Biblio

Typically, in an assessment project for a web application or database with a large scale and scope, tasks required to be performed by a security analyst are such as SQL injection and penetration testing. To carry out these large-scale tasks, the analyst will have to perform 100 or more SQLi penetration tests on one or more target. This makes the process much more complex and much harder to implement. This paper attempts to compare large-scale SQL injections performed with Manual Methods, which is the benchmark, and the proposed SQLiAutoScript Method. The SQLiAutoScript method uses sqlmap as a tool, in combination with sqlmap scripting and logging features, to facilitate a more effective and manageable approach within a large scale of hundreds or thousands of SQL injection penetration tests. Comparison of the test results for both Manual and SQLiAutoScript approaches and their benefits is included in the comparative analysis. The tests were performed over a scope of 24 SQL injection (SQLi) tests that comprises over 100,000 HTTP requests and injections, and within a total testing run-time period of about 50 hours. The scope of testing also covers both SQLiAutoScript and Manual methods. In the SQLiAutoScript method, each SQL injection test has its own sub-folder and files for data such as results (output), progress (traffic logs) and logging. In this way across all SQLi tests, the results, data and details related to SQLi tests are logged, available, traceable, accurate and not missed out. Available and traceable data also facilitates traceability of failed SQLi tests, and higher recovery and reruns of failed SQLi tests to maximize increased attack surface upon the target.

Cloud computing can be described as a distributed design that is accessible to different forms of security intrusions. An encoding technique named homomorphic encoding is used for the encoding of entities which are utilized for the accession of data from cloud server. The main problems of homomorphic encoding scheme are key organization and key allocation. Because of these issues, effectiveness of homomorphic encryption approach decreases. The encoding procedure requires the generation of input, and for this, an approach named Particle swarm optimization is implemented in the presented research study. PSO algorithms are nature encouraged meta-heuristic algorithms. These algorithms are inhabitant reliant. In these algorithms, societal activities of birds and fishes are utilized as an encouragement for the development of a technical mechanism. Relying on the superiority of computations, the results are modified with the help of algorithms which are taken from arbitrarily allocated pattern of particles. With the movement of particles around the searching area, the spontaneity is performed by utilizing a pattern of arithmetical terminology. For the generation of permanent number key for encoding, optimized PSO approach is utilized. MATLAB program is used for the implementation of PSO relied homomorphic algorithm. The investigating outcomes depicts that this technique proves very beneficial on the requisites of resource exploitation and finishing time. PSO relied homomorphic algorithm is more applicable in terms of completion time and resource utilization in comparison with homomorphic algorithm.

Web services from large-scale systems are prevalent all over the world. However, these systems are naturally vulnerable and incline to be intruded by adversaries for illegal benefits. To detect anomalous events, previous works focus on inspecting raw system logs by identifying the outliers in workflows or relying on machine learning methods. Though those works successfully identify the anomalies, their models use large training set and process whole system logs. To reduce the quantity of logs that need to be processed, high recall suspicious network alert systems can be applied to preprocess system logs. Only the logs that trigger alerts are retrieved for further usage. Due to the universally usage of network traffic alerts among Security Operations Center, anomalies detection problems could be transformed to classify truly suspicious network traffic alerts from false alerts.In this work, we propose an ensemble model to distinguish truly suspicious alerts from false alerts. Our model consists of two sub-models with different feature extraction strategies to ensure the diversity and generalization. We use decision tree based boosters and deep neural networks to build ensemble models for classification. Finally, we evaluate our approach on suspicious network alerts dataset provided by 2019 IEEE BigData Cup: Suspicious Network Event Recognition. Under the metric of AUC scores, our model achieves 0.9068 on the whole testing set.

Paper proposed an approach to estimating the sustainability of cyber-physical systems based on system state analysis. Authors suggested that sustainability is the system ability to reconfigure for recovering from attacking influences. Proposed a new criterion for cyber-physical systems sustainability assessment based on spectral graph theory. Numerical calculation of the criterion is based on distribution properties of the graph spectrum - the set of eigenvalues of the adjacency matrix corresponding to the graph. Experimental results have shown dependency of change in Δσ, difference between initial value of σstart and final σstop, on working route length, and on graph connectivity was revealed. This parameter is proposed to use as a criterion for CPS sustainability.

