Biblio

Although function model has been widely applied to develop various operator decision support systems, the modeling process is essentially a manual work, which takes significant efforts on knowledge acquisition. It would greatly improve the efficiency of modeling if relevant information can be automatically retrieved from engineering documents. This paper investigates the possibility of automated transformation from P&IDs to a function model called MFM via AutomationML. Semantics and modeling patterns of MFM are established in AutomationML, which can be utilized to convert plant topology models into MFM models. The proposed approach is demonstrated with a small use case. Further topics for extending the study are also discussed.

Cloud security is one of the major issues that worry individuals and organizations about cloud computing. Therefore, defending cloud systems against attacks such asinsiders' attacks has become a key demand. This paper investigates insider threat in cloud relational database systems(cloud RDMS). It discusses some vulnerabilities in cloud computing structures that may enable insiders to launch attacks, and shows how load balancing across multiple availability zones may facilitate insider threat. To prevent such a threat, the paper suggests three models, which are Peer-to-Peer model, Centralized model and Mobile-Knowledgebase model, and addresses the conditions under which they work well.

The lack of standardization of the terms insider and insider threat has been a noted problem for researchers in the insider threat field. This paper describes the investigation of 42 different definitions of the terms insider and insider threat, with the goal of better understanding the current conceptual model of insider threat and facilitating communication in the research community.

Proliferation of the Internet usage is rapidly increasing, and it is necessary to support the performance requirements for multimedia applications, including lower latency, improved security, faster content retrieval, and adjustability to the traffic load. Nevertheless, because the current Internet architecture is a host-oriented one, it often fails to support the necessary demands such as fast content delivery. A promising networking paradigm called Information-Centric Networking (ICN) focuses on the name of the content itself rather than the location of that content. A distinguished alternative to this ICN concept is Content-Centric Networking (CCN) that exploits more of the performance requirements by using in-network caching and outperforms the current Internet in terms of content transfer time, traffic load control, mobility support, and efficient network management. In this paper, instead of using the saturated method of validating a theory by simulation, we present a testbed-based performance evaluation of the ICN network. We used several new functions of the proposed testbed to improve the performance of the basic CCN. In this paper, we also show that the proposed testbed architecture performs better in terms of content delivery time compared to the basic CCN architecture through graphical results.

Social Internet of Things (SIoT) is an extension of Internet of Things (IoT) that converges with Social networking concepts to create Social networks of interconnected smart objects. This convergence allows the enrichment of the two paradigms, resulting into new ecosystems. While IoT follows two interaction paradigms, human-to-human (H2H) and thing-to-thing (T2T), SIoT adds on human-to-thing (H2T) interactions. SIoT enables smart “Social objects” that intelligently mimic the social behavior of human in the daily life. These social objects are equipped with social functionalities capable of discovering other social objects in the surroundings and establishing social relationships. They crawl through the social network of objects for the sake of searching for services and information of interest. The notion of trust and trustworthiness in social communities formed in SIoT is still new and in an early stage of investigation. In this paper, our contributions are threefold. First, we present the fundamentals of SIoT and trust concepts in SIoT, clarifying the similarities and differences between IoT and SIoT. Second, we categorize the trust management solutions proposed so far in the literature for SIoT over the last six years and provide a comprehensive review. We then perform a comparison of the state of the art trust management schemes devised for SIoT by performing comparative analysis in terms of trust management process. Third, we identify and discuss the challenges and requirements in the emerging new wave of SIoT, and also highlight the challenges in developing trust and evaluating trustworthiness among the interacting social objects.

The algorithm of causal anomaly detection in industrial control physics is proposed to determine the normal cloud line of industrial control system so as to accurately detect the anomaly. In this paper, The causal modeling algorithm combining Maximum Information Coefficient and Transfer Entropy was used to construct the causal network among nodes in the system. Then, the abnormal nodes and the propagation path of the anomaly are deduced from the structural changes of the causal network before and after the attack. Finally, an anomaly detection algorithm based on hybrid differential cumulative is used to identify the specific anomaly data in the anomaly node. The stability of causality mining algorithm and the validity of locating causality anomalies are verified by using the data of classical chemical process. Experimental results show that the anomaly detection algorithm is better than the comparison algorithm in accuracy, false negative rate and recall rate, and the anomaly location strategy makes the anomaly source traceable.

