Quiz #3 IT Infrastructure

Discuss methods of attaching storage: DAS, NAS, and SAN. Answer these questions in your response: Which classes of machines allow massive DAS? Why is NAS not very scalable? How does SAN help solve scalability issues of NAS?

DAS-Directly Attached Storage: Mid-range and mainframe NAS- Network Attached Storage: because the traffic between servers and HDD hogs bandwidth on the LAN SAN- Storage Area Networks: cluster hard and solid-state drives in their own chassis with OS optimized for storage, and interconnect using ethernet fabric switches for highest-speed fiber-optic networks that do block transfer of records from disk to the bus of the server. This gets the heavy server/storage traffic off of the office LAN and provides high bandwidth where it's needed most

Is this statement true or false? 'Magnetic media store data permanently.' Explain your answer. Either T or F may earn the point.

F - If not stored properly can be damaged from heat or light.

Is this statement true or false? With RAID technology a business does not need to do backup their data. Explain your answer.

False RAID provides enhanced data protection, but aren't considered backups

Describe RAID technology in sketches or words. Using HDD with 1 TeraByte of capacity each, show the amounts of storage available and lost to redundancy for a RAID0 with three disks, A RAID1 with two disks, and a RAID3+ with 5 disks. (RAID3+ is as discussed in class.)

- Raid0: zero redundancy, better performance. You use all 3 TB of disk space. - RAID1: Devices are mirrored. IT has redundancy. You get 1TB of actual storage use. (50% storage loss) - RAID3+: This uses data parity and striping. Increased performance and less likely to fail. You get 4 TB of storage. (20% storage loss)

Cylinders are the basic unit of storage allocation on a HDD. What is a cylinder?

-Basic unit of space allocation for disk storage -All the tracks that are over/under the heads while they are locked in position on a track

Name and describe these addressing schemes for HDD: CHS, LBA.

-CHS - Cylinder, Head, & Sector Addressing: traditional addressing for scheme for HDDs. A disk's master directory stores the name of each file or directory on the disk next to the CHS address where it starts. AN EOD is placed at the end of the data, which is usually somewhere short of the physical end block. -LBA- Logical Block Addressing: modern directory scheme where ZDR is used. Directory holds the name of the file next to an integer that points to the "logical" starting block for the file. Linkage between blocks is also LBA

Name and discuss the pillars of information security that make up this acronymn: CIAAN.

-Confidentiality - Information is disclosed only to those with authority to use it -Integrity - Data cannot be modified undetectibly -Availability - Information is accessible to those with authority to see it when it is needed -Authentication - The person logged into the system is who they claim to be, key to Confidentiality and Non-repudiation. -Non-repudiation - All parties to a transaction are confident of the identities of the others involved, the transaction is final, and none can subsequently deny the transaction

Name and describe storage and equipment involved in EDP from the 1900s into the 1960s, before computers were involved.

-EDP- Electronic Data Processing -Paperwork from business operations, the census, or the courthouse batched and the data punched onto cards using Keypunch Machines by data entry clerks at a rate of 10,000 keystrokes per hour. Second clerk verify batch and correct errors.

• Name two or three certificates that would be valuable for career path in information systems.

-Ethical Hacker -CompTIA -CCNA

Discuss HDD and SSD. How do they compare in terms of speed and cost? How are they similar? What advantages does SSD have over HDD?

-HDD: slower, cheaper -SSD: 10x faster, more expensive

When did IDE technology come into widespread use? What is it? It enables SMART, ZDR, and LBA. Name and describe each of these acronyms and how they work to improve drive performance and avoid failure.

-IDE- Integrated Drive Electronics arrived in the '80s ~Embedded processors and other components that manage all aspects of a modern HDD's operations and report to the network manager -SMART-Self Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology. IDE refreshes the low-level formatting as needed, automatially rewrites fading data, and assigns spare cylinders when soft-errors are detected. -ZDR- Zone Density Recording -enabled by IDE and used on modern disks, where outer tracks have more sectors than the inner tracks. There may be thousands of tracks on a surface and hundreds of sectors -LBA- Logical Block Addressing -, aka Large Block Addressing, is the modern directory scheme where ZDR is used. With LBA, the directory holds the name of the file next to an integer, not CHS, that points to the 'logical' starting block for the file.

