Biblio

Various studies have been performed to explore the feasibility of detection of web-based attacks by machine learning techniques. False-positive and false-negative results have been reported as a major issue to be addressed to make machine learning-based detection and prevention of web-based attacks reliable and trustworthy. In our research, we tried to identify and address the root cause of the false-positive and false-negative results. In our experiment, we used the CSIC 2010 HTTP dataset, which contains the generated traffic targeted to an e-commerce web application. Our experimental results demonstrate that applying the proposed fine-tuned feature set extraction results in improved detection and classification of web-based attacks for all tested machine learning algorithms. The performance of the machine learning algorithm in the detection of attacks was evaluated by the Precision, Recall, Accuracy, and F-measure metrics. Among three tested algorithms, the J48 decision tree algorithm provided the highest True Positive rate, Precision, and Recall.

Cyber-physical systems (CPS) can benefit by the use of learning enabled components (LECs) such as deep neural networks (DNNs) for perception and decision making tasks. However, DNNs are typically non-transparent making reasoning about their predictions very difficult, and hence their application to safety-critical systems is very challenging. LECs could be integrated easier into CPS if their predictions could be complemented with a confidence measure that quantifies how much we trust their output. The paper presents an approach for computing confidence bounds based on Inductive Conformal Prediction (ICP). We train a Triplet Network architecture to learn representations of the input data that can be used to estimate the similarity between test examples and examples in the training data set. Then, these representations are used to estimate the confidence of set predictions from a classifier that is based on the neural network architecture used in the triplet. The approach is evaluated using a robotic navigation benchmark and the results show that we can computed trusted confidence bounds efficiently in real-time.

In this paper, we propose a novel deep learning and blockchain-based energy framework for smart grids, entitled DeepCoin. The DeepCoin framework uses two schemes, a blockchain-based scheme and a deep learning-based scheme. The blockchain-based scheme consists of five phases: setup phase, agreement phase, creating a block phase and consensus-making phase, and view change phase. It incorporates a novel reliable peer-to-peer energy system that is based on the practical Byzantine fault tolerance algorithm and it achieves high throughput. In order to prevent smart grid attacks, the proposed framework makes the generation of blocks using short signatures and hash functions. The proposed deep learning-based scheme is an intrusion detection system (IDS), which employs recurrent neural networks for detecting network attacks and fraudulent transactions in the blockchain-based energy network. We study the performance of the proposed IDS on three different sources the CICIDS2017 dataset, a power system dataset, and a web robot (Bot)-Internet of Things (IoT) dataset.

The concept of federation in 5G and NFV networks aims to provide orchestration of services across multiple administrative domains. Edge robotics, as a field of robotics, implements the robot control on the network edge by relying on low-latency and reliable access connectivity. In this paper, we propose a solution that enables Edge robotics service to expand its service footprint or access coverage over multiple administrative domains. We propose application of Distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) for the federation procedures to enable private, secure and trusty interactions between undisclosed administrative domains. The solution is applied on a real-case Edge robotics experimental scenario. The results show that it takes around 19 seconds to deploy & federate a Edge robotics service in an external/anonymous domain without any service down-time.

The recent advances in mobile devices and wireless communication sector transformed Mobile Augmented Reality (MAR) from science fiction to reality. Among the other MAR use cases, the incorporation of this MAR technology in the healthcare sector can elevate the quality of diagnosis and treatment for the patients. However, due to the highly sensitive nature of the data available in this process, it is also highly vulnerable to all types of security threats. In this paper, an edge-based secure architecture is presented for a MAR healthcare application. Based on the ESSMAR architecture, a secure key management scheme is proposed for both the registration and authentication phases. Then the security of the proposed scheme is validated using formal and informal verification methods.

Development of malware protection tools requires a more advanced test environment comparing to safe software. This kind of development includes a safe execution of many malware samples in order to evaluate the protective power of the tool. The host machine needs to be protected from the harmful effects of malware samples and provide a realistic simulation of the execution environment. In this paper, a framework for automated malware analysis on Linux is presented. Different types of malware analysis methods are discussed, as well as the properties of a good framework for dynamic malware analysis.

