Project Specifications
Research network and cloud security technologies that can be orchestrated to provide a
defence in depth strategy that can protect organizational assets and data against potential
threats. Explore both open source and commercial products. In your research, you may take
into consideration real-world cybersecurity incidents such as the recent HSE ransomware
attack (McNally, 2021). Based on your research, propose and elaborate a cohesive security
architecture that integrates effective security technologies and practices for a company’s
hybrid environment of on-premises networks and cloud services.
• Select a real or imaginary organisation. You may mix between real and imaginary scenarios.
You may also use a pseudonym to refer to an actual organization for confidentiality reasons.
• Analyse and assess their networking, assets and data characteristics including attack surfaces,
vulnerabilities, etc.
• Synthesize, design and integrate your security solutions.
• Critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the architecture.
• There can be different ways to completing this project. You may take a more practical
approach by experimenting with security technologies, demonstrating their integration and
reporting the outcome. You may otherwise base your report on a variety of technical resources
e.g. books, technical manuals, course material, personal experience.
• Students will complete the project individually or in groups of two. However, team members
in a project have to be of comparable background/experience and equivalent contributions are
expected.
Example Keywords
LAN, best practices, routers, switches, firewalls, segmentation, SSO, DMZ, VPC, IAM, VPN,
IPS/IDS, antimalware, NSM, CloudWatch, CloudTrail, vulnerability scanning, trust.
Deliverables:
Follow report sections. Discuss why you chose your approach, suitability of the chosen
technologies, etc.
Report
Write the sections highlighted in yellow below
projects).
Formatting
Cover page, ToC, page numbers, 11 point Times New Roman, align justify text, 1.5 line spacing.
No text colouring, no word art, no text underline.
Word count: ~8000-10000
Example Report Structure
– Introduction
What the project is about.
– Problem Analysis
Types, size and characteristics of their networks, security needs, threats, vulnerabilities,
challenges, limitations.
– Architecture and Orchestration
Network and cloud security solutions at myorg.com, hardware, software, services, techniques,
models, …, their interoperability, data exchange, security layers, ….
– Main body sections vary according to the scenario and technologies chosen. Examples
include access control mechanisms, monitoring tools, antimalware, perimeter defence,
migration, upgrades, …
– Conclusion
Summary of findings, evaluation of results, challenges, …
– Appendices
Appendix 1. project management, problems faced, collaborations, …
Appendix 2. Topics learnt, self-evaluations, possible improvements, …
Write the above appendices individually even if you worked in a team
Appendix 3. Scripts, code, diagrams, charts, …
– References
Articles, books, sites, …