The objective of this paper is to propose a model of a distributed intrusion detection system based on the multi-agent paradigm and the distributed file system (HDFS). Multi-agent systems (MAS) are very suitable to intrusion detection systems as they can address the issue of geographic data security in terms of autonomy, distribution and performance. The proposed system is based on a set of autonomous agents that cooperate and collaborate with each other to effectively detect intrusions and suspicious activities that may impact geographic information systems. Our system allows the detection of known and unknown computer attacks without any human intervention (Security Experts) unlike traditional intrusion detection systems that rely on knowledge bases as a mechanism to detect known attacks. The proposed model allows a real time detection of known and unknown attacks within large networks hosting geographic data.

Blockchain has received tremendous attention in non-monetary applications including the Internet of Things (IoT) due to its salient features including decentralization, security, auditability, and anonymity. Most conventional blockchains rely on computationally expensive validator selection and consensus algorithms, have limited throughput, and high transaction delays. In this paper, we propose tree-chain a scalable fast blockchain instantiation that introduces two levels of randomization among the validators: i) transaction level where the validator of each transaction is selected randomly based on the most significant characters of the hash function output (known as consensus code), and ii) blockchain level where validator is randomly allocated to a particular consensus code based on the hash of their public key. Tree-chain introduces parallel chain branches where each validator commits the corresponding transactions in a unique ledger.

Security has become a crucial consideration and is one of the most important design goals for an embedded system. This paper examines the type of boot sequence, and more specifically a trusted boot which utilizes the method of chain of trust. After defining these terms, this paper will examine the limitations of the existing safe boot, and finally propose the method of trusted boot based on hypothesis testing benchmark and the cost it takes to perform this method.

The advent of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) enabled a new class of smart and interactive devices. With their continuous connectivity and their access to valuable information in both the digital and physical world, they are attractive targets for security attackers. Hence, with their integration into both the industry and consumer devices, they added a new surface for cybersecurity attacks. These potential threats call for special care of security vulnerabilities during the design of IoT devices and CPS. The design of secure systems is a complex task, especially if they must adhere to other constraints, such as performance, power consumption, and others. A range of design space exploration tools have been proposed in academics, which aim to support system designers in their task of finding the optimal selection of hardware components and task mappings. Said tools offer a limited way of modeling attack scenarios as constraints for a system under design. The framework proposed in this paper aims at closing this gap, offering system designers a way to consider security attacks and security risks during the early design phase. It offers designers to model security constraints from the view of potential attackers, assessing the probability of successful security attacks and security risk. The framework's feasibility and performance is demonstrated by revisiting a potential system design of an industry partner.

In recent years, integrated circuits (ICs) have become significant for various industries and their security has been given greater priority, specifically in the supply chain. Budgetary constraints have compelled IC designers to offshore manufacturing to third-party companies. When the designer gets the manufactured ICs back, it is imperative to test for potential threats like hardware trojans (HT). In this paper, a novel multi-level game-theoretic framework is introduced to analyze the interactions between a malicious IC manufacturer and the tester. In particular, the game is formulated as a non-cooperative, zero-sum, repeated game using prospect theory (PT) that captures different players' rationalities under uncertainty. The repeated game is separated into a learning stage, in which the defender learns about the attacker's tendencies, and an actual game stage, where this learning is used. Experiments show great incentive for the attacker to deceive the defender about their actual rationality by "playing dumb" in the learning stage (deception). This scenario is captured using hypergame theory to model the attacker's view of the game. The optimal deception rationality of the attacker is analytically derived to maximize utility gain. For the defender, a first-step deception mitigation process is proposed to thwart the effects of deception. Simulation results show that the attacker can profit from the deception as it can successfully insert HTs in the manufactured ICs without being detected.

