[Dissertation Proposal on Detecting & Preventing Major Network Security Threats]

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Acknowledgement

I would take this opportunity to thank my research supervisor, family and friends for their support and guidance without which this research would not have been possible.

DECLARATION

I, [type your full first names and surname here], declare that the contents of this dissertation/thesis represent my own unaided work, and that the dissertation/thesis has not previously been submitted for academic examination towards any qualification. Furthermore, it represents my own opinions and not necessarily those of the University.

Signed __________________ Date _________________

Abstract

Usually, network security issues are of major concern for all businesses that want to keep the affirmation they are usually dealing with under strict confidentiality. These issues are not very recent, ever since information was transferred among senders and recipients, data transition has been prone to, so as to speak, attacks in order to undermine the protection and to reach out relevant or useful pieces of information. In essence, these attacks are the results of tough competition. Even though network security issues are these days associated with computerized solutions, as a matter of act, this procedure has an impressive background. As long as information has a certain value, it is undeniably prone to attack.

Major Threats On Network Security Issues And The Means To Fight Them

Introduction

A computer network is a group of computers that are linked together via assorted means (wires, phone lines, fiber optic, satellite, etc.) so that they can transfer information among themselves. The Internet is simply a network of networks. The Internet is currently composed of over 30,000 different networks, with close to 3,000,000 host computers connected to them and accessible by approximately 35 million people worldwide. The Internet is growing at the explosive rate of about 10 percent per month. The Internet is also a huge group of worldwide information resources, providing access to over 85 countries throughout the globe. Because it is so vast, there is no way in which one individual or even one organization could be responsible for the Internet. Therefore, the Internet depends on voluntary cooperation between the thousands of network administrators throughout the world to provide the rest of us with access to this network of tremendously varied resources. The Internet began in the late 1960s as a result of the Cold War. The United States Department of Defense needed to minimize the vulnerability of several of its mainframe computer systems.

Network Security Issues

One of the biggest problems with data transfer in the early years was that computer networks had trouble communicating with other networks, because so many different types of system were used and because the systems used so many different (or no) standards or protocols. The problem was solved by ARPA in the 1970s through the development of the TCP/IP (transmission control protocol/Internet protocol) standard. This system allows for small groups of data (packets) to be sent that include addressing information about where the data are to go on the Internet. The TCP/IP standard also encouraged other networks initially outside of the Internet to ...