Information Security (IT-801) - Important Questions

What is steganography and how does it differ from cryptography / encryption?

Define threat and attack and list and define the categories of security attacks.

Explain the Playfair cipher with a suitable example.

Explain fabrication, interception, non-repudiation and integrity in terms of security.

Encrypt a given plaintext message using Caesar cipher with a given key.

Describe the critical characteristics of information and how they are used in computer security.

Explain the purpose of S-boxes in DES and describe the avalanche effect.

Define block cipher and explain its design principles of confusion and diffusion, including differences with suitable examples.

Explain diffusion and confusion and explain the steps of AES.

Explain the working of ECB mode and why ECB is rarely used to encrypt messages.

Explain in detail key generation and key expansion in the AES algorithm.

Describe the five modes of operation of a block cipher and explain any two of them.

Explain the Diffie-Hellman key exchange scheme, including primitive root and an illustrative example.

Compare public-key and private-key cryptography and list various algorithms for each.

Explain RSA encryption and decryption and discuss attacks on RSA.

Justify with an example why hashing alone does not ensure integrity of message in network communication.

How message authentication code can be used to achieve message authentication and confidentiality?

Compute public keys YA and YB using Diffie-Hellman key exchange given prime q, primitive root alpha, and private keys XA and XB.

Using RSA with given $e, d, n$, encrypt plaintext letter G and verify decryption recovers it.

To find

What is a hash function / hashing? Explain its basic uses and benefits.

Explain how many keys are required for two people to communicate via a cipher.

Define Euler's totient function and explain the factoring problem in RSA.

What is authentication? Explain the different types of authentication systems.

Explain why double encryption is needed when using Kerberos.

Explain the design requirements/goals, architecture and versions of Kerberos.

How does PGP provide confidentiality and authentication service for e-mail and file storage applications? Draw the block diagram and explain its components.

What is secure electronic transaction and how it can be achieved?

What do you mean by the term IP Security? Discuss its basics Components.

What is SQL Injection (SQLi) and how to prevent it?

What are six components of public key infrastructure? Explain.

What is Cross Site Scripting (XSS) and how does it work?

Explain what intrusion detection is and explain password management.

Write short notes on following: (any two)

Explain the role of an intrusion detection system and its three benefits.

Illustrate the three common types of firewalls with diagrams.

What are viruses? Explain virus-related threats and countermeasures.

What is a firewall and how does it work?

Write short notes on IDS, encrypted tunnel, cookies and HTTP.

What are viruses and worms? Explain different types of viruses.

What are the differences between security and protection? Explain.

Write a short notes (any three)

What is URL and URI? Explain the differences between URL and URI with an example.