Used alone the IT term 'storage' applies to secondary storage. Name and briefly describe four devices commonly used in business systems for storage.

-Magnetic disk, tape, optical cds, and flash memory -Magnetic tape remains key component of enterprise/business transaction logging, backup, audit, and recovery procedures

From your quick study of most dangerous software errors, critical security controls, and server hardening tips: Describe the top three threats to information security and how to mitigate them.

-Malware can consist of things such as ransomware, which is designed to encrypt the victim's data and then request payment. It can be mitigated by by antivirus, but it is best to have a multi layered security solution with antivirus, firewalls, and employee awareness training -IoT devices encompasses many "smart" devices that are connected to the internet which are often at risk for being infiltrated. In order to mitigate this risk, a security audit should be performed that identifies all the devices which are at risk -The most common form of phishing attacks is something like an email which tells an employee they need to click on a link to reset their password. The best way to mitigate this threat is with improved email virus detection tools, multi factor authentication, and employee training

How many bytes are in a sector on a current HDD? What is a common cluster size?

-Many modern drives cluster 4 sectors per block, making a blocksize of 16,384 Bytes. -common sector: 8

What is 'near-line' storage? What is 'on-line' storage? What storage devices are sequential and which allow random access.

-Near-line: robots or juke boxes that can keep huge amounts of data on magnetic tape cartridges where the robot can find and spool a tape to a magnetic disk within seconds where its data may be accessed directly. Random Access -On-line: sequential. HHD was original storage but then replace by magnetic tape

Of secondary storage devices, name two that have been in use for several decades and two that came into use more recently.

-OLD: Hard Disk Drives and Magnetic tapes -NEW: Solid State Drive and flash drives, web-scale, hyperconverged

Name and describe these recent and current HDD interfaces: PATA, SCSI, SATA, SAS. Google what is the fastest SAS and what is fastest SATA and be prepared to state the speed.

-PATA- Parallel ATA interfaces: interface standard for the connection of storage devices such as hard disk drives/optic dis drives. SCSI- Small Computer System Interface: interface for scanners, printers, and tape drives as well as magnetic disks. Could handle up to 15 devices. More expensive but usually faster and better engineered -SATA- Serial Advanced Technology Attachment: replaced PATA as ordinary disk interface and eclipsed SCSI and PATA in speed. Continues to be the ordinary HDD technology for person computers and notebook computers, and many servers. Best suited for occasional use through the day by a single user. Fastest SATA speed: SATA III runs 6GB/s -SAS- Serially Attached SCSI: "enterprise disk drive." Cost 2-3x more than SATA drive with similar capacity but are engineered to higher standards, are full-duplex(read+write at same time), can rotate up to 15.000 RPM compared to ordinary drives 5,200, and seek times are twice as fast. Provides many options for network managers to tune and optimize performance. Reference more than 65,000 and suited for cloud computing Fastest SAS speed: 12 GB/s

Describe Prism, Upstream, the NSA's Data Centers, and how they're used.

-Prism and upstream are two continuing NSA projects to collect all data stored/transmitted on-line and phone calls overseas and what's tapped onshore -The NSA's data centers are partnered with ISPs such as Verizon in order to collect telephone records for customers. The meta-data of these records are then analyzed to identify possible leads for threats to security such as a terrorism.

What is RAID technology? Expand the acronym and describe how higher-level RAIDs are used.

-RAID- Redundant Array of Independent (or Inexpensive) Disks ~Provide redundancy to continue operations and recover gracefully in the wake of the inevitable failure of one of the array's drive. Operating system sees the RAID as a single unit capable of block transfer and DMA- Direct Memory Access just like a single drive

Name and briefly describe at least the 4 Threat Vectors discussed in class. Remote, Proximate, Insider, Supply Chain

-Remote - Network attacks over The Internet, may penetrate & compromise firewall, or use vulnerabilities in the application environment gain unauthorized access to or destroy data -Proximate - A cracker using Wifi at close range can quickly defeat encryption protocol. Or they may install a device on a wired ethernet to probe and crack into systems, or gain physical access to the system console and compromise it. -Insider - Employee or contractor with credentials to access the network takes what they can copy off the system to a competitor, or plants trojan, worm, bot or other malware -Supply Chain - Compromise of hardware or software that is installed into the network, the stuff of spy novels reflects reality, a disk drive that has spyware in addition to SMART, or maybe a firewall with a 'back door' that can be opened at will. 'Firmware' is relatively easy to 'flash', may be corrupted in the supply chain, and it's incumbent on network managers to audit their firmware for signs of corruption.