Workflow engines used to script scientific experiments involving numerical simulation, data analysis, instruments, edge sensors, and artificial intelligence have to deal with the complexities of hardware, software, resource availability, and the collaborative nature of science. In this paper, we survey workflow engines used in data-intensive and compute-intensive discovery pipelines from scientific disciplines such as astronomy, high energy physics, earth system science, bio-medicine, and material science and present a qualitative analysis of their respective capabilities. We compare 5 popular workflow engines and their differentiated approach to job orchestration, job launching, data management and provenance, security authentication, ease-ofuse, workflow description, and scripting semantics. The comparisons presented in this paper allow practitioners to choose the appropriate engine for their scientific experiment and lead to recommendations for future work.

iOS is one of the most secure operating systems based on policies created and enforced by Apple. Though not impervious or free from vulnerabilities, iOS has remained resilient to many attacks partially based on lower market share of devices, but primarily because of tight controls placed on iOS development and application deployment. Locked iOS devices pose a specific hard problem for both law enforcement and corporate IT dealing with malicious insiders or intrusion scenarios. The need to recover forensic data from locked iOS devices has been of public interest for some time. In this paper, we describe a case study analysis of the iPhone 5c model and our attempts to use electromagnetic (EM) fault-injection as a side channel means to unlock the device. Based on our study, we report on our unsuccessful attempts in unlocking a locked iPhone 5c using this side channel-based approach. As a contribution, we provide initial analysis of the iPhone 5c processor's spectral mapping under different states, a brief survey of published techniques related to iPhone unlock scenarios, and a set of lessons learned and recommended best practices for other researchers who are interested in future EM-based iOS studies.

The systematic integration of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) into the supply chain to increase operational efficiency and quality has also introduced new complexities to the threat landscape. The myriad of sensors could increase data collection capabilities for businesses to facilitate process automation aided by Artificial Intelligence (AI) but without adopting an appropriate Security-by-Design framework, threat detection and response are destined to fail. The emerging concept of Smart Workplace incorporates many CPS (e.g. Robots and Drones) to execute tasks alongside Employees both of which can be exploited as Insider Threats. We introduce and discuss forensic-readiness, liability attribution and the ability to track moving Smart SPS Objects to support modern Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR) within a defence-in-depth strategy. We present a framework to facilitate the tracking of object behaviour within Smart Controlled Business Environments (SCBE) to support resilience by enabling proactive insider threat detection. Several components of the framework were piloted in a company to discuss a real-life case study and demonstrate anomaly detection and the emerging of behavioural patterns according to objects' movement with relation to their job role, workspace position and nearest entry or exit. The empirical data was collected from a Bluetooth-based Proximity Monitoring Solution. Furthermore, a key strength of the framework is a federated Blockchain (BC) model to achieve forensic-readiness by establishing a digital Chain-of-Custody (CoC) and a collaborative environment for CPS to qualify as Digital Witnesses (DW) to support post-incident investigations.

Statistics based privacy-aware recommender systems make suggestions more powerful by extracting knowledge from the log of social contacts interactions, but unfortunately, they are static - moreover, advice from local experts effective in finding specific business categories in a particular area. We propose a dynamic recommender algorithm based on a lazy random walk that recommends top-rank shopping places to potentially interested visitors. We consider local authority and topical authority. The algorithm tested on FourSquare shopping data sets of 5 cities in Indonesia with k-steps=5,7,9 (lazy) random walks and compared the results with other state-of-the-art ranking techniques. The results show that it can reach high score precisions (0.5, 0.37, and 0.26 respectively on p@1, p@3, and p@5 for k=5). The algorithm also shows scalability concerning execution time. The advantage of dynamicity is the database used to power the recommender system; no need to be very frequently updated to produce a good recommendation.

Data provenance tools capture the steps used to produce analyses. However, scientists must choose among workflow provenance systems, which allow arbitrary code but only track provenance at the granularity of files; provenance APIs, which provide tuple-level provenance, but incur overhead in all computations; and database provenance tools, which track tuple-level provenance through relational operators and support optimization, but support a limited subset of data science tasks. None of these solutions are well suited for tracing errors introduced during common ETL, record alignment, and matching tasks - for data types such as strings, images, etc. Scientists need new capabilities to identify the sources of errors, find why different code versions produce different results, and identify which parameter values affect output. We propose PROVision, a provenance-driven troubleshooting tool that supports ETL and matching computations and traces extraction of content within data objects. PROVision extends database-style provenance techniques to capture equivalences, support optimizations, and enable selective evaluation. We formalize our extensions, implement them in the PROVision system, and validate their effectiveness and scalability for common ETL and matching tasks.