Smart meters (SMs) can pose privacy threats for consumers, an issue that has received significant attention in recent years. This paper studies the impact of Side Information (SI) on the performance of possible attacks to real-time privacy-preserving algorithms for SMs. In particular, we consider a deep adversarial learning framework, in which the desired releaser, which is a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN), is trained by fighting against an adversary network until convergence. To define the objective for training, two different approaches are considered: the Causal Adversarial Learning (CAL) and the Directed Information (DI)-based learning. The main difference between these approaches relies on how the privacy term is measured during the training process. The releaser in the CAL method, disposing of supervision from the actual values of the private variables and feedback from the adversary performance, tries to minimize the adversary log-likelihood. On the other hand, the releaser in the DI approach completely relies on the feedback received from the adversary and is optimized to maximize its uncertainty. The performance of these two algorithms is evaluated empirically using real-world SMs data, considering an attacker with access to SI (e.g., the day of the week) that tries to infer the occupancy status from the released SMs data. The results show that, although they perform similarly when the attacker does not exploit the SI, in general, the CAL method is less sensitive to the inclusion of SI. However, in both cases, privacy levels are significantly affected, particularly when multiple sources of SI are included.

With the development of augmented reality(AR) technology and location-based service (LBS) technology, combining AR with LBS will create a new way of life and socializing. In AR, users may consider the privacy and security of data. In LBS, the leakage of user location privacy is an important threat to LBS users. Therefore, it is very important for privacy management of positioning information and user location privacy to avoid loopholes and abuse. In this review, the concepts and principles of AR technology and LBS would be introduced. The existing privacy measurement and privacy protection framework would be analyzed and summarized. Also future research direction of location privacy protection would be discussed.

Ensuring security to IoT devices is important in order to provide privacy and quality of services. Proposing a security solution is considered an important step towards achieving protection, however, proving the soundness of the solution is also crucial. In this paper, we propose a methodology for the performance evaluation of lightweight IoT-based authentication protocols based on execution time. Then, a formal verification test is conducted on a lightweight protocol proposed in the literature. The formal verification test conducted with Scyther tool proofs that the model provides mutual authentication, authorization, integrity, confidentiality, non-repudiation, and accountability. The protocol also was proven to provide protection from various attacks.

Due to the difficulty of obtaining a database of original images that are required in the classification process to detect tampering, this paper presents a technique for detecting image tampering such as image steganography in the spatial domain. The system depends on deriving the auto-correlation function of the image histogram, then applying a high-pass filter with a threshold. This technique can be used to decide which image is cover or a stego image, without adopting the original image. The results have eventually revealed the validity of this system. Although this study has focused on least-significant-bit (LSB) steganography, we expect that it could be extended to other types of image tapering.

As a general interface for chip system testing and on-chip debugging, JTAG is facing serious security threats. By analyzing the typical JTAG attack model and security protection measures, this paper designs a secure JTAG debugging model based on Schnorr identity authentication protocol, and takes RISCV as an example to build a set of SoC prototype system to complete functional verification. Experiments show that this secure JTAG debugging model has high security, flexible implementation, and good portability. It can meet the JTAG security protection requirements in various application scenarios. The maximum clock frequency can reach 833MHZ, while the hardware overhead is only 47.93KGate.

Digital signal processor (DSP) intellectual property (IP) cores are the underlying hardware responsible for high performance data intensive applications. However an unauthorized IP vendor may counterfeit the DSP IPs and infuse them into the design-chain. Thus fake IPs or integrated circuits (ICs) are unknowingly integrated into consumer electronics (CE) systems, leading to reliability and safety issues for users. The latent solution to this threat is hardware steganography wherein vendor's secret information is covertly inserted into the design to enable detection of counterfeiting. A key-regulated hash-modules chaining based IP steganography is presented in our paper to secure against counterfeiting threat. The proposed approach yielded a robust steganography achieving very high security with regard to stego-key length than previous approaches.

Compressive sensing (CS) is beneficial for unmanned reconnaissance systems to obtain high-quality images with limited resources. The existing prediction methods for block-based compressive sensing of images can be regarded as the particular coefficients of weighted predictive coding. To find better prediction coefficients for BCS, this paper proposes two weighted prediction methods. The first method converts the prediction model of measurements into a prediction model of image blocks. The prediction weights are obtained by training the prediction model of image blocks offline, which avoiding the influence of the sampling rates on the prediction model of measurements. Another method is to calculate the prediction coefficients adaptively based on the average energy of measurements, which can adjust the weights based on the measurements. Compared with existing methods, the proposed prediction methods for BCS of images can further improve the reconstruction image quality.

The concept of AI Gossip is presented. It is analogous to the traditional understanding of a pernicious human failing. It is made more egregious by the technology of AI, internet, current privacy policies, and practices. The recognition by the technological community of its complacency is critical to realizing its damaging influence on human rights. A current example from the medical field is provided to facilitate the discussion and illustrate the seriousness of AI Gossip. Further study and model development is encouraged to support and facilitate the need to develop standards to address the implications and consequences to human rights and dignity.