Describe the delays involved in disk access that don't affect solid state drives: Seek and Rotation.

-Rotational: time it takes for desired sector to rotate under the read/write heads as the disk spins. Faster drive = less rotational delay -Seek: time it takes to reposition the read/write heads on the desired cylinder and lock onto it for reading or writing. Seek delay is minimal when heads move to an adjacent cylinder

Slack Space and Fragmentation seriously degrade capacity and performnace of disk stoorage. Describe these terms and how their effects are mitigated by system managers.

-Slack Space: unused space between "End of Data" and the physical end of the block or cluster that contains it. Slack space can be a serious problem if a disk configured with large clusters is used to store lots of records smaller than the block size. -Fragmentation: Occurs when forward lin points to a sector on a non-adjacent block or cylinder so the seek time is much longer. System managers may "pre-allocate" enough contiguous space to avoid fragmentation.

What are primary and secondary storage in computer systems? Describe how each is used.

-Term "storage" used alone applies to "secondary storage"-arrays of and single HDD-Hard Disk Drives, and also to the SSD-Solid State Drives -Ex. Non-volatile devices: tape, magnetic disk, flash memory -Primary Storage: used to keep data close to the CPU working storage, if it fails data is lost -Ex. Volatile devices: RAM or memory

Explain this statement and descrbe a way to really delete data from a disk: Using the GUI or command line to delete a file on a disk doesn't really delete it.

-The file usually "sit still" on a HHD. When a file is opened to have data appended at the end, or inner sectors are modified, the links are modified to point to the address of the new block, but unchanged sectors are left in place. When a file is deleted from a directoru the directory entry is marked "deleted but the file usually stays on the disk. ~To "really delete a file" a program must be run to over-write the file or surfaces with neutral data before re-formatting it, serveral times sine "shadows" of original data may be recovered by somebody with the right equipment or time

What is 'volatitily' in storage devices? Name a commonly used volatile storage device and two more permanent secondary storage devices.

-Volatility: means that data will be lost if power cuts off -Volatile storage: Memory, RAM -Non-Volatile: Magnet tape, DVDs

Explain how SSD and Flash Memory are similar and how they differ.

An SSD is made mostly of flash attached to a disk controller using the same cables as an ordinary SATA. Other schemes for packaging the flash memory don't maintain compatibility with the legacy disk

Describe EDI, ANSI X12, EDIFact and how they're important for supply-chain management and most B2B documents.

B2B exchange -- standard ANSI X12 and UN EDIFact documents facilitate and greatly reduce the cost of supply chain management and exchange of all kinds of documents for business, shipping, and health care today.

Describe modern B2B networking. Use and describe each of these terms in your description: EDI, X12, HTTP, SSL, Trading Partners, Public Keys.

B2b networking uses EDI (electronic data interchange) protocols X12 to exchange various kinds of business docs. At the beginning of an EDI relationship, trading partners exchange their PKI/SSL keys. HTTP with public key infrastructure (PKI) SSL are used to verify the identities of the parties involved.

Expand the acronymn and briefly characterize each/some/any of these standards, protocols, and laws: GES, COBIT, ITIL, SOX, PCI, EDI, X12, HIPAA.

CERT's Ges- Governing for Enterprise Security: Board may not know details of their Information Systems' security but ensures all aspects of the enterprise are secure. Make sure enterprise don't lose customers data or they could get sued COBIT- Control Objectives for IT: application of Quality Management to control of IT. Orgs who practice COBIT mature quickly and have very secure systems ITIL- IT Infrastructure Library: is Quality Management applied to IT Management-- These UK-developed recommendations are freely available and represent today's best practices for IT management SOX- Sarbanes- Oxley: is different from other IT standards in that it carries the Force of Law. It was passed to prevent and to prosecute corporate malfeasance. It involves standards of practice for IT and Accounting professionals. PCI- Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards: are important where customers' payment card data are transmitted or kept EDI: Electronic Data Interchange Standards: for B2B exchange -- standard ANSI X12 and UN EDIFact documents facilitate and greatly reduce the cost of supply chain management and exchange of all kinds of documents for business, shipping, and health care today. HIPA- Health Industry Portability Act:drove down the costs of submitting insurance claims and other medical documents and drives up fears our privacy may be vulnerable. X12- a part of EDI which is a data format based on ASC X12 standards

For decades the Pillars of Information Security were represented by the acronym CIA. In more recent years, the pillars are CIAAN. What does each of the 5 letters represent?