Internet of Things (IoT) revolution in 5th Generation (5G) will dynamically support all user, devices and customer worldwide where these devices, mechanical and digital machines will be connected and are able to communicate and transfer data over the network. In industries, the evolution of these technologies, known as Industrial IoT (IIoT) will enable machines to be connected and communicate where else, Internet of Everything (IoE) makes the connection more relevant between all smart devices, machines and also people with a huge data, high speed and high security. The growth of these technologies has made Radio Frequency (RF) spectrum resources for wireless communication to be more saturated. In order to solve this problem, new wireless communication technologies are proposed to meet the demand and also to enhance the performance of the system and overcome the existing bandwidth limitations. Studies done shows that Light-Fidelity (Li-Fi), based on Visible Light Communications (VLC) is one of the most promising technology in future which is based on optical wireless communication. Initial study on the Li-Fi concept has focuses on achieving speed, bi-directional transmission concept and supports multiuser access. In this paper we propose a frame work focuses on the handover process for indoor environment by using the steerable Access Point (AP) and compare the output result with fix Access Point.

Many organizations around the world recognize the vitality of cloud computing. However, some concerns make organizations reluctant to adopting cloud computing. These include data security, privacy, and trust issues. It is very important that these issues are addressed to meet client concerns and to encourage the wider adoption of cloud computing. This paper develops a user privacy framework based upon on emerging security model that includes access control, encryption and protection monitor schemas in the cloud environment.

Cloud computing is not adequately secure due to the currently used traditional trust methods such as global trust model and local trust model. These are prone to security vulnerabilities. This paper introduces a trust model based on the fuzzy mathematics and gray relational theory. Fuzzy mathematics and gray relational analysis (Fuzzy-GRA) aims to improve the poor dynamic adaptability of cloud computing. Fuzzy-GRA platform is used to test and validate the behavior of the model. Furthermore, our proposed model is compared to other known models. Based on the experimental results, we prove that our model has the edge over other existing models.

We present novel CAPTCHA challenges based on user gestures designed for mobile. A gesture CAPTCHA challenge is a security mechanism to prevent malware from gaining access to network resources from mobile. Mobile devices contain a number of sensors that record the physical movement of the device. We utilized the accelerometer and gyroscope data as inputs to our novel CAPTCHAs to capture the physical manipulation of the device. We conducted an experimental study on a group of people. We discovered that younger people are able to solve this type of CAPTCHA challenges successfully in a short amount of time. We found that using accelerometer readings produces issues for some older people.

Cognitive Radio is a prominent solution for effective spectral resource utilization. The rapidly growing device to device (D2D) communications and the next generation networks urge the cognitive radio networks to facilitate wideband spectrum sensing in order to assure newer spectral opportunities. As Nyquist sampling rates are formidable owing to complexity and cost of the ADCs, compressive sampling approaches are becoming increasingly popular. One such approach exploited in this paper is the Modulated Wideband Converter (MWC) to recover the spectral support. On the multiple measurement vector (MMV) framework provided by the MWC, threshold based Orthogonal Matching Pursuit (OMP) and Sparse Bayesian Learning (SBL) algorithms are employed for support recovery. We develop a Graphical User Interface (GUI) that assists a beginner to simulate the RF front-end of a MWC and thereby enables the user to explore support recovery as a function of Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR), number of measurement vectors and threshold. The GUI enables the user to explore spectrum sensing in DVB-T, 3G and 4G bands and recovers the support using OMP or SBL approach. The results show that the performance of SBL is better than that of OMP at a lower SNR values.

Advancement in communication technologies and the Internet of Things (IoT) is driving adoption in smart cities that aims to increase operational efficiency and improve the quality of services and citizen welfare, among other potential benefits. The privacy, reliability, and integrity of communications must be ensured so that actions can be appropriate, safe, accurate, and implemented promptly after receiving actionable information. In this work, we present a multi-tier methodology consisting of an authentication and trust-building/distribution framework designed to ensure the safety and validity of the information exchanged in the system. Blockchain protocols and Radio Frequency-Distinct Native Attributes (RF-DNA) combine to provide a hardware-software codesigned system for enhanced device identity and overall system trustworthiness. Our threat model accounts for counterfeiting, breakout fraud, and bad mouthing of one entity by others. Entity trust (e.g., IoT devices) depends on quality and level of participation, quality of messages, lifetime of a given entity in the system, and the number of known "bad" (non-consensus) messages sent by that entity. Based on this approach to trust, we are able to adjust trust upward and downward as a function of real-time and past behavior, providing other participants with a trust value upon which to judge information from and interactions with the given entity. This approach thereby reduces the potential for manipulation of an IoT system by a bad or byzantine actor.

