circumvent the system. Given the system has accepted a user, what is the probability that this user is genuine and not an impostor? Let: A: User accepted G: User genuine P(G) = 0.98 => P(~G) = 0.02 FRR = 0.03 = P(~A|G) => P(A|G) = 0.97 FAR = 0.05 = P(A|~G) => P(~A|~G) = 0.95 To find: P(G|A) P(G|A) = Now, using the theorem of total probabilities we can find P(A): P(A) = (P(A|~G) * P(~G)) + (P(A|G) * P(G)) = (0.05 * 0.02) + (0.97 * 0.98) = 0.9516 And from the definition of conditional probabilities, we know that:

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COMS3000 2008 Exam UQAttic[Chat]

P(GA) = P(A|G) * P(G) = 0.97 * 0.98 = 0.9506 Therefore: P(G|A) = 0.9506/0.9516 = 0.998949 = 0.99895 Q6) [5 marks} Describe the three aspects of information security that make up the CIA triad. Give an example of how information security can be compromised in regards to each of these aspects. Confidentiality - Eavesdropping/packetsniffing comprimises confidentiality as other people can see the message Integrity - Someone changing their grades on sinet, compromises the true correctness Availability - Denial of service comprimises availability of information assets Q7) marks} What is the main difference between Discretionary Access Control (DAC) and Mandatory Access Control (MAC)? Discretionary control (DAC) mechanisms check the validity of the credentials given them at the discretion of the user, and mandatory access controls (MAC) validate aspects that the user cannot control. For instance, anyone can give you a username and password and you can then log in with them; which username and password you supply is at your discretion, and the system can't tell you apart from the real owner. Your DNA is something you can't change, though, and a control system that only allowed access to your pattern would never work for anyone else--and you couldn't pretend to be someone else, either. This makes such a system a mandatory (also called non-discretionary) access control system. Q8) [3 marks] What do in-bailiwick names have to do with DNS cache poisoning? Give an example. [NOTE: not super confident in this answer] A DNS server may only route a request to a url that is in-bailiwick. Eg. when requesting facebook.com, a DNS sever cannot give you the IP for google.com. It CAN however route you to m.facebook.com because that is in-bailiwick. If a DNS servers cache was successfully poisoned, the attacker could direct you to their own site as long as its url was in-bailiwick. Q9) Compare and contrast a WPA 4-way handshake a WPA2 4-way handshake. The both have 4 key messages in the handshake. WPA Handshake cannot establish a connection however with the handshake alone, it must perform a GTK handshake immediately after. Messages 1,2,4 are the same in both. Message 3 is different WPA2 includes the GTK in the message passed. WPA uses TKIP for pairwise and groupwise WPA2 provides TKIP and CCMP WPA doesn't do pre-authentication Q10) What is the purpose of SOAP? Allowing systems to interact with a Web service in a transport-neutral manner. Q11) [5 marks] Describe the steps involved for a Man-in-The-Middle attack to occur during an SSL handshake. Ultimately there are two connections made. The client connects to the intruder, and the intruder connects to the server. The intruder passes on the information. Therefore from a server or client Page | 3

COMS3000 2008 Exam UQAttic[Chat]

point of view, the information is being passed, but cannot see that it is going through a third party. 1. Client sends supported cipher suites, and Client Nonce to Attacker 1a. Attacker sends supported ciphers suites, and Attacker Nonce to Server 2. Server sends cipher suite choices, and Server Nonce to Attacker 2a. Attacker sends cipher suite choices, and Attacker Nonce to Client 3. Server sends Servers public key and certificate to Attacker 3a. Attacker sends Attackers public key and certificate to Client 4. Client sends PMK encrypted with Attackers key to Attacker 4a. Attacker sends PMK encrypted with Servers key to Server Q12) marks] The ciphertext TUXGVKLVGTUXCBKNRKIFPIGATUXPEHGETM was produced with a \/igenre cipher using one of the following keys: PEER AT LOGIN TREE ALICE LION A FULL WEEK MIKE TO READ OPEN OF DATE DOGS MODE AN FRED FILE ON MOUSE PAPER ANT LOCAL SEED CITY. a) [6 marks} Demonstrate the most efficient way to decrypt the ciphertext with only the resources you have available to you in this examination. To do this you need to find a repeated set of characters, in this case TUX, and this will likely be the key length. There is only one key thats 3 long, ANT, so that must be the key. b) [6 marks] Correctly decrypt the ciphertext using any method. THEGIRLINTHECORNERISWITHTHEPROGRAM Q13) [6 marks] Compare the biometrics hair colour and DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid) according to the following criteria: Universality Distinctiveness Permanence Performance Acceptability Circumvention Use the labels High, Medium, and Low. Criteria Universality Distinctiveness Hair Colour Med - Not all people have hair Low - Many people could have similar hair, for example, same hair dye Low - Constantly changing High - simple glance at hair DNA High High - no two are the same

Permanence Performance

High - cant be changed Slow - Need to take tests that will take ages

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COMS3000 2008 Exam UQAttic[Chat]

Acceptability

High - Hair is publically visable Low - very easy to get a hair colour of another

Low - DNA tests require a certain amount of a persons tissue High - Incorrect tissue would have to be supplied to the test

