Enhancing security of ICA-AtoM : the web-based archival description software

Abstract

The internet put the rest ofthe world at the reach ofpersonal computer. In the same way, it is also made personal computers reachable by the rest ofthe world. Good News and Bad News! Over the last decade, the internet has been subject to widespread ofsecurity attacks. Besides the classical terms, new ones had to be found in order to designate a large collection ofthreats: Worms, break-ins, hackers, crackers, hijacking, spoofing, man-in-the-middle, passwordsniffing, denial ofservice and so on. With the sequence of cyber-attacks which were targeted various Government websites, during the recent past; it hampers the effectiveness ofsecurity research and practices carried out developing such websites. This project focuses on security issues of the web application, which is being used by the Department ofNational Archives, which is the ICA-AtoM. The security features ofICA-AtoM are not adequate to withstand ongoing cyber threats and attacks. Being the last resort to find most ofthe valuable documents, papers orjournals publish throughout the history, the online repositories at National Archives should be essentially safeguard against the malicious hackers. Moreover the focus of this project includes discussing in detail the ICA-AtoM related vulnerabilities and how they are exploited. This converge the definitions of various hacking practices, it’s implication on the ICA-AtoM. This paper aiming for a better understanding of the subject matter. In the paper we discuss some ofthe major actual known attacks. Besides the description of each attack and way they are carried on. We also discuss the related means ofprevention, detection and/ or defense such attacks though various security techniques introducing to the system.