Biblio

Key derivation from the physical layer features of the communication channels is a promising approach which can help the key management and security enhancement in communication networks. In this paper, we consider a key generation technique that quantizes the received signal phase to obtain the secret keys. We then study the effect of a jamming attack on this system. The jammer is an active attacker that tries to make a disturbance in the key derivation procedure and changes the phase of the received signal by transmitting an adversary signal. We evaluate the effect of jamming on the security performance of the system and show the ways to improve this performance. Our numerical results show that more phase quantization regions limit the probability of successful attacks.

In the smart grid, residents' electricity usage needs to be periodically measured and reported for the purpose of better energy management. At the same time, real-time collection of residents' electricity consumption may unfavorably incur privacy leakage, which has motivated the research on privacy-preserving aggregation of electricity readings. Most previous studies either rely on a trusted third party (TTP) or suffer from expensive computation. In this paper, we first reveal the privacy flaws of a very recent scheme pursing privacy preservation without relying on the TTP. By presenting concrete attacks, we show that this scheme has failed to meet the design goals. Then, for better privacy protection, we construct a new scheme called PMDA, which utilizes Shamir's secret sharing to allow smart meters to negotiate aggregation parameters in the absence of a TTP. Using only lightweight cryptography, PMDA efficiently supports multi-functional aggregation of the electricity readings, and simultaneously preserves residents' privacy. Theoretical analysis is provided with regard to PMDA's security and efficiency. Moreover, experimental data obtained from a prototype indicates that our proposal is efficient and feasible for practical deployment.

Cryptographic applications need high-quality random number generator (RNG) for strong security and privacy measures. This paper presents RNG based on a hydrogen gas sensor that is fabricated by using microfabrication techniques. The proposed approach extracts the thermal noise information as an entropy source from the gas sensor that is non-deterministic during its operation and using hash function SHA-256 as post processing. This non-deterministic noise is then processed to acquire a random number set fulfilling the NIST 800-22 statistical randomness test suite and it demonstrates that a gas sensor based RNG can provide high-quality random numbers. Secure data transfer is possible by having this method directly without any other hardware where hydrogen gas sensor needs to be used such as petrochemical field, fuel cells, and nuclear reactors.

Over the past few years, botnets have emerged as one of the most serious cybersecurity threats faced by individuals and organizations. After infecting millions of servers and workstations worldwide, botmasters have started to develop botnets for mobile devices. Mobile botnets use different mediums to communicate with their botmasters. Although significant research has been done to detect mobile botnets that use the Internet as their command and control (C&C) channel, little research has investigated SMS botnets per se. In order to fill this gap, in this paper, we first divide SMS botnets based on their characteristics into three families, namely, info stealer, SMS stealer, and SMS spammer. Then, we propose SMSBotHunter, a novel anomaly detection technique that detects SMS botnets using textual and behavioral features and one-class classification. We experimentally evaluate the detection performance of SMSBotHunter by simulating the behavior of human users and SMS botnets. The experimental results demonstrate that most of the SMS messages sent or received by info stealer and SMS spammer botnets can be detected using textual features exclusively. It is also revealed that behavioral features are crucial for the detection of SMS stealer botnets and will improve the overall detection performance.

A Robot Operating System (ROS) plays a significant role in organizing industrial robots for manufacturing. With an increasing number of the robots, the operators integrate a ROS with networked communication to share the data. This cyber-physical nature exposes the ROS to cyber attacks. To this end, this paper proposes a cross-layer approach to achieve secure and resilient control of a ROS. In the physical layer, due to the delay caused by the security mechanism, we design a time-delay controller for the ROS agent. In the cyber layer, we define cyber states and use Markov Decision Process to evaluate the tradeoffs between physical and security performance. Due to the uncertainty of the cyber state, we extend the MDP to a Partially Observed Markov Decision Process (POMDP). We propose a threshold solution based on our theoretical results. Finally, we present numerical examples to evaluate the performance of the secure and resilient mechanism.

