Personal computer security system

This work consists on the design and implementation of a complete monitored security system. Two computers make up the basic system: one computer is the transmitter and the other is the receiver. Both computers interconnect by modems. Depending on the status of the input sensors (magnetic contacts, motion detectors and others) the transmitter detects an alarm condition and sends a detailed report of the event via modem to the receiver computer.

Defense Against Node Compromise in Sensor Network Security

Recent advances in electronic and computer technologies lead to wide-spread deployment of wireless sensor networks (WSNs). WSNs have wide range applications, including military sensing and tracking, environment monitoring, smart environments, etc. Many WSNs have mission-critical tasks, such as military applications. Thus, the security issues in WSNs are kept in the foreground among research areas. Compared with other wireless networks, such as ad hoc, and cellular networks, security in WSNs is more complicated due to the constrained capabilities of sensor nodes and the properties of the deployment, such as large scale, hostile environment, etc. Security issues mainly come from attacks. In general, the attacks in WSNs can be classified as external attacks and internal attacks. In an external attack, the attacking node is not an authorized participant of the sensor network. Cryptography and other security methods can prevent some of external attacks. However, node compromise, the major and unique problem that leads to internal attacks, will eliminate all the efforts to prevent attacks. Knowing the probability of node compromise will help systems to detect and defend against it. Although there are some approaches that can be used to detect and defend against node compromise, few of them have the ability to estimate the probability of node compromise. Hence, we develop basic uniform, basic gradient, intelligent uniform and intelligent gradient models for node compromise distribution in order to adapt to different application environments by using probability theory. These models allow systems to estimate the probability of node compromise. Applying these models in system security designs can improve system security and decrease the overheads nearly in every security area. Moreover, based on these models, we design a novel secure routing algorithm to defend against the routing security issue that comes from the nodes that have already been compromised but have not been detected by the node compromise detecting mechanism. The routing paths in our algorithm detour those nodes which have already been detected as compromised nodes or have larger probabilities of being compromised. Simulation results show that our algorithm is effective to protect routing paths from node compromise whether detected or not.

Trust Based Security Mechanisms for Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks are emerging as effective tools in the gathering and dissemination of data. They can be applied in many fields including health, environmental monitoring, home automation and the military. Like all other computing systems it is necessary to include security features, so that security sensitive data traversing the network is protected. However, traditional security techniques cannot be applied to wireless sensor networks. This is due to the constraints of battery power, memory, and the computational capacities of the miniature wireless sensor nodes. Therefore, to address this need, it becomes necessary to develop new lightweight security protocols. This dissertation focuses on designing a suite of lightweight trust-based security mechanisms and a cooperation enforcement protocol for wireless sensor networks. This dissertation presents a trust-based cluster head election mechanism used to elect new cluster heads. This solution prevents a major security breach against the routing protocol, namely, the election of malicious or compromised cluster heads. This dissertation also describes a location-aware, trust-based, compromise node detection, and isolation mechanism. Both of these mechanisms rely on the ability of a node to monitor its neighbors. Using neighbor monitoring techniques, the nodes are able to determine their neighbors’ reputation and trust level through probabilistic modeling. The mechanisms were designed to mitigate internal attacks within wireless sensor networks. The feasibility of the approach is demonstrated through extensive simulations. The dissertation also addresses non-cooperation problems in multi-user wireless sensor networks. A scalable lightweight enforcement algorithm using evolutionary game theory is also designed. The effectiveness of this cooperation enforcement algorithm is validated through mathematical analysis and simulation. This research has advanced the knowledge of wireless sensor network security and cooperation by developing new techniques based on mathematical models. By doing this, we have enabled others to build on our work towards the creation of highly trusted wireless sensor networks. This would facilitate its full utilization in many fields ranging from civilian to military applications.