Ciphertext policy Attribute-based encryption (CPABE) plays an increasingly important role in the field of fine-grained access control for cloud storage. However, The exiting solution can not balance the issue of user identity tracking and user revocation. In this paper, we propose a CP-ABE scheme that supports association revocation and traceability. This scheme uses identity directory technology to realize single user revocation and associated user revocation, and the ciphertext re-encryption technology guarantees the forward security of revocation without updating the private key. In addition, we can accurately trace the identity of the user according to the decryption private key and effectively solve the problem of key abuse. This scheme is proved to be safe and traceable under the standard model, and can effectively control the computational and storage costs while maintaining functional advantages. It is suitable for the practical scenarios of tracking audit and user revocation.

Provable Data Possession (PDP) is one of the data security techniques to make sure that the data stored in the cloud storage exists. In PDP, the integrity of the data stored in the cloud storage is probabilistically verified by the user or a third-party auditor. In the conventional PDP, the user creates the metadata used for audition. From the viewpoint of user convenience, it is desirable to be able to audit without operations other than uploading. In other words, the challenge is to provide a transparent PDP that verifies the integrity of files according to the general cloud storage system model so as not to add operations to users. We propose a scheme in which the cloud generates the metadata used during verification, and the user only uploads files. It is shown that the proposed scheme is resistant to the forgery of cloud proof and the acquisition of data by a third-party auditor.

Since 2018, a broad class of microarchitectural attacks called transient execution attacks (e.g., Spectre and Meltdown) have been disclosed. By abusing speculative execution mechanisms in modern CPUs, these attacks enable adversaries to leak secrets across security boundaries. A transient execution attack typically evolves through multiple stages, termed the attack chain. We find that current transient execution attacks usually rely on static attack chains, resulting in that any blockage in an attack chain may cause the failure of the entire attack. In this paper, we propose a novel defense-aware framework, called TEADS, for synthesizing transient execution attacks dynamically. The main idea of TEADS is that: each attacking stage in a transient execution attack chain can be implemented in several ways, and the implementations used in different attacking stages can be combined together under certain constraints. By constructing an attacking graph representing combination relationships between the implementations and testing available paths in the attacking graph dynamically, we can finally synthesize transient execution attacks which can bypass the imposed defense techniques. Our contributions include: (1) proposing an automated defense-aware framework for synthesizing transient execution attacks, even though possible combinations of defense strategies are enabled; (2) presenting an attacking graph extension algorithm to detect potential attack chains dynamically; (3) implementing TEADS and testing it on several modern CPUs with different protection settings. Experimental results show that TEADS can bypass the defenses equipped, improving the adaptability and durability of transient execution attacks.

Password Guessing Attacks, for instance, Brute Force and word reference ambushes on online records are directly wide spread. Guarding the ambushes and giving the accommodating login the genuine customers together is a problematic endeavour. The present structures are lacking to give both the security and solace together. Phishing is a digital assault that targets credulous online clients fooling into uncovering delicate data, for example, username, secret key, standardized savings number or charge card number and so forth. Assailants fool the Internet clients by concealing site page as a dependable or real page to recover individual data. Password Guessing Attacks Resistance Protocol (PGARP) limits the full-scale number of logins attempts from darken remote hosts to as low as a single undertaking for each username, genuine customers all around (e.g., when tries are created utilizing known, occasionally used machines) can make a couple failed login tries before being tried with an ATT. A specific most distant point will be made to oblige the number of failed attempts with the ATT in order to keep the attacks. After the failed login attempt with ATT limit accomplished, an admonition will be sent to the customer concerning the failed login tries have accomplished the best measurement. This admonition will caution the customer and the customer will be urged to change the mystery expression and security question.