It is a research hotspot that using blockchain technology to solve the security problems of the Internet of Things (IoT). Although many related ideas have been proposed, there are very few literatures with theoretical and data support. This paper focuses on the research of model construction and performance evaluation. First, an IoT security model is established based on blockchain and InterPlanetary File System (IPFS). In this model, many security risks of traditional IoT architectures can be avoided, and system performance is significantly improved in distributed large capacity storage, concurrency and query. Secondly, the performance of the proposed model is evaluated through the average latency and throughput, which are meaningful for further research and optimization of this direction. Analysis and test results demonstrate the effectiveness of the blockchain-based security model.

In this cyber era, the cyber threats have reached a new level of menace and maturity. One of the major threat in this cyber world nowadays is ransomware attack which had affected millions of computers. Ransomware locks the valuable data with often unbreakable encryption codes making it inaccessible for both organization and consumers, thus demanding heavy ransom to decrypt the data. In this paper, advanced and improved version of the Petya ransomware has been introduced which has a reduced anti-virus detection of 33% which actually was 71% with the original version. System behavior is also monitored during the attack and analysis of this behavior is performed and described. Along with the behavioral analysis two mitigation strategies have also been proposed to defend the systems from the ransomware attack. This multi-layered approach for the security of the system will minimize the rate of infection as cybercriminals continue to refine their tactics, making it difficult for the organization's complacent development.

With the development of wireless communication, the reliability and the security of data is very significant for the wireless communication. In this paper, a delayed feedback chaotic encryption algorithm based on polar codes is proposed. In order to protect encoding information, we make uses of wireless channels to extract binary keys. The extracted binary keys will be used as the initial value of chaotic system to produce chaotic sequences. Besides, we use the chain effects of delayed feedback, which increase the difficulty of cryptanalysis. The results of the theoretical analyses and simulations show that the algorithm could guarantee the security of data transmission without affecting reliability.

This paper is to design substitution boxes (S-Boxes) using innovative I-Ching operators (ICOs) that have evolved from ancient Chinese I-Ching philosophy. These three operators-intrication, turnover, and mutual- inherited from I-Ching are specifically designed to generate S-Boxes in cryptography. In order to analyze these three operators, identity, compositionality, and periodicity measures are developed. All three operators are only applied to change the output positions of Boolean functions. Therefore, the bijection property of S-Box is satisfied automatically. It means that our approach can avoid singular values, which is very important to generate S-Boxes. Based on the periodicity property of the ICOs, a new network is constructed, thus to be applied in the algorithm for designing S-Boxes. To examine the efficiency of our proposed approach, some commonly used criteria are adopted, such as nonlinearity, strict avalanche criterion, differential approximation probability, and linear approximation probability. The comparison results show that S-Boxes designed by applying ICOs have a higher security and better performance compared with other schemes. Furthermore, the proposed approach can also be used to other practice problems in a similar way.

Information security has become a major challenge in data transmission. Data transmitted through the network is vulnerable to many passive and active attacks. Cryptographic algorithms provide security against the data intruders and provide secure network communication. In this method, two algorithms TEA and DNA are combined to form a new algorithm called DETD (Double Encryption using TEA and DNA). The algorithm mainly deals with encryption and decryption time of a given input text. Here, both the encryption and decryption time are compared with the other two algorithms and the results are recorded. This algorithm also aims to provide data security by increasing the levels of encryption.

Cloud computing undoubtedly is the most unparalleled technique in rapidly developing industries. Protecting sensitive files stored in the clouds from being accessed by malicious attackers is essential to the success of the clouds. In proxy re-encryption schemes, users delegate their encrypted files to other users by using re-encryption keys, which elegantly transfers the users' burden to the cloud servers. Moreover, one can adopt conditional proxy re-encryption schemes to employ their access control policy on the files to be shared. However, we recognize that the size of re-encryption keys will grow linearly with the number of the condition values, which may be impractical in low computational devices. In this paper, we combine a key-aggregate approach and a proxy re-encryption scheme into a key-aggregate proxy re-encryption scheme. It is worth mentioning that the proposed scheme is the first key-aggregate proxy re-encryption scheme. As a side note, the size of re-encryption keys is constant.

