KIT726 System Administration and Security Assurance
Assignment 1
Introduction
Due date: 11:59pm Thursday 15th September (week 9)
Weight: 20%
Length: 2500 words
Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs) assessed:
2. Identify security issues using relevant tools
4. Assess and document system and network security issues for use by people at all levels of the
business

This assignment builds on the skills and knowledge you acquire in this unit by a having you investigate and
write about a real-world issue or an in-depth examination of a theoretical concept.
Specification
This assignment is an individual assignment on a topic of your own choosing within the area of server
administration or system or network security.

You will be writing from the perspective of a security professional for other security professionals (or a
system administrator for other system administrators), and you will need to find and read multiple papers,
articles, and/or reports to be able to properly understand your topic.

Your topic will need to be approved by the unit coordinator by the end of week 5 (12th of August, 2022) to
ensure that all students have chosen an appropriate topic, and to ensure that there is a diversity of topics
across the class. If you leave your topic proposal until the last minute, it may already have been proposed
by someone else, and could be rejected. Students who do not negotiate a topic by the deadline risk a 10%
penalty mark.

Topics will be approved on a first come, first served basis, and you should not consider that your topic is
approved until you are so notified. If you choose a topic early on in semester, and receive a confirmation
that it is approved for you, you can complete the assignment as early as you like.

To propose your topic, send it in an email that includes your student ID to the unit coordinator
david.herbert@utas.edu.au.




KIT726 System Administration and Security Assurance Assignment 1
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The topic can be:
• based around a news event that is relevant to server administration or system or network security,
or
• about a principle or concept that relates to server administration or system or network security,
without a specific news focus
If your topic is news-event inspired, then the event must have occurred within the last two years (that is,
the original event itself must not have occurred before January 2020).

News-inspired assignments are not intended to be solely a narrative of the events, but rather a discussion
of the events that took place, an examination of the security issue that may be relevant, and the
implications of the event, tied back to relevant peer-reviewed literature.

The assignment is to be 2500 words in length (plus or minus 10%, not including references), and must be
submitted in Word document format to MyLO.

Other points to note:

• Your assignment should be clearly formatted and must use in-text citations and references when
referring to content that is not your own.
• Assignments must have multiple references, and strong assignments must make use of multiple
academic-standard (peer-reviewed) sources.
o You must use citations and referencing when making statements that are not otherwise
common knowledge in the field.
o All citations must be included in the reference section.
o Do not list references that are not cited.
o References must include the author and the publisher. Be careful when attributing online
sources. For example, “Facebook” is not an author nor is it a publisher.
o All referenced source material must be in English.
• Overly broad topics (e.g., “5G security”, “Security in the healthcare profession” or “best practices
for system administration”) will not be approved.
• Do not use online paraphrasing or online rewriting services to change original content to disguise
the source and/or remove the need to cite sources.
• Do not include an executive summary in your assignment.
• You may include diagrams, figures, tables, charts or similar elements where they are relevant to the
discussion. You must attribute sources for such elements using a citation placed adjacent to or
under the element, just like any other citation.
• You may not choose a topic that you have already written about for KIT501, nor self-plagiarise nor
self-reference.
Citations and Referencing
This is a research assignment, and as such you are expected to read a range and diversity of content on
your topic, and based on your reading, your thoughts, and understanding in the area, condense/summarise
the topic in your essay. This means putting content into your own words and citing where it has come
from.
KIT726 System Administration and Security Assurance Assignment 1
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You are expected to use a range of different sources, including academic sources.
What is an academic source?
Most academic sources will likely be formally peer-reviewed articles that have been published in
journals or conferences, although other sources are permitted (such as books, and government
and/or standards bodies documents). Magazines, web sites, blog posts and news articles are not
considered to be academic sources – you may still include them as sources, but your marks will be
improved when academic sources are also included (please see the marking rubric).
What do I have to cite?
All source material (anything you have read and obtained from elsewhere) must be cited and then be
listed in a references section at the end of the assignment. Correctly citing and referencing the
content you have used makes up a significant part of your final mark. You must use citations and
referencing when making statements that are not otherwise common knowledge - you provide
citations to justify all claims or statements you have made in your essay:
'A citation is a reference to the source of information used in your research. Any time you directly
quote, paraphrase or summarize the essential elements of someone else's idea in your work, an
in-text citation should follow. An in-text citation is a brief notation within the text of your paper
or presentation which refers the reader to a fuller notation, or end-of-paper citation, that
provides all necessary details about that source of information.' (Suny Empire 2021).
In other words, any borrowed ideas (which includes direct quotes such as that above), must be
acknowledged through the form of an in-text citation in the body of your essay (Victoria University
2015).
What referencing style do I have to use?
You are required to use the Harvard referencing style, which in simplest terms, is the Author/Year
style. More information can be found by following the links below:
• https://utas.libguides.com/referencing/Harvard
• https://mylo.utas.edu.au/d2l/le/content/506348/viewContent/4322786/View
• https://libraryguides.vu.edu.au/harvard/getting-started-with-harvard-referencing

Plagiarism and Academic Integrity
Plagiarism is a very serious matter, and ignorance of this is not an excuse. If you submit work, claiming it to
be your own, and it is not original work of your own, this is cheating. This includes (but is not limited to)
trying to obscure the source of your work (such as blocks of text submitted as images), using language
translation services to source text from one language and convert to another, or paying individuals or
companies to do the work for you. Plagiarism can result in academic penalties both in relation to your
assignment, and on your permanent university record.
KIT726 System Administration and Security Assurance Assignment 1
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If the work you submit is that of another person, without appropriate attribution (such as citation and
references), then an academic misconduct case may be filed against you with the possible penalties
mentioned above.