Brute-force login attempts are common for every host on the public Internet. While most of them can be discarded as low-threat attacks, targeted attack campaigns often use a dictionary-based brute-force attack to establish a foothold in the network. Therefore, it is important to characterize the attackers' behavior to prioritize defensive measures and react to new threats quickly. In this paper we present a set of metrics that can support threat hunters in characterizing brute-force login attempts. Based on connection metadata, timing information, and the attacker's dictionary these metrics can help to differentiate scans and to find common behavior across distinct IP addresses. We evaluated our novel metrics on a real-world data set of malicious login attempts collected by our honeypot Honeygrove. We highlight interesting metrics, show how clustering can be leveraged to reveal common behavior across IP addresses, and describe how selected metrics help to assess the threat level of attackers. Amongst others, we for example found strong indicators for collusion between ten otherwise unrelated IP addresses confirming that a clustering of the right metrics can help to reveal coordinated attacks.

P2P botnet has become one of the most serious threats to today's network security. It can be used to launch kinds of malicious activities, ranging from spamming to distributed denial of service attack. However, the detection of P2P botnet is always challenging because of its decentralized architecture. In this paper, we propose a two-stage P2P botnet detection method which only relies on several traffic statistical features. This method first detects P2P hosts based on three statistical features, and then distinguishes P2P bots from benign P2P hosts by means of another two statistical features. Experimental evaluations on real-world traffic datasets shows that our method is able to detect hidden P2P bots with a detection accuracy of 99.7% and a false positive rate of only 0.3% within 5 minutes.

The current paper is proposing a three-factor authentication (3FA) scheme based on three components. In the first component a token and a password will be generated (this module represents the kernel of the three-factor authentication scheme - 3FA). In the second component a pass-code will be generated, using to the token resulted in the first phase. We will use RSA for encryption and decryption of the generated values (token and pass-code). For the token ID and passcode the user will use his smartphone. The third component uses a searchable encryption scheme, whose purpose is to retrieve the documents of the user from the cloud server, based on a keyword and his/her fingerprint. The documents are stored encrypted on a mistrust server (cloud environment) and searchable encryption will help us to search specific information and to access those documents in an encrypted content. We will introduce also a software simulation developed in C\# 8.0 for our scheme and a source code analysis for the main algorithms.

The bioinformatics features are collected by pattern recognition technology, and the digital coding and format conversion of the feature data are realized by using the theory of topological group transformation. Authentication and Signature based on Zero Knowledge Proof Technology can be used as the trusted credentials of cloud platform and cannot be forged, thus realizing trusted and secure access.

This work describes the architecture and prototype implementation of a novel trust-aware continuous authorization technology that targets consumer Internet of Things (IoT), e.g., Smart Home. Our approach extends previous authorization models in three complementary ways: (1) By incorporating trust-level evaluation formulae as conditions inside authorization rules and policies, while supporting the evaluation of such policies through the fusion of an Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC) authorization policy engine with a Trust-Level-Evaluation-Engine (TLEE). (2) By introducing contextualized, continuous monitoring and re-evaluation of policies throughout the authorization life-cycle. That is, mutable attributes about subjects, resources and environment as well as trust levels that are continuously monitored while obtaining an authorization, throughout the duration of or after revoking an existing authorization. Whenever change is detected, the corresponding authorization rules, including both access control rules and trust level expressions, are re-evaluated.(3) By minimizing the computational and memory footprint and maximizing concurrency and modular evaluation to improve performance while preserving the continuity of monitoring. Finally we introduce an application of such model in Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) for consumer IoT.

Information Flow Control (IFC) is a collection of techniques for ensuring a no-write-down no-read-up style security policy known as noninterference. Traditional methods for both static (e.g. type systems) and dynamic (e.g. runtime monitors) IFC suffer from untenable numbers of false alarms on real-world programs. Secure Multi-Execution (SME) promises to provide secure information flow control without modifying the behaviour of already secure programs, a property commonly referred to as transparency. Implementations of SME exist for the web in the form of the FlowFox browser and as plug-ins to several programming languages. Furthermore, SME can in theory work in a black-box manner, meaning that it can be programming language agnostic, making it perfect for securing legacy or third-party systems. As such SME, and its variants like Multiple Facets (MF) and Faceted Secure Multi-Execution (FSME), appear to be a family of panaceas for the security engineer. The question is, how come, given all these advantages, that these techniques are not ubiquitous in practice? The answer lies, partially, in the issue of runtime and memory overhead. SME and its variants are prohibitively expensive to deploy in many non-trivial situations. The natural question is why is this the case? On the surface, the reason is simple. The techniques in the SME family all rely on the idea of multi-execution, running all or parts of a program multiple times to achieve noninterference. Naturally, this causes some overhead. However, the predominant thinking in the IFC community has been that these overheads can be overcome. In this paper we argue that there are fundamental reasons to expect this not to be the case and prove two key theorems: (1) All transparent enforcement is polynomial time equivalent to multi-execution. (2) All black-box enforcement takes time exponential in the number of principals in the security lattice. Our methods also allow us to answer, in the affirmative, an open question about the possibility of secure and transparent enforcement of a security condition known as Termination Insensitive Noninterference.