Multi-Agent Task Allocation is a pre-requisite for many autonomous, real-world systems because of the need for intelligent task assignment amongst a team for maximum efficiency. Similarly, agent failure, task, failure, and a lack of state information are inherent challenges when operating in complex environments. Many existing solutions make simplifying assumptions regarding the modeling of these factors, e.g., Markovian state information. However, it is not clear that this is always the appropriate approach or that results from these approaches are necessarily representative of performance in the natural world. In this work, we demonstrate that there exists a class of problems for which non-Markovian state modeling is beneficial. Furthermore, we present and characterize a novel heuristic for task allocation that incorporates realistic state and uncertainty modeling in order to improve performance. Our quantitative analysis, when tested in a simulated search and rescue (SAR) mission, shows a decrease in performance of more than 57% when a representative method with Markovian assumptions is tested in a non-Markovian setting. Our novel heuristic has shown an improvement in performance of 3-15%, in the same non-Markovian setting, by modeling probabilistic failure and making fewer assumptions.

Security is a universal concern across a multitude of sectors involved in the transfer and storage of computerized data. In the realm of cryptography, random number generators (RNGs) are integral to the creation of encryption keys that protect private data, and the production of uniform probability outcomes is a revenue source for certain enterprises (most notably the casino industry). Arbitrary thread schedule reconstruction of compare-and-swap operations is used to generate input traces for the Blum-Elias algorithm as a method for constructing random sequences, provided the compare-and-swap operations avoid cache locality. Threads accessing shared memory at the memory controller is a true random source which can be polled indirectly through our algorithm with unlimited parallelism. A theoretical and experimental analysis of the observation and reconstruction algorithm are considered. The quality of the random number generator is experimentally analyzed using two standard test suites, DieHarder and ENT, on three data sets.

The condition of road surface has a significant role in land transportation. Due to poor road conditions, the logistics and supply chain industry face a drastic loss in their business. Unmaintained roads can cause damage to goods and accidents. The existing routing techniques do not consider factors like shock, temperature and tilt of goods etc. but these factors have to be considered for the logistics and supply chain industry. This paper proposes a recommender system which target management of goods in logistics. A 3 axis accelerometer is used to measure the road surface conditions. The pothole location is obtained using Global Positioning System (GPS). Using these details a hybrid recommender system is built. Hybrid recommender system combines multiple recommendation techniques to develop an effective recommender system. Here content-based and collaborative-based techniques is combined to build a hybrid recommender system. One of the popular Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) method, The Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) is used for content based filtering and normalised Euclidean distance and KNN algorithm is used for collaborative filtering. The best route recommended by the system will be displayed to the user using a map application.

Internet of Things (IoT) impacts the current network with many challenges due to the variation, heterogeneity of its devices and running technologies. For those reasons, monitoring and controlling network efficiently can rise the performance of the network and adapts network techniques according to environment measurements. This paper proposes a new privacy aware-IoT architecture that combines the benefits of both Information Centric Network (ICN) and Software Defined Network (SDN) paradigms. In this architecture controlling functionalities are distributed over multiple planes: operational plane which is considered as smart ICN data plane with Controllers that control local clusters, tactical plane which is an Edge environment to take controlling decisions based on small number of clusters, and strategic plane which is a cloud controlling environment to make long-term decision that affects the whole network. Deployment options of this architecture is discussed and SDN enhancement due to in-network caching is evaluated.

The Industrial Control System (ICS) and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems are the backbones for monitoring and supervising factories, power grids, water distribution systems, nuclear plants, and other critical infrastructures. These systems are installed by third party contractors, maintained by site engineers, and operate for a long time. This makes tracing the documentation of the systems' changes and updates challenging since some of their components' information (type, manufacturer, model, etc.) may not be up-to-date, leading to possibly unaccounted security vulnerabilities in the systems. Device recognition is useful first step in vulnerability identification and defense augmentation, but due to the lack of full traceability in case of legacy ICS/SCADA systems, the typical device recognition based on document inspection is not applicable. In this paper, we propose a hybrid approach involving the mix of communication-patterns and passive-fingerprinting to identify the unknown devices' types, manufacturers, and models. The algorithm uses the ICS/SCADA devices's communication-patterns to recognize the control hierarchy levels of the devices. In conjunction, certain distinguishable features in the communication-packets are used to recognize the device manufacturer, and model. We have implemented this hybrid approach in Python, and tested on traffic data from a water treatment SCADA testbed in Singapore (iTrust).