Circumvention

Q14) [6 marks] Consider an RSA system with the following parameters: p=11 q=5 n=p*q=55 a) [2 marks] Find a valid parameter e (for the public key), other than e=3 or e=7. e must have no common factors with z. So we need to find z: z = (p-1)(q-1) = (11-1)(5-1) = 40 Therefore, e could be 9 or any number that has no common factors with z. b} [2 marks] For the above RSA system, with e=3, find the corresponding parameter d (for the secret key). (Hint: 25 < d < 30) edmodz=1 3dmod40=1 =>d=27 c) [2 marks] Use the above RSA system with parameter e=7 and d=23 to encrypt the foflowing plaintext message: m = 4 c=m^emodn =4^7mod55=49 Q15) [2 marks] Given two inputs X1 = 11111111 and x2 = 11111110 an ideal (random oracle model) cryptographic hash function h() with a 64-bit output, what is the expected number of bits in which h(x1) and h(x2) differ? 32 Q16) [2 marks] Differentiate the concepts of Trust and Trustworthiness examples. Trust - Firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something. Trust is something current, for example I trust Bob with my Ferrari. The act of trusting or to trust is current. Trustworthiness - the trait of deserving trust and confidence. Capable of being trusted. The treasurer was not entirely trustworthy (incapable of being trusted). Trust is an action and, as a result, a set of relationships (e.g. Alice trusts Bob; Bob trusts Charlie; therefore, Alice transitively trusts Charlie). Trustworthiness is an estimate of something's (or someone's) worthiness of receiving somebody else's trust.

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COMS3000 2008 Exam UQAttic[Chat]

Q17) marks} Townsville suffers an average of eight severe storms a year. Sometimes these storms result in damage to a Townsville companys data centre. The typical cost of repairing such damage is $13,000. The estimated cost in fees and wages spent in data recovery each time is $7,750. Over the last fifteen years, a company spent a total of $240,000 in data recovery and computer repairs as e. result of severe storms. Given this information, what is the Annualised Loss Expectancy (ALE)? ALE = SLE/ALO SLE = 13,000 + 7,750 = 20,750 ALO = 240,000/20750 / 15 = 0.77 ALE = 20,750 / 0.77 =26910 Q18} [4 marks] What is a nonce? What is the purpose of a nonce in a challenge-response authentication protocol? Describe how a nonce can be used to achieve this. Nonce: a small extra set of data to encript with the rest. Its to prevent replay attacks Q19) [2 marks] What is the result of (3) mod 7 = ? (32)4 mod 7 = 24 mod 7 = 2

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COMS3000 2008 Exam UQAttic[Chat]

Q20) [7 marks] The figure shows a single round of a Feistel cipher with the following parameters: Ki = 0110 (binary) = constant for all rounds F(Ri-1, Ki) = Ri-1 OR Ki (bitwise Iogical OR)

All logical operations are performed bitwise. Disregard any initial or final permutations of an overall algorithm implemenation - consider only the individual Feistel rounds, shown in the above diagram. a) [4 marks] Result of the first 8~bit Feistel round if the input binary data is 11001010? [Round 1] Input: 1100 (L) | 1010 (R) R 1010 OR Ki 0110 = 1110 XOR L 1100 = 0010 Place previous R at new L. Place newly calculated R on right side. Result: 1010 0010 b) [3 marks] What is the result of the second 8-bit Feistel round. [Round 2] Input: 1010 (L) | 0010 (R) R 0010 OR Ki 0110 = 0110 XOR L 1010 = 1100 Place previous R at new L. Place newly calculated R on right side. Result: 0010 1100 Q21) [8 marks] Draw a block diagram of a block cipher in Cipher Brock Chaining (CBC) mode for decryption. Due to a transmission error, a ciphertext block (say C) has a single bit error in the first bit of the block. How does this affect the plaintext blocks after decryption at the receiver?

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COMS3000 2008 Exam UQAttic[Chat]

Q22) [2 marks] The ciphertext EUXWXVLVDWUDLWRU was produced with a Caesar cipher using Julius Caesars historical key (according to Suetonius) and our modern 26-letter alphabet. b) [3 marks] Caesars nephew, Augustus, also used the cipher, but with a right shift of one (Julius Caesar used a left shift). Encrypt the plaintext message with Augustus key and our modern 26-letter alphabet, wrapped as required. Q23) [2 marks] Explain the benefit of compressing (i.e. removing redundancy) plaintext before it is encrypted. It will make the encryption faster without loosing any secrecy (if its a good encryption) Speed up transmission to the receiving decrypter Compressing an encrypted plaintext is much less efficient Q24) [12 marks] Consider a language considering only of the following words with the corresponding probabilities: nt Q24) [12 marks] Consider a language considering onlCAL: p=0.2 ZED: p=0.1 ABE: p=0.5 BEF: p=0.05 GAT: p=0.15 a) [4 marks] What is the Shannon information per ward of text in this language? Shannon information = -0.2*log2 0.2-0.1*log2 0.1-0.5log2 0.5-0.05log2 0.05-0.15log2 0.15 = 1.92322 b) [4 marks] The following binary encoding scheme is used for the above language CAL = 1 ZED = 00 ABE = 010 BEF = 0110 GAT = 0111 Decode the following bit stream into the words of the language: 01101010 00110101 is this decoding unambiguous? (Explain why.) BEF CAL ABE ZED CAL CAL ABE CAL Yes, because prefix-free binary encoding scheme is used. c) [2 marks] What is the average number of bits required to encode a word using this encoding scheme? avg num of bits = (0.2 * 1) + (0.1 * 2) + (0.5 * 3) + (0.05 * 4) + (0.15 * 4) = 2.7 bits d) [2 marks] How much redundancy does a code word contain on average? Bits redundancy = 2.7 - 1.92322 = 0.77678 bits Q25) [3 marks] What is two-factor authentication? Provide an example of two-factor authentication. Using something you are (an fingerprint) and something you know (password) Q26) [1 mark] Give an example of how you can transfer" a risk? Insurance

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