Deccan Education Society’s

Fergusson College (Autonomous), Pune-4

XCS5300 - Introduction to Information Security / Cyber Security
M.A. /M. Sc. Part-II – Semester III [2021-21] Home
Assignment

Name: Mirwais Waziri SEMIII

Roll No.: 568

ANSWERS :
Gmail is a free email service provided by Google.
As of 2019, it had 1.5 billion active users worldwide. In many ways, Gmail is like any other
email service: send and receive emails, block spam, create an address book, and perform
other basic email tasks.
A Google account is needed to access Gmail because it is just one of the many
services offered by Google to registered users.

Google E-mail provides following security features:

Spam filtering. Spam is another name for junk email. Gmail uses advanced technologies to
keep spam out of your inbox. Most spam is automatically sent to a separate spam folder, and
after 30 days it is deleted.

Two-step verification makes it impossible for hackers to gain access to a user’s account as it
requires a user to enter a unique code that is generated every time, they try to access their
account in addition to their passwords. Once the user enters the code, they will be asked to
enter the password. Since the code is unique and generated on the spot, it is impossible for
hackers to get a hold of user's Gmail account.

Review suspicious activity: When Google identifies any suspicious activity on a Gmail
account, it sends the user a notification regarding the same. Many-a-times when the email is
logged in from an unfamiliar location or a device, Google quickly informs the user about the
activity on their registered mobile number or recovery email address. Users can then review
their account by clicking on the check activity to find out the details.
 Security Sandbox: First announced at the Google Cloud Next '19 in San Francisco, the
Security Sandbox for Gmail beta detects the presence of unknown malware in attachments by
'executing' them in a private, secure sandbox environment. It analyses the side effects on the
operating system to determine malicious behaviour.

Advanced phishing and malware protection: This feature of Gmail helps identify emails that
have unusual attachment types and it automatically displays a warning message, sending the
mail to spam. It also provides new controls to place emails into quarantine, protect against
anomalous attachment types and protect Google Groups from inbound spoofing emails.

1. Write a note on following Computing Platforms –

a. High Computing Platform

• High performance computing is the ability to process data and perform complex calculations
at high speeds. To put it into perspective, a laptop or desktop with a 3 GHz processor can
perform around 3 billion calculations per second. While that is much faster than any human
can achieve, it pales in comparison to HPC solutions that can perform quadrillions of
calculations per second.

• High-Performance Computing, or HPC as it is generally known, has been a mainstay of

infrastructure and hardware engineering groups for decades.

• It is all about scale and speed.

Why is HPC important?

- HPC is the foundation for scientific, industrial, and societal advancements.
 - As technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), and 3-D imaging
evolve, the size and amount of data that organizations have to work with is growing
exponentially.
- For many purposes, such as streaming a live sporting event, tracking a developing storm,
testing new products, or analysing stock trends, the ability to process data in real time is
crucial.
- To keep a step ahead of the competition, organizations need lightning-fast, highly reliable IT
infrastructure to process, store, and analyse massive amounts of data.
- It provides Greater Computational Power hence used to overcome the limitations of Desktop
Computing architectures.

HPC solutions have three main components:

• Compute
• Network
• Storage

Applications of HPC:
HEALTHCARE
Medicine and computing are as intimately intertwined as DNA’s double helix. Computers already
store confidential patient information, track vital signs and analyse drug efficacy. The rise of HPC
has allowed medical professionals to digitize even more complex processes, too, like genome
sequencing and drug testing.

ENGINEERING
Engineering is all about boosting a machine’s realworld performance, but testing prototypes
is expensive (and occasionally dangerous). To work around this, engineers often test new
designs in massive computer simulations. Just like the real world, these simulated worlds
have gravity, heat, wind and a sprinkling of chaos. Unlike the real world, they run on HPC
systems. Thus far, simulations have been used to test the functionality
of airplane parts, streamline racing bike frames and much more.