You can find more information on academic integrity here:

• https://universitytasmania.sharepoint.com/sites/StudentPortal/SitePages/Academic-Integrity.aspx
• https://faq.utas.edu.au/app/answers/detail/a_id/1947/~/what-is-plagiarism-and-academic-integrity%3F

Note: We will be using Turnitin as a plagiarism detection tool.
Submission
The assignment is due on or before the 15th of September by 11:59 pm. It must be submitted to an
assignment folder that has been established in the unit’s Assessment’s section on MyLO.

• Your submission must be in Word document format
• Do not submit in PDF format, and do not ZIP your file before submission.
• DO NOT include an electronic cover sheet with your assignment.
How is your essay marked?
Your essay will be marked against the rubric that can be found on the next page. Please pay close attention
to the weighting % of each criterion and how each grade (HD, DN etc) is assigned. Also note, for example,
the Referencing criteria does not mean you will automatically get full marks (25%) if you have 10 or more
sources, including 6 academic sources – the mark is assessed on how well you use the sources (e.g. are they
relevant), the referencing style, as well as the source quality (for example, are too many of the references
from the one web site, or the one company, or the one news report, and are they just blog sites etc).
References (example)
The two references below are an example of two web sites that were directly cited in the content above
with in-text citations.

Your references section should also be sorted in alphabetic order, by author family name. Please see the
Harvard referencing style linked-to above to determine how to refer to other types of sources such as
journal articles and conference proceedings.

Note that the first reference listed below (Suny Empire 2021) is not about Harvard referencing style, it was
included as some text was directly quoted in the body of this assignment specification.

Suny Empire 2021, Research Skills Tutorial, Suny Empire State College, viewed 4 Feb 2022,


Victoria University 2015, Harvard Referencing: Getting started with Harvard referencing, Victoria University,
viewed 4 Feb 2022,

Marking Rubric
KIT726 Networks Security Assignment Assessment Criteria
Descriptive text in this rubric is indicative only, not a prescriptive guide for assessment
Criteria HD+ HD DN CR PP NN20 NN0
Accuracy
and Depth
(40%)
Clear, concise, consistent, and
relevant coverage of all
components of the topic, and
all discussions are justifiably
explained using fully accurate in-
text citations.
Clear, concise, consistent,
and relevant coverage of all
components of the topic,
and most discussions are
justifiably explained using
fully accurate in-text
citations.
Clear, concise, consistent,
and relevant coverage of
all components of the
topic, and most
discussions are explained
using mostly accurate in-
text citations.
Clear, concise,
and relevant
coverage of most
of the topic
components using
in-text citations.
Provided relevant
coverage of most of
the topic
components, but
lacking suitable in-
text citations
Missing or
confusing pieces
of information or
contains
significant
inaccurate
information.
Incomplete,
nonsensical,
inaccurate
and/or
contradictory
Referencing
(25%)
12 or more sources, including 8
or more relevant peer-reviewed
sources. Harvard style always
used.
10 or more sources, including
6 or more relevant peer-
reviewed sources. Harvard
style always used.
8 or more sources,
including 4 or more
relevant peer-reviewed
sources. Harvard style
always used.
6 or more
sources, including
3 or more
relevant peer-
reviewed sources.
Harvard style
mostly used.
4 or more relevant
sources. Mostly
uniform referencing
style used.
Fewer than 4
relevant sources
or varying
referencing
styles.
Fewer than 2
relevant sources
Presentation
(20%)
Professional presentation with
clearly identified title/topic.
Consistent and meaningful
headings and subheadings using
styles. Correctly labelled and
relevant figures and/or tables.
Meaningful order of logical
sections and paragraphs and
bullet points where relevant.
Clearly identified title/topic.
Consistent and meaningful
headings and subheadings
using styles. Correctly
labelled and relevant figures
and/or tables. Meaningful
order of logical sections and
paragraphs and bullet points
where relevant.
Clearly identified
title/topic. Have
meaningful headings and
subheadings, and logical
sections and paragraphs,
and bullet points where
relevant. Inclusion of
relevant figures and/or
tables.
Clearly identified
title/topic. Have
headings, sections
and paragraphs,
and bullet points
where relevant.
Inclusion of
figures and/or
tables.
Clearly identified
title/topic. Have
paragraphs. A few
inconsistencies in
formatting and
presentation quality.
Some attention
to presentation
of materials, but
several
inconsistencies in
formatting, font
etc
No obvious
attention to
presentation of
materials, many
inconsistencies
in formatting,
font etc
Editing
Spelling and
Grammar
(10%)
Material presented is
grammatically correct, contains
no spelling errors.
A few obvious errors
in grammar and/or
spelling.
Significant
grammatical
and/or spelling
errors that
substantially
detract from the
presentation.
Length (5%)
Meets length requirement
(2250 - 2750 words).
Between 2750-3000
words, or between
2000-2250 words.
More than 3000
words or fewer
than 2000 words

Terminology
Clear – explanation can be read once without confusion, Concise - no unnecessary repetition or padding
Justified – analysis uses cited sources to reach conclusions, Consistent – no contradiction in terminology or explanation