Confidentiality -assurance of data privacy Integrity -Assurance of data non-alteration Availability -Assurance of timely and reliable access to data services for authorized users Authenticity (strengthens integrity) -Assurance that the data, transactions, communications or documents are genuine. Also confirms that both parties involved are who they say they are Non-repudiation (strengthens integrity) -Achieved through cryptographic methods which prevents a person or entity from denying having performed a particular action

Suppose a system logs transactions remotely, does a full backup on weekends, does incremental backups Monday thru Thursday. The storage system fails Wednesday afternoon and can't be restarted, but there is a spare. What are the steps to recover the system to the point of failure?

It should use the transaction logs to recover data to the most recent incremental backup. Then incremental backups are used to recover the rest to the point of full backup.

Is this statement true of false? 'Tape storage robots are relatively new technology.' Explain your answer.

No, IBM and other legacy manufacturers have been providing robot-tended mass storage since the 1950s

Define 'protection' in information systems as it was presented in class, Protection = ? + (?? + ???). Name each of the terms that replace the ?marks, and give an activity associated with it.

Protection = Prevention +(Detection + Response) -Prevention- firewalls -Detection - auditing logs -Reponse- incident response teams

Describe each of these network attacks: Reconnaissance, Access, DoS, Data Manipulation.

Reconnaissance: efforts of unauthorized user to gain as much information about the network as possible before launching other more serious attack Access: variety of forms of unauthorized access of computer resources. Could be outside individual, or group that uses various methods to gain entry to a network, from there, steals confidential information or engages in destruction of resources DoS: Denial of Service. Many forms possibly the most threatening to organizations who conduct any business over the internet. DoS attack is to deny access to device or entire network by bombarding it with useless traffic Data Manipulation: or impersonation is possible by vulnerabilities in IP protocols and related applications. Attacks typically involve an individual located between TCP/IP-exploited IP

Describe SOX and how it affects IS operations and accounting for publicly traded companies.

Sarbanes - Oxley. Prevents and prosecutes corporate malfeasance. It also has standards of practice for accounting professionals.

Search Engine Optimization:

Search engine optimization is a process where you increase the visibility and awareness if your webpage or website to search engine users. It goes into depth as SEO looks at what keywords users are searching the most to and then associating those same phrases or words so your

Section 508 Accessibility :

Section 508 Accessibility or the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 amended in 1998 by the Workforce Investment Act which requires federal agencies to develop, maintain and use information and technology that can be accessed to people with disabilities whether they are apart of the public or work for the government. Information and technology include any technological equipment, software applications, operating systems, telecommunications, computer hardware and more.

Semantic Mark Up:

Semantic markup is HTML that aligns properly with its meaning or elements with meaning. It usually provides meaning to the developer and the web page/browser. Examples of semantic elements include header tags (h1-h6) which gives different sizes or levels or headers, navigation tag (nav) which sets your navigation bar or menu, main tag (main) which specifies the main content within a document and emphasis (em) which adds emphasis on content. Some other formally used ones include paragraphs (p) , unorganized lists, lists and organized lists (ul, li, ol), footer and many more. All these provide a presentational and informational way of understanding and viewing the code.

What are PCI - Payment Card Industry standards? How do they affect on-line and other merchants and businesses who are the custodians of customers' and suppliers' payment card and bank account data?

Standard for organizations that handle branded credit cards from the major card schemes. Custodians of customers' credit card data now must be much more careful with the data.

There are several active tape storage robots within several blocks of Snead Hall, and lots of others in data centers everywhere. How are they used?

Tape storage robots keep huge amounts of data on magnetic tape cartridges where the robot can find and spool a tape to a magnetic disk within seconds where it's data may be accessed directly. -They are kept off-site and out of reach. Backup sets are retained for years and regularly reviewed to ensure the integrity of system data and recover from lost records

Automatic tiered storage is a relatively new technology. Describe it and give examples of its use.