The growth of IoT devices during the last decade has led to the development of smart ecosystems, such as smart homes, prone to cyberattacks. Traditional security methodologies support to some extend the requirement for preserving privacy and security of such deployments, but their centralized nature in conjunction with low computational capabilities of smart home gateways make such approaches not efficient. Last achievements on blockchain technologies allowed the use of such decentralized architectures to support cybersecurity defence mechanisms. In this work, a blockchain framework is presented to support the cybersecurity mechanisms of smart homes installations, focusing on the immutability of users and devices that constitute such environments. The proposed methodology provides also the appropriate smart contracts support for ensuring the integrity of the smart home gateway and IoT devices, as well as the dynamic and immutable management of blocked malicious IPs. The framework has been deployed on a real smart home environment demonstrating its applicability and efficiency.

With almost unlimited storage capacity and low maintenance cost, cloud storage becomes a convenient and efficient way for data sharing among cloud users. However, this introduces the challenges of access control and privacy protection when data sharing for multiple groups, as each group usually has its own encryption and access control mechanism to protect data confidentiality. In this paper, we propose a multiple-group data sharing scheme with privacy preservation in the cloud. This scheme constructs a flexible access control framework by using group signature, ciphertext-policy attribute-based encryption and broadcast encryption, which supports both intra-group and cross-group data sharing with anonymous access. Furthermore, our scheme supports efficient user revocation. The security and efficiency of the scheme are proved thorough analysis and experiments.

Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communication is a essential subset of the Internet of Things (IoT). Secure access to communication network systems by M2M devices requires the support of a secure and efficient anonymous authentication protocol. The Direct Anonymous Attestation (DAA) scheme in Trustworthy Computing is a verified security protocol. However, the existing defense system uses a static architecture. The “mimic defense” strategy is characterized by active defense, which is not effective against continuous detection and attack by the attacker. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a Mimic-DAA scheme that incorporates mimic defense to establish an active defense scheme. Multiple heterogeneous and redundant actuators are used to form a DAA verifier and optimization is scheduled so that the behavior of the DAA verifier unpredictable by analysis. The Mimic-DAA proposed in this paper is capable of forming a security mechanism for active defense. The Mimic-DAA scheme effectively safeguard the unpredictability, anonymity, security and system-wide security of M2M communication networks. In comparison with existing DAA schemes, the scheme proposed in this paper improves the safety while maintaining the computational complexity.

Statistical structure learning (SSL)-based approaches have been employed in the recent years to detect different types of anomalies in a variety of cyber-physical systems (CPS). Although these approaches outperform conventional methods in the literature, their computational complexity, need for large number of measurements and centralized computations have limited their applicability to large-scale networks. In this work, we propose a distributed, multi-agent maximum likelihood (ML) approach to detect anomalies in smart grid applications aiming at reducing computational complexity, as well as preserving data privacy among different players in the network. The proposed multi-agent detector breaks the original ML problem into several local (smaller) ML optimization problems coupled by the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). Then, these local ML problems are solved by their corresponding agents, eventually resulting in the construction of the global solution (network's information matrix). The numerical results obtained from two IEEE test (power transmission) systems confirm the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed approach for anomaly detection.

Digital identity is the key element of digital transformation in representing any real-world entity in the digital form. To ensure a successful digital future the requirement for an effective digital identity is paramount, especially as demand increases for digital services. Several Identity Management (IDM) systems are developed to cope with identity effectively, nonetheless, existing IDM systems have some limitations corresponding to identity and its management such as sovereignty, storage and access control, security, privacy and safeguarding, all of which require further improvement. Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) is an emerging IDM system which incorporates several required features to ensure that identity is sovereign, secure, reliable and generic. It is an evolving IDM system, thus it is essential to analyse its various features to determine its effectiveness in coping with the dynamic requirements of identity and its current challenges. This paper proposes numerous governing principles of SSI to analyse any SSI ecosystem and its effectiveness. Later, based on the proposed governing principles of SSI, it performs a comparative analysis of the two most popular SSI ecosystems uPort and Sovrin to present their effectiveness and limitations.