Looking for Determinants of Ontological Security in the Spain of the Crisis

The concept of ontological security has a remarkable echo in the current sociology to describe emotional status of men of late modernity. However, the concept created by Giddens in the eighties has been little used in empirical research covering various sources of risk or uncertainty. In this paper, a scale for ontological security is proposed. To do this, we start from the results of a research focused on the relationship between risk, uncertainty and vulnerability in the context of the economic crisis in Spain. These results were produced through nine focus groups and a telephone survey with standardized questionnaire applied to a national sample of 2,408 individuals over 18 years. This work is divided into three main sections. In the fi rst, a scale has been built from the results of the application of different items present in the questionnaire used. The second part explores the relationships of the scale obtained with the variables further approximate the emotional dimensions of individuals. The third part observes the variables that contribute to changes in the scale: These variables show the structural feature of the ontological security.

Why Cyber Security is Hard

Abstract There has been a great deal of interest in the area of cyber security in recent years. But what is cyber security exactly? And should society really care about it? We look at some of the challenges of being an academic working in the area of cyber security and explain why cyber security is, to put it rather simply, hard! Speaker Biography Keith Martin Prof. Keith Martin is Professor of Information Security at Royal Holloway, University of London. He received his BSc (Hons) in Mathematics from the University of Glasgow in 1988 and a PhD from Royal Holloway in 1991. Between 1992 and 1996 he held a Research Fellowship at the University of Adelaide, investigating mathematical modelling of cryptographic key distribution problems. In 1996 he joined the COSIC research group of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, working on security for third generation mobile communications. Keith rejoined Royal Holloway in January 2000, became a Professor in Information Security in 2007 and was Director of the Information Security Group between 2010 and 2015. Keith's research interests range across cyber security, but with a focus on cryptographic applications. He is the author of 'Everyday Cryptography' published by Oxford University Press.

A Framework for Security Transparency in Cloud Computing

Individuals and corporate users are persistently considering cloud adoption due to its significant benefits compared to traditional computing environments. The data and applications in the cloud are stored in an environment that is separated, managed and maintained externally to the organisation. Therefore, it is essential for cloud providers to demonstrate and implement adequate security practices to protect the data and processes put under their stewardship. Security transparency in the cloud is likely to become the core theme that underpins the systematic disclosure of security designs and practices that enhance customer confidence in using cloud service and deployment models. In this paper, we present a framework that enables a detailed analysis of security transparency for cloud based systems. In particular, we consider security transparency from three different levels of abstraction, i.e., conceptual, organisation and technical levels, and identify the relevant concepts within these levels. This allows us to provide an elaboration of the essential concepts at the core of transparency and analyse the means for implementing them from a technical perspective. Finally, an example from a real world migration context is given to provide a solid discussion on the applicability of the proposed framework.

Security Evaluation of Substation Network Architectures

In recent years, security of industrial control systems has been the main research focus due to the potential cyber-attacks that can impact the physical operations. As a result of these risks, there has been an urgent need to establish a stronger security protection against these threats. Conventional firewalls with stateful rules can be implemented in the critical cyberinfrastructure environment which might require constant updates. Despite the ongoing effort to maintain the rules, the protection mechanism does not restrict malicious data flows and it poses the greater risk of potential intrusion occurrence. The contributions of this thesis are motivated by the aforementioned issues which include a systematic investigation of attack-related scenarios within a substation network in a reliable sense. The proposed work is two-fold: (i) system architecture evaluation and (ii) construction of attack tree for a substation network. Cyber-system reliability remains one of the important factors in determining the system bottleneck for investment planning and maintenance. It determines the longevity of the system operational period with or without any disruption. First, a complete enumeration of existing implementation is exhaustively identified with existing communication architectures (bidirectional) and new ones with strictly unidirectional. A detailed modeling of the extended 10 system architectures has been evaluated. Next, attack tree modeling for potential substation threats is formulated. This quantifies the potential risks for possible attack scenarios within a network or from the external networks. The analytical models proposed in this thesis can serve as a fundamental development that can be further researched.