As a promising solution of spectrum shortage, spectrum sharing has received tremendous interests recently. However, under different sharing policies of different licensees, the shared spectrum is heterogeneous both temporally and spatially, and is usually uncertain due to the unpredictable activities of incumbent users. In this paper, considering the spectrum uncertainty, we propose a spectrum sharing based delay-tolerant traffic off-loading (SDTO) scheme. To capture the available heterogeneous shared bands, we adopt a mesh cognitive radio network and employ the multi-hop transmission mode. To statistically guarantee the end-to-end (E2E) session request under the uncertain spectrum supply, we formulate the SDTO scheme into a stochastic optimization problem, which is transformed into a mixed integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) problem. Then, a coarse-fine search based iterative heuristic algorithm is proposed to solve the MINLP problem. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed SDTO scheme can well schedule the network resource with an E2E session guarantee.

With the advent of networking technologies and increasing network attacks, Intrusion Detection systems are apparently needed to stop attacks and malicious activities. Various frameworks and techniques have been developed to solve the problem of intrusion detection, still there is need for new frameworks as per the challenging scenario of enormous scale in data size and nature of attacks. Current IDS systems pose challenges on the throughput to work with high speed networks. In this paper we address the issue of high computational overhead of anomaly based IDS and propose the solution using discretization as a data preprocessing step which can drastically reduce the computation overhead. We propose method to provide near real time detection of attacks using only basic flow level features that can easily be extracted from network packets.

Proof of integrity in produced video data by surveillance cameras requires active forensic methods such as signatures, otherwise authenticity and integrity can be comprised and data becomes unusable e. g. for legal evidence. But a simple file- or stream-signature loses its validity when the stream is cut in parts or by separating data and signature. Using the principles of security in distributed systems similar to those of blockchain and distributed ledger technologies (BC/DLT), a chain which consists of the frames of a video which frame hash values will be distributed among a camera sensor network is presented. The backbone of this Framechain within the camera sensor network will be a camera identity concept to ensure accountability, integrity and authenticity according to the extended CIA triad security concept. Modularity by secure sequences, autarky in proof and robustness against natural modulation of data are the key parameters of this new approach. It allows the standalone data and even parts of it to be used as hard evidence.

The number of organizations adopting the Data Warehouse (DW) technology along with data analytics in order to improve the effectiveness of their decision-making processes is permanently increasing. Despite the efforts invested, the DW design remains a great challenge research domain. More accurately, the design quality of the DW depends on several aspects; among them, the requirement-gathering phase is a critical and complex task. In this context, we propose a Natural language (NL) NL-template based design approach, which is twofold; firstly, it facilitates the involvement of decision-makers in the early step of the DW design; indeed, using NL is a good and natural means to encourage the decision-makers to express their requirements as query-like English sentences. Secondly, our approach aims to generate a DW multidimensional schema from a set of gathered requirements (as OLAP: On-Line-Analytical-Processing queries, written according to the NL suggested templates). This approach articulates around: (i) two NL-templates for specifying multidimensional components, and (ii) a set of five heuristic rules for extracting the multidimensional concepts from requirements. Really, we are developing a software prototype that accepts the decision-makers' requirements then automatically identifies the multidimensional components of the DW model.