I need to research network attack methodologies for a Masters assignment and need some good starting points.
I need to go beyond the ubiquitous ddos attacks, although that will be included in my assignment. Particularly because of the recent huge ddos attack on dns servers that affected Twitter, Facebook etc.
I'm a new Masters student so maybe my question is a bit "wooly".
My field is MSc Cyber Security.
Hi David
You need to do a bit of rapid reading to understand the field a bit better. I have attached a list of some network attack papers from my collection, which should help get you started. Most of the academic papers will be able to be downloaded from Google Scholar for free, and the technical reports should be freely downloadable from the internet. If you copy+paste the title of the paper into Google Scholar, it should find it for you. Ditto for the technical reports in Google.
I hope that helps.
Regards
Bob
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Thank you Bob, yes my tutor has recommended google scholar and i shall get reading.
Hi David
Here is a tip for you to increase the efficiency of your reading.
When you search for a paper, start by looking at the title. If it interests you, then read the abstract. If that looks very interesting, then download the paper. Otherwise move on to the next one. When you download the paper, you may be asked to pay for it. You will probably have access through your university system, and may be able to get access that way. However, look to the right hand side of the entry. You may also see a pdf link, which could be the author's personal copy that you may download for free. This will probably be faster than to go through the authorisation process of your institution.
Now that you have downloaded the paper, go right to the Conclusion section and read what the authors discovered. If you are still interested, then go straight to the Introduction and have a skim through for background, then look at the last paragraph, which will tell you the layout of the paper. From here, select the section with the "meat" you will be looking for, and read that through. Now, you have a paper that interests you without having to read through the whole thing in detail. Particularly when you first start, you may not really understand all that you read, so having a short-cut will help you identify the right papers to keep. Naturally, you will have to read the papers several times in greater depth before you will really be able to squeeze everything you can get out of them, but at least you will be using your time effectively.
Once you download your papers, I would recommend you also download and install Mendeley desktop software, into which you can load your pdf files. Mendeley will help to keep you properly arganised with your research, and is brilliant for referencing and creating your bibliography automatically. There is a plug-in available for Word. Mendeley works superbly with LaTeX, and it offers over 300 different referencing styles. Plus, it has a superb keyword search capability which can search your whole library of pdf files.
Don't forget to apply my reading technique to the list of references I sent you. They might not all be best suited for your purposes, but you won't waste too much time finding out which ones you really need. Remember too, you will likely need to read each paper you keep from 3-5 times to properly understand what you can use from them.
Good luck with your work.
Regards
Bob
Great advice Bob, very much appreciated. Most of my tutors have mentioned certain bits you have said, but not so clear and succint as you have written. Mendeley has been highly recommended for use. Thank you very much, here's to some hopefully great inspiring research and a good grade.
Hi David,
In addition to Dr. Duncan's excellent advice, I would like to add a suggestion to help you with finding some interesting topics for your research.
I would suggest joining a forum such as ethicalhacker.net. They have some really good discussions on cyber security and I bet you can get a good idea of the problems in the field. There are several links to similar forums and blogs on the site.
Regards,
Subramaniyam
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