SPACE RESEARCH
Outer space is full of unknowns. Is it inhabited by aliens? If so, are they friendly? (Probably.
And probably not.) Is a meteorite poised to collide with the Earth — and hit you, personally?
More seriously: Where did the universe come from, and what’s the weather like on the sun?
Those questions have major implications for us Earthlings, but it takes a lot of resources and
technological savvy to gather the data that’s necessary to find answers. That’s where models
rooted in HPC come in handy. They make the most of information gleaned by probes and
satellites.
 b. Cluster Computing
Types of Cluster computing
1. Load-balancing clusters: Here workload is equally distributed across multiple installed
servers in the cluster network.
2. High availability (HA) clusters: A group of clusters which ensure to maintain very high
availability. computers pulled from these systems are considered to be very much reliable and
may not face a downtime even possibly on any instance.
3. High performance (HP) clusters: This computer networking tactic use supercomputers and
Cluster computing to resolve complex and highly advanced computation problems.

Advantages
1. Cost efficiency: Compared to highly stable and more storage mainframe computers these
form of cluster computing systems are considered to be largely cost-efficient and cheaper.
Moreover, most of these systems offer higher performance than mainframe computer systems.

2. Processing speed: The speed of processing also equitable to the mainframe systems and other
forms of supercomputers in the market.

3. Expandability: Scalability and expandability is the next key advantage of these clustered
systems. because they instantiate the opportunity to add any number of additional resources or
systems to the existing computer network.

4. High availability of resources: computers face failure very often. High Availability is
concurrent in a straight line to our increasing dependence on computers because at the present
they include a vital role mainly in companies whose most important functionality is accurately the
offer of some stable computing service, such as e-business, databases, among others.

c. Grid Computing
Ans.

• Grid computing is a group of networked computers which work together as a virtual

supercomputer to perform large tasks, such as analysing huge sets of data or weather
modeling.

• Through the cloud, you can assemble and use vast computer grids for specific time periods
and purposes, paying, if necessary, only for what you use to save both the time and expense
of purchasing and deploying the necessary resources yourself. Also, by splitting tasks over
multiple machines, processing time is significantly reduced to increase efficiency and
minimise wasted resources.

• Unlike with parallel computing, grid computing projects typically have no time dependency
associated with them. They use computers which are part of the grid only when idle and
operators can perform tasks unrelated to the grid at any time. Security must be considered
 when using computer grids as controls on member nodes are usually very loose. Redundancy
should also be built in as many computers may disconnect or fail during processing.

• Grid Computing can be defined as a network of computers working together to perform a task
that would rather be difficult for a single machine. All machines on that network work under
the same protocol to act like a virtual supercomputer. The task that they work on may include
analysing huge datasets or simulating situations which require high computing power.
Computers on the network contribute resources like processing power and storage capacity to
the network.

• The main difference between cluster and grid computing is that the cluster computing is a
homogenous network in which devices have the same hardware components and the same
operating system (OS) connected together in a cluster while the grid computing is a
heterogeneous network in which devices have different hardware components and different
OS connected together in a grid.

d. Cloud Computing
Answer.
 Cloud computing is the delivery of different services through the Internet. These resources
include tools and applications like data storage, servers, databases, networking, and software.

 Rather than keeping files on a proprietary hard drive or local storage device, cloud-based
storage makes it possible to save them to a remote database. As long as an electronic device
has access to the web, it has access to the data and the software programs to run it.

 Cloud computing is a popular option for people and businesses for a number of reasons
including cost savings, increased productivity, speed and efficiency, performance, and
security.

Types of Cloud Computing

- Cloud computing is not a single piece of technology like a microchip or a cellphone. Rather,
it's a system primarily comprised of three services: software-as-a-service (SaaS),
infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), and platform-as-a-service (PaaS).
1. Software-as-a-service (SaaS) involves the licensure of a software application to
customers. Licenses are typically provided through a pay-as-you-go model or
ondemand. This type of system can be found in Microsoft Office's 365.

2. Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) involves a method for delivering everything from

operating systems to servers and storage through IP-based connectivity as part of an
on-demand service. Clients can avoid the need to purchase software or servers, and
instead procure these resources in an outsourced, on-demand service. Popular
examples of the IaaS system include IBM Cloud and Microsoft Azure.

3.
three layers of cloud-based computing. PaaS shares some similarities with SaaS, the
primary difference being that instead of delivering oftware online, it is actually a
platform for creating software that is delivered via the Internet. This model includes
platforms like Salesforce.