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David Mutebi
David Mutebi

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Application of data structures in Cyber security.

Data structures are defined as the pragmatic way of storing data so that data can be used efficiently.

So why the need for knowledge about data structures for a cybersecurity analyst or expert
As data grows, search operations will be slower to perform. Although high processing speeds have come up, they still fall limited to this data growth.
Data should be organised so not all items may be required to be searched but only the required data can be searched almost instantly
Common basic types of data structures and their history
Arrays, implementation dates back to the earliest high-level programming languages like FORTRAN(1957), COBOL(1960), ALGO60 that had support for multi-dimensional arrays.
Stacks were first proposed in 1946 in the computer design of the famous Alan M. Turing.
Linked lists, were developed at RAND corporation during the period of 1955 -1956 by engineers Allen Newell, Cliff Shaw, Herbert A Simon as the primary data structure for their information processing language.
B-Tree, invented by Rudolf Buyer
AVL, published in 1962 by two soviet inventors Georgy Adelson Velsky and E. M Landis as indicated in the paper An algorithm for organisation information.

Case study:
Use of data structures in pen testing
Pen testing is the authorised simulated attack performed on a computer system to evaluate its security.
During Pen testing, deep search and analysis operations are carried out in order to search for any kind of poor vulnerabilities.

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