Biblio

The increased power capacity and networking requirements in Extremely Fast Charging (XFC) systems for battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and the resulting increase in the adversarial attack surface call for security measures to be taken in the involved cyber-physical system (CPS). Within this system, the security of the BEV's battery management system (BMS) is of critical importance as the BMS is the first line of defense between the vehicle and the charge station. This study proposes an optimal control and moving-target defense (MTD) based novel approach for the security of the vehicle BMS) focusing on the charging process, during which a compromised vehicle may contaminate the XFC station and the whole grid. This paper is part of our ongoing research, which is one of the few, if not the first, reported studies in the literature on security-hardened BMS, aiming to increase the security and performance of operations between the charging station, the BMS and the battery system of electric vehicles. The developed MTD based switching strategy makes use of redundancies in the controller and feedback design. The performed simulations demonstrate an increased unpredictability and acceptable charging performance under adversarial attacks.

Software-defined networking (SDN) is a recently developed approach to computer networking that brings a centralized orientation to network control, thereby improving network architecture and management. However, as with any communication environment that involves message transmission among users, SDN is confronted by the ongoing challenge of protecting user privacy. In this “Work in Progress (WIP)” research, we propose an SDN security model that applies the moving target defense (MTD) technique to protect communication links from sensitive data leakages. MTD is a security solution aimed at increasing complexity and uncertainty for attackers by concealing sensitive information that may serve as a gateway from which to launch different types of attacks. The proposed MTD-based security model is intended to protect user identities contained in transmitted messages in a way that prevents network intruders from identifying the real identities of senders and receivers. According to the results from preliminary experiments, the proposed MTD model has potential to protect the identities contained in transmitted messages within communication links. This work will be extended to protect sensitive data if an attacker gets access to the network device.

Security issues in a Software Defined Network (SDN) environment like system vulnerabilities and intrusion attempts can pose a security risk for multi-tenant network managed by SDN. In this research work, Moving target defense (MTD)technique based on shuffle strategy - port hopping has been employed to increase the difficulty for the attacker trying to exploit the cloud network. Our research workMASON, considers the problem of multi-stage attacks in a network managed using SDN. SDN controller can be used to dynamically reconfigure the network and render attacker»s knowledge in multi-stage attacks redundant. We have used a threat score based on vulnerability information and intrusion attempts to identify Virtual Machines (VMs) in systems with high-security risk and implement MTD countermeasures port hopping to assess threat score reduction in a cloud network.

One of the main security concerns of enterprise-level organizations which provide network-based services is combating with complex cybersecurity attacks like advanced persistent threats (APTs). The main features of these attacks are being multilevel, multi-step, long-term and persistent. Also they use an intrusion kill chain (IKC) model to proceed the attack steps and reach their goals on targets. Traditional security solutions like firewalls and intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDPSs) are not able to prevent APT attack strategies and block them. Recently, deception techniques are proposed to defend network assets against malicious activities during IKC progression. One of the most promising approaches against APT attacks is Moving Target Defense (MTD). MTD techniques can be applied to attack steps of any abstraction levels in a networked infrastructure (application, host, and network) dynamically for disruption of successful execution of any on the fly IKCs. In this paper, after presentation and discussion on common introduced IKCs, one of them is selected and is used for further analysis. Also, after proposing a new and comprehensive taxonomy of MTD techniques in different levels, a mapping analysis is conducted between IKC models and existing MTD techniques. Finally, the effect of MTD is evaluated during a case study (specifically IP Randomization). The experimental results show that the MTD techniques provide better means to defend against IKC-based intrusion activities.

SDN provides a way to manage complex networks by introducing programmability and abstraction of the control plane. All networks suffer from attacks to critical infrastructure and services such as DDoS attacks. We make use of the programmability provided by the SDN environment to provide a game theoretic attack analysis and countermeasure selection model in this research work. The model is based on reward and punishment in a dynamic game with multiple players. The network bandwidth of attackers is downgraded for a certain period of time, and restored to normal when the player resumes cooperation. The presented solution is based on Nash Folk Theorem, which is used to implement a punishment mechanism for attackers who are part of DDoS traffic, and reward for players who cooperate, in effect enforcing desired outcome for the network administrator.