Personally identifiable information (PII) has become a major target of cyber-attacks, causing severe losses to data breach victims. To protect data breach victims, researchers focus on collecting exposed PII to assess privacy risk and identify at-risk individuals. However, existing studies mostly rely on exposed PII collected from either the dark web or the surface web. Due to the wide exposure of PII on both the dark web and surface web, collecting from only the dark web or the surface web could result in an underestimation of privacy risk. Despite its research and practical value, jointly collecting PII from both sources is a non-trivial task. In this paper, we summarize our effort to systematically identify, collect, and monitor a total of 1,212,004,819 exposed PII records across both the dark web and surface web. Our effort resulted in 5.8 million stolen SSNs, 845,000 stolen credit/debit cards, and 1.2 billion stolen account credentials. From the surface web, we identified and collected over 1.3 million PII records of the victims whose PII is exposed on the dark web. To the best of our knowledge, this is the largest academic collection of exposed PII, which, if properly anonymized, enables various privacy research inquiries, including assessing privacy risk and identifying at-risk populations.

Malware threats often go undetected immediately, because attackers can camouflage well within the system. The users realize this after the devices stop working and cause harm for them. One way to deceive malicious content detection, malware authors use packers. Malware analysis is an activity to gain knowledge about malware. Reverse engineering is a technique used to identify and deal with new viruses or to understand malware behavior. Therefore, this technique can be the right choice for conducting malware analysis, especially for malware with packers. The results of the analysis are used as a source for making creating indicator of compromise in the YARA rule format. YARA rule is used as a component for detecting malware using the indicators obtained in the analysis process.

Chemical sensing is an important issue in food, water, environment, biomedical, and pharmaceutical field. Conventional methods used in laboratory for sensing the chemical are costly, time consuming, and sometimes wastes significant amount of sample. Photonic Crystal Fiber (PCF) offers high compactness and design flexibility and it can be used as biosensor, chemical sensor, liquid sensor, temperature sensor, mechanical sensor, gas sensor, and so on. In this work, we designed PCF to sense different concentrations of different liquids by one PCF structure. We designed different structure for silica cladding hexagonal PCF to sense different concentrations of benzene-toluene and ethanol-water mixer. Core diameter, air hole diameter, and air hole diameter to lattice pitch ratio are varied to get the optimal result as well to explore the effect of core size, air hole size and the pitch on liquid chemical sensing. Performance of the chemical sensors was examined based on confinement loss and sensitivity. The performance of the sensor varied a lot and basically it depends not only on refractive index of the liquid but also on sensing wavelengths. Our designed sensor can provide comparatively high sensitivity and low confinement loss.

Path-tracking is essential to provide complete information regarding network breach incidents. It records the direction of the attack and its source of origin thus giving the network manager proper information for the next responses. Nevertheless, the existing path-tracking implementations expose the network topology and routing configurations. In this paper, we propose a privacy-aware path-tracking which mystifies network configurations using in-packet bloom filter. We apply our method by using P4 switch to supports a fine-grain (per-packet) path-tracking with dynamic adaptability via in-switch bloom filter computation. We use a hybrid scheme which consists of a destination-based logging and a path finger print-based marking to minimize the redundant path inferring caused by the bloom filter's false positive. For evaluation, we emulate the network using Mininet and BMv2 software switch. We deploy a source routing mechanism to run the evaluations using a limited testbed machine implementing Rocketfuel topology. By using the hybrid marking and logging technique, we can reduce the redundant path to zero percent, ensuring no-collision in the path-inferring. Based on the experiments, it has a lower space efficiency (56 bit) compared with the bloom filter-only solution (128 bit). Our proposed method guarantees that the recorded path remains secret unless the secret keys of every switch are known.

Privacy is one of the biggest concerns of the coming decade, ranking third among concerns of consumers. Data breaches and leaks are constantly in the news with companies like Facebook and Amazon being outed for their excessive data collection. With companies and governmental agencies tracking and monitoring individuals to a great degree, there are concerns that contemporary technologies that feed into these systems can be misused or misappropriated further. Frameworks currently in place fail to address many of these consumer's concerns and even the legal framework could use further elaboration to better control the way data is handled. In this paper, We address the current industrial standards, frameworks, and concerns of one of the biggest technology trends right now, the Augmented Reality. The expected prevalence of augmented reality applications necessitates a deeper study not only of their security but the expected challenges of users using such applications as well.

In today's world privacy is paramount in everyone's life. Alongside the growth of IoT (Internet of things), wearable devices are becoming widely popular for real-time user monitoring and wise service support. However, in contrast with the traditional short-range communications, these resource-scanty devices face various vulnerabilities and security threats during the course of interactions. Hence, designing a security solution for these devices while dealing with the limited communication and computation capabilities is a challenging task. In this work, PUF (Physical Unclonable Function) and lightweight cryptographic parameters are used together for performing two-way authentication between wearable devices and smartphone, while the simultaneous verification is performed by providing yoking-proofs to the Cloud Server. At the end, it is shown that the proposed scheme satisfies many security aspects and is flexible as well as lightweight.