SCADA/ICS (Supervisory Control and Data Acqui-sition/Industrial Control Systems) networks are becoming targets of advanced multi-faceted attacks, and use of attack-graphs has been proposed to model complex attacks scenarios that exploit interdependence among existing atomic vulnerabilities to stitch together the attack-paths that might compromise a system-level security property. While such analysis of attack scenarios enables security administrators to establish appropriate security measurements to secure the system, practical considerations on time and cost limit their ability to address all system vulnerabilities at once. In this paper, we propose an approach that identifies label-cuts to automatically identify a set of critical-attacks that, when blocked, guarantee system security. We utilize the Strongly-Connected-Components (SCCs) of the given attack graph to generate an abstracted version of the attack-graph, a tree over the SCCs, and next use an iterative backward search over this tree to identify set of backward reachable SCCs, along with their outgoing edges and their labels, to identify a cut with a minimum number of labels that forms a critical-attacks set. We also report the implementation and validation of the proposed algorithm to a real-world case study, a SCADA network for a water treatment cyber-physical system.

Companies develop their software in versions and iterations. Ensuring the security of each additional version using code review is costly and time consuming. This paper investigates automated tracing of the impacts of code changes on the security of a given software. To this end, we use call graphs to model the software code, and security assurance cases to model the security requirements of the software. Then we relate assurance case elements to code through the entry point methods of the software, creating a map of monitored security functions. This mapping allows to evaluate the security requirements that are affected by code changes. The approach is implemented in a set of tools and evaluated using three open-source ERP/E-commerce software applications. The limited evaluation showed that the approach is effective in identifying the impacts of code changes on the security of the software. The approach promises to considerably reduce the security assessment time of the subsequent releases and iterations of software, keeping the initial security state throughout the software lifetime.

One of the most difficult tasks in networking is to provide security to data during transmission, the main issue using network is lack of security. Various techniques and methods had been introduced to satisfy the needs to enhance the firmness of the data while transmitting over internet. Due to several reasons and intruders the mechanism of providing security becomes a tedious task. At first conventional passwords are used to provide security to data while storing and transmitting but remembering the password quite confusing and difficult for the user to access the data. After that cryptography methodology is introduced to protect the data from the intruders by converting readable form of data into unreadable data by encryption process. Then the data is processed and received the receiver can access the original data by the reverse process of encryption called decryption. The processes of encoding have broken by intruders using various combinations of keys. In this proposed work strong encryption key can be generated by combining biometric and cryptography methods for enhancing firmness of data. Here biometric face image is pre-processed at initial stage then facial features are extracted to generate biometric-cryptographic key. After generating bio-crypto key data can be encrypted along with newly produced key with 0's or 1's bit combination and stored in the database. By generating bio-crypto key and using them for transmitting or storing the data the privacy and firmness of the data can be enhanced and by using own biometrics as key the process of hacking and interfere of intruders to access the data can be minimized.

Health Information Technology Systems (HITS) are increasingly used to improve the quality of patient care while reducing costs. These systems have been developed in response to the changing models of care to an ongoing relationship between patient and care team, supported by the use of technology due to the increased instance of chronic disease. However, the use of HITS may increase the risk to patient safety and security. While standards can be used to address and manage these risks, significant communication problems exist between experts working in different departments. These departments operate in silos often leading to communication breakdowns. For example, risk management stakeholders who are not clinicians may struggle to understand, define and manage risks associated with these systems when talking to medical professionals as they do not understand medical terminology or the associated care processes. In order to overcome this communication problem, we propose the use of the “Three Amigos” approach together with the use of the SIMPLE tool that has been developed to assist patients in understanding medical terms. This paper examines how the “Three Amigos” approach and the SIMPLE tool can be used to improve estimation of severity of risk by non-clinical risk management stakeholders and provides a practical example of their use in a ten step risk management process.

Peer-to-Peer networks are designed to rely on the resources of their own users. Therefore, resource management plays an important role in P2P protocols. Early P2P networks did not use proper mechanisms to manage fairness. However, after seeing difficulties and rise of freeloaders in networks like Gnutella, the importance of providing fairness for users have become apparent. In this paper, we propose an incentive-based security model which leads to a network infrastructure that lightens the work of Seeders and makes Leechers to contribute more. This method is able to prevent betrayals in Leecher-to-Leecher transactions and helps Seeders to be treated more fairly. This is what other incentive methods such as Bittorrent are incapable of doing. Additionally, by getting help from cryptography and combining it with our method, it is also possible to achieve secure channels, immune to spying, next to a fair network. This is the first protocol designed for P2P networks which has separated Leechers and Seeders without the need to a central server. The simulation results clearly show how our proposed approach can overcome free-riding issue. In addition, our findings revealed that our approach is able to provide an appropriate level of fairness for the users and can decrease the download time.