Ciphertext policy attribute-based encryption (CP-ABE) is a promising cryptographic technology that provides fine-grained access control as well as data confidentiality. It enables one sender to encrypt the data for more receivers, and to specify a policy on who can decrypt the ciphertext using his/her attributes alone. However, most existing ABE schemes are constructed on bilinear maps and they cannot resist quantum attacks. In this paper, we propose a multi-authority CP-ABE (MA-CPABE) scheme on ideal lattices which is still secure in post-quantum era. On one hand, multiple attribute authorities are required when user's attributes cannot be managed by a central authority. On the other hand, compared with generic lattice, the ideal lattice has extra algebraic structure and can be used to construct more efficient cryptographic applications. By adding some virtual attributes for each authority, our scheme can support flexible threshold access policy. Security analysis shows that the proposed scheme is secure against chosen plaintext attack (CPA) in the standard model under the ring learning with errors (R-LWE) assumption.

Cryptography is widely adopted in computer systems to protect the confidentiality of sensitive information. The security relies on the assumption that cryptography keys are never leaked, which may be broken by the memory disclosure attacks, e.g., the Heartbleed and coldboot attacks. Various schemes are proposed to defend against memory disclosure attacks, e.g., performing the cryptographic computations in registers, or adopting the hardware features (e.g., Intel TSX and Intel SGX) to ensure that the plaintext of the cryptography key never appears in memory. However, these schemes are still not widely deployed due to the following limitations: (a) Most of the schemes are deployed in the OS kernel and require the root (or administrator) privileges of the host; and (b) They require the programmers to integrate these protection schemes in the implementation of different cryptography algorithms on different platforms. In this paper, we propose a tool implemented in Clang/LLVM, named Peapods, which provides the user-mode protection for cryptographic keys in software engines. It introduces one qualifier and three intrinsics for the programmers to specify the sensitive variables and code fragments to be protected, making it easier to be deployed. Peapods adopts transactional memory to protect cryptographic keys, while it is OS-independent and does not require the cryptographic computation performed in the OS kernel. Peapods supports the automatic protection between transactions for better performance. We have implemented the prototype of Peapods. Evaluation results demonstrate that Peapods achieves the design goals with a modest overhead (less than 10%).

A Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET) is considered a type of network which is wireless and has no fixed infrastructure composed of a set if nodes in self organized fashion which are randomly, frequently and unpredictably mobile. MANETs can be applied in both military and civil environments ones because of its numerous applications. This is due to their special characteristics and self-configuration capability. This is due to its dynamic nature, lack of fixed infrastructure, and the no need of being centrally managed; a special type of routing protocols such as Anonymous routing protocols are needed to hide the identifiable information of communicating parties, while preserving the communication secrecy. This paper provides an examination of a comprehensive list of anonymous routing protocols in MANET, focusing their security and performance capabilities.

Quantum information exchange computer emulator is presented, which takes into consideration imperfections of real quantum channel such as noise and attenuation resulting in the necessity to increase number of photons in the impulse. The Qt Creator C++ program package provides evaluation of the ability to detect unauthorized access as well as an amount of information intercepted by intruder.

Tremendous amount of research is going on in the field of Intelligent vehicles (IVs)in industries and academics. Although, IV supports a better convenience for the society, but it also suffers from some concerns. Security is the major concern in Intelligent vehicle technology, due to its high exposure to data and information communication. The environment of the IV communication has many security vulnerabilities, which cannot be solved by Traditional Security approaches due to their fixed capabilities. Among security, trust, data accuracy and reliability of communication data in the communication channel are the other issues in IV communication. Blockchain is a peer-to-peer, distributed and decentralized technology which is used by the digital currency Bit-coin, to build trust and reliability and it has capability and is feasible to use Blockchain in IV Communication. In this paper, we propose, Blockchain based crypto Trust point (cTp) mechanism for IV communication. Using cTp in the IVs communication environment can provide IV data security and reliability. cTp mechanism accounts for the legitimate and illegitimate vehicles behavior, and rewarding thereby building trust among the vehicles. We also propose a reward based system using cTp (exchange of some cTp among IVs, during successful communication). We use blockchain technology in the Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) for the data management of the cTp. Using ITS, cTp details of every vehicle can be accessed ubiquitously by IVs. We evaluation, our proposal using the intersection use case scenario for intelligent vehicles communication.