Tiered storage works on enterprise-scale all the way down to PCs, where many 'hybrid drives' with both SSD and HDD capacity keep a copy of recently and frequently used data on SSD and remove copies from the SSD as they become less-frequently accessed. Microsoft.

Is this statement true or false? A RAID0 is more likely to fail than a single disk drive. Explain your answer.

True: loss of any one drive in a RAID0 will cause the whole array to fail

Sketch and label the 'trilogy of trilogies' that thoroughly describes information security. Summarize it in a few sentences.

Used to guide a thorough survey of information security: Physical security, procedures, and personnel surround computing hardware, software and networks to ensure confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity of information

Explain this statement and describe a way to really delete data from a disk: Using the GUI or command line to delete a file on a disk doesn't really delete it.

When a file is deleted the entry is marked as deleted but the file stays on the disk. To really delete the data a program must be run to overwrite the surfaces. It is easier to bleach it or smash the disk.

How do midrange and mainframe computers mitigate the risk of their relatively huge RAMs failing?

midrange and mainframe machines have mirrored or 'RAIDed' RAMs that allow them to continue working with one RAM if the other develops errors. In midrange and mainframe computers RAM modules can fail, or generate soft errors, and be replaced without taking the system down.

• Unmanaged IT assets are everywhere these days and rife with vulnerabilities that must be considered when securing a network. What are they, and what steps should be taken to mitigate their risks.

o A key unmanaged IT asset is IOT devices. They encompass many "smart" devices that are connected to the internet which are often at risk for being infiltrated. In order to mitigate this risk, a security audit should be performed that identifies all the devices which are at risk

• Describe a scheme where some cracker exploits one of the threat vectors. to vandalize or steal data from a system.

o A proximate attack where a cracker using wifi defeats encryption

• Describe EDI, ANSI X12, EDIFact and how they're important for supply-chain management and most B2B documents.

o EDI - electronic data interchange The b2b exchange of business docs in standard electronic format o ANSI X12 - American National Standards Institute X12 Data format based on ANSI X12 standards o EDIFact - Electronic Data Interchange for Administration, Commerce and Transport International standard for electronic data interchange o These are all important for SCMA and B2B docs bc they facilitate SCMA and greatly reduce it's cost

• HIPAA has greatly reduced the costs and improved the accuracy of health and medical record keeping and claims processing. What is it, and how has it reduced costs of medical accounting? What are its benefits and risks?

o HIPAA - Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 Provides data privacy and security provisions for safeguarding medical information Reduced costs of submitting insurance claims and other medical documents Benefits - patients have more control over their info, sets boundaries on use and release of health records Risks - the upgrades have cost millions of dollars and people are having difficulty understanding the legal requirements of the act

• Suppose an interviewer asks you 'What is Internet Security?'. What's your reply? Or, 'Network Security', or 'Information Security'...

o Policies and practices adopted to prevent and monitor unauthorized access, misuse, modification, or denial of a computer network and resources

SCADA protocols, PLCs, and computers manage industrial, manufacturing, electrical and water utilities on contenental or regional scale, dams and barrages, environmental control systems. What are SCADA. ICS, and PLC

o SCADA - Supervisory control and data acquisition Control system architecture that uses computers, networked data, and GUIs for supervisory management o ICS - Industrial control systems Works to reduce risks by partnering w law enforcement agencies and the intelligence community o PLC - Programmable logic controllers Digital computer which has been ruggedized and adapted for the control of manufacturing processes

Is this statement true or false? An HDD with 6 read/write heads can access 6 cylinders simultaneously. Explain your answer.

o T- read/write assembly can quickly find any cylinder, head, and sector. HDDs can also handle sequential files, and can operate 100s of times faster when disk files are processed sequentially

How is tape storage used in business and enterprise computer systems? How does it differ from, and what advantages does it offer over disk storage.

o Tape storage systems are relatively expensive and benefit from the economies of scale. With faster and faster networks, it's common for an enterprise to out-source transaction logging and system backup to a company that has large tape storage robots. This reduces expense and also gets transaction and backup data off-site to protect against data loss in a network room, local, or regional disaster.

• Discuss WiFi and network security. How secure is it? What steps should be taken to ensure it's secure?

o WiFi is one of the least secure aspects of IT. In order to ensure a secure WiFi, you need encryption, employee training, solid virus detection tools, and up-to-date firmware.