• Module: CMP403
• Title: Honours Project Dissertation
• Module Grade: B+

Some background on how I chose my dissertation idea can be found on the Honours Proposal page which also has all my planning documentation. I'd advise reading that page first if you haven't already and then returning here 🙂.

The title for my Honours Project is Evaluating the Effectiveness of Using a Modifiable Ransomware Simulation Tool. My project is about researching and evaluating the best way to simulate a ransomware attack in a safe manner by using ransomware simulation tools and if these tools are effectively simulating ransomware as they should be. If the simulation tool is giving an inaccurate assessment of the security against a ransomware attack then it would be pretty dangerous should a true ransomware attack occur.

My Project Artefact is called MoChara and is a ransomware simulation tool simulating the main aspects of ransomware (Encryption, Decryption, Ransomware note). The tool also allows you to modify the directory to encrypt and the file extension that gets appended to the filename after encryption. The encryption algorithm that is used to encrypt the files is AES 256 in GCM mode. The authenticated encryption that GCM provides makes the encryption more secure and keeps authenticity of the file during the simulation.

My Dissertation can be found below so please give it a read! I also have included a wee demo video to hopefully give yourself a better idea of what my Project Artefact was, as I had to to demonstrate it to my lecturers at the end of term. The full code for my Artefact can also be found in Appendix F of my dissertation. I really loved doing this project to get my Honours and researching the area of ransomware and ransomware detection/prevention.