In recent years, the area of Mobile Ad-hoc Net-work(MANET) has received considerable attention among the research community owing to the advantages in its networking features as well as solving the unsolved issues in it. One field which needs more security is the mobile ad hoc network. Mobile Ad-hoc Network is a temporary network composed of mobile nodes, connected by wireless links, without fixed infrastructure. Network security plays a crucial role in this MANET and the traditional way of protecting the networks through firewalls and encryption software is no longer effective and sufficient. In order to provide additional security to the MANET, intrusion detection mechanisms should be added. In this paper, selective acknowledgment is used for detecting malicious nodes in the Mobile ad-hoc network is proposed. In this paper we propose a novel mechanism called selective acknowledgment for solving problems that airse with Adaptive ACKnowledgment (AACK). This mechanism is an enhancement to the AACK scheme where its Packet delivery ration and detection overhead is reduced. NS2 is used to simulate and evaluate the proposed scheme and compare it against the AACK. The obtained results show that the selective acknowledgment scheme outperforms AACK in terms of network packet delivery ratio and routing overhead.

Increased use of secure chat and voice/ video apps has transformed the social life. While the benefits and facilitations are seemingly limitless, so are the asscoiacted vulnerabilities and threats. Besides ensuring confidentiality requirements for common users, known facts of non-readable contents over the network make these apps more attractive for criminals. Though access to contents of cryptograhically secure sessions is not possible, network forensics of secure apps can provide interesting information which can be of great help during criminal invetigations. In this paper, we presented a novel framework of profiling the secure chat and voice/ video calling apps which can be employed to extract hidden patterns about the app, information of involved parties, activities of chatting, voice/ video calls, status indications and notifications while having no information of communication protocol of the app and its security architecture. Signatures of any secure app can be developed though our framework and can become base of a large scale solution. Our methodology is considered very important for different cases of criminal investigations and bussiness intelligence solutions for service provider networks. Our results are applicable to any mobile platform of iOS, android and windows.

Cloud computing denotes an IT infrastructure where data and software are stored and processed remotely in a data center of a cloud provider, which are accessible via an Internet service. This new paradigm is increasingly reaching the ears of companies and has revolutionized the marketplace of today owing to several factors, in particular its cost-effective architectures covering transmission, storage and intensive data computing. However, like any new technology, the cloud computing technology brings new problems of security, which represents the main restrain on turning to this paradigm. For this reason, users are reluctant to resort to the cloud because of security and protection of private data as well as lack of trust in cloud service providers. The work in this paper allows the readers to familiarize themselves with the field of security in the cloud computing paradigm while suggesting our contribution in this context. The security schema we propose allowing a distant user to ensure a completely secure migration of all their data anywhere in the cloud through DNA cryptography. Carried out experiments showed that our security solution outperforms its competitors in terms of integrity and confidentiality of data.

In the process of mobile intelligent terminal for file transfer, ensure the safety of data transmission is significant. It is necessary to prevent the file from being eavesdropped and tampered during transmission. The method of using double encryption on covert channel is proposed in this paper based on the analysis of encryption algorithms and covert channel, which uses asymmetric encryption algorithm to encrypt the key of symmetric encryption, to form hidden information, and to carry out covert transmission through covert channels to enhance the security of mobile terminal data transmission. By simulating the above scenarios in intelligent mobile terminal, the confidentiality and concealment of important information are realized in the transmission process.

Cloud computing has a major role in the development of commercial systems. It enables companies like Microsoft, Amazon, IBM and Google to deliver their services on a large scale to its users. A cloud service provider manages cloud computing based services and applications. For any organization a cloud service provider (CSP) is an entity which works within it. So it suffers from vulnerabilities associated with organization, including internal and external attacks. So its challenge to organization to secure a cloud service provider while providing quality of service. Attribute based encryption can be used to provide data security with Key policy attribute based encryption (KP-ABE) or ciphertext policy attribute based encryption (CP-ABE). But these schemes has lack of scalability and flexibility. Hierarchical CP-ABE scheme is proposed here to provide fine grained access control. Data security is achieved using encryption, authentication and authorization mechanisms. Attribute key generation is proposed for implementing authorization of users. The proposed system is prevented by SQL Injection attack.

Medical organizations find it challenging to adopt cloud-based electronic medical records services, due to the risk of data breaches and the resulting compromise of patient data. Existing authorization models follow a patient centric approach for EHR management where the responsibility of authorizing data access is handled at the patients' end. This however creates a significant overhead for the patient who has to authorize every access of their health record. This is not practical given the multiple personnel involved in providing care and that at times the patient may not be in a state to provide this authorization. Hence there is a need of developing a proper authorization delegation mechanism for safe, secure and easy cloud-based EHR management. We have developed a novel, centralized, attribute based authorization mechanism that uses Attribute Based Encryption (ABE) and allows for delegated secure access of patient records. This mechanism transfers the service management overhead from the patient to the medical organization and allows easy delegation of cloud-based EHR's access authority to the medical providers. In this paper, we describe this novel ABE approach as well as the prototype system that we have created to illustrate it.

Exclusive-or (XOR) operations are common in cryptographic protocols, in particular in RFID protocols and electronic payment protocols. Although there are numerous applications, due to the inherent complexity of faithful models of XOR, there is only limited tool support for the verification of cryptographic protocols using XOR. The Tamarin prover is a state-of-the-art verification tool for cryptographic protocols in the symbolic model. In this paper, we improve the underlying theory and the tool to deal with an equational theory modeling XOR operations. The XOR theory can be freely combined with all equational theories previously supported, including user-defined equational theories. This makes Tamarin the first tool to support simultaneously this large set of equational theories, protocols with global mutable state, an unbounded number of sessions, and complex security properties including observational equivalence. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach by analyzing several protocols that rely on XOR, in particular multiple RFID-protocols, where we can identify attacks as well as provide proofs.

Blockchain technology has brought a huge paradigm shift in multiple industries, by integrating distributed ledger, smart contracts and consensus protocol under the same roof. Notable applications of blockchain include cryptocurrencies and large-scale multi-party transaction management systems. The latter fits very well into the domain of manufacturing and supply chain management for Integrated Circuits (IC), which, despite several advanced technologies, is vulnerable to malicious practices, such as overproduction, IP piracy and deleterious design modification to gain unfair advantages. To combat these threats, researchers have proposed several ideas like hardware metering, design obfuscation, split manufacturing and watermarking. In this paper, we show, how these issues can be complementarily dealt with using blockchain technology coupled with identity-based encryption and physical unclonable functions, for improved resilience against certain adversarial motives. As part of our proposed blockchain protocol, titled `BLIC', we propose an authentication mechanism to secure both active and passive IC transactions, and a composite consensus protocol designed for IC supply chains. We also present studies on the security, scalability, privacy and anonymity of the BLIC protocol.

The Blockchain is an emerging paradigm that could solve security and trust issues for Internet of Things (IoT) platforms. We recently introduced in an IETF draft (“Blockchain Transaction Protocol for Constraint Nodes”) the BIoT paradigm, whose main idea is to insert sensor data in blockchain transactions. Because objects are not logically connected to blockchain platforms, controller entities forward all information needed for transaction forgery. Never less in order to generate cryptographic signatures, object needs some trusted computing resources. In previous papers we proposed the Four-Quater Architecture integrating general purpose unit (GPU), radio SoC, sensors/actuators and secure elements including TLS/DTLS stacks. These secure microcontrollers also manage crypto libraries required for blockchain operation. The BIoT concept has four main benefits: publication/duplication of sensors data in public and distributed ledgers, time stamping by the blockchain infrastructure, data authentication, and non repudiation.