Ray-tracing assessment of the robustness of Physical Layer Security key generation protocol

Nowadays, information security is a very important topic. In particular, wireless networks are experiencing an ongoing widespread diffusion, also thanks the increasing number of Internet Of Things devices, which generate and transmit a lot of data: protecting wireless communications is of fundamental importance, possibly through an easy but secure method. Physical Layer Security is an umbrella of techniques that leverages the characteristic of the wireless channel to generate security for the transmission. In particular, the Physical Layer based-Key generation aims at allowing two users to generate a random symmetric keys in an autonomous way, hence without the aid of a trusted third entity. Physical Layer based-Key generation relies on observations of the wireless channel, from which harvesting entropy: however, an attacker might possesses a channel simulator, for example a Ray Tracing simulator, to replicate the channel between the legitimate users, in order to guess the secret key and break the security of the communication. This thesis work is focused on the possibility to carry out a so called Ray Tracing attack: the method utilized for the assessment consist of a set of channel measurements, in different channel conditions, that are then compared with the simulated channel from the ray tracing, to compute the mutual information between the measurements and simulations. Furthermore, it is also presented the possibility of using the Ray Tracing as a tool to evaluate the impact of channel parameters (e.g. the bandwidth or the directivity of the antenna) on the Physical Layer based-Key generation. The measurements have been carried out at the Barkhausen Institut gGmbH in Dresden (GE), in the framework of the existing cooperation agreement between BI and the Dept. of Electrical, Electronics and Information Engineering "G. Marconi" (DEI) at the University of Bologna.

Security enhancements and flaws of emerging communication technologies

The multi-faced evolution of network technologies ranges from big data centers to specialized network infrastructures and protocols for mission-critical operations. For instance, technologies such as Software Defined Networking (SDN) revolutionized the world of static configuration of the network - i.e., by removing the distributed and proprietary configuration of the switched networks - centralizing the control plane. While this disruptive approach is interesting from different points of view, it can introduce new unforeseen vulnerabilities classes. One topic of particular interest in the last years is industrial network security, an interest which started to rise in 2016 with the introduction of the Industry 4.0 (I4.0) movement. Networks that were basically isolated by design are now connected to the internet to collect, archive, and analyze data. While this approach got a lot of momentum due to the predictive maintenance capabilities, these network technologies can be exploited in various ways from a cybersecurity perspective. Some of these technologies lack security measures and can introduce new families of vulnerabilities. On the other side, these networks can be used to enable accurate monitoring, formal verification, or defenses that were not practical before. This thesis explores these two fields: by introducing monitoring, protections, and detection mechanisms where the new network technologies make it feasible; and by demonstrating attacks on practical scenarios related to emerging network infrastructures not protected sufficiently. The goal of this thesis is to highlight this lack of protection in terms of attacks on and possible defenses enabled by emerging technologies. We will pursue this goal by analyzing the aforementioned technologies and by presenting three years of contribution to this field. In conclusion, we will recapitulate the research questions and give answers to them.

Security and privacy of resource constrained devices

The thesis aims to present a comprehensive and holistic overview on cybersecurity and privacy & data protection aspects related to IoT resource-constrained devices. Chapter 1 introduces the current technical landscape by providing a working definition and architecture taxonomy of ‘Internet of Things’ and ‘resource-constrained devices’, coupled with a threat landscape where each specific attack is linked to a layer of the taxonomy. Chapter 2 lays down the theoretical foundations for an interdisciplinary approach and a unified, holistic vision of cybersecurity, safety and privacy justified by the ‘IoT revolution’ through the so-called infraethical perspective. Chapter 3 investigates whether and to what extent the fast-evolving European cybersecurity regulatory framework addresses the security challenges brought about by the IoT by allocating legal responsibilities to the right parties. Chapters 4 and 5 focus, on the other hand, on ‘privacy’ understood by proxy as to include EU data protection. In particular, Chapter 4 addresses three legal challenges brought about by the ubiquitous IoT data and metadata processing to EU privacy and data protection legal frameworks i.e., the ePrivacy Directive and the GDPR. Chapter 5 casts light on the risk management tool enshrined in EU data protection law, that is, Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) and proposes an original DPIA methodology for connected devices, building on the CNIL (French data protection authority) model.

Adaptable security in the cloud-to-thing continuum

Recent technological advancements have played a key role in seamlessly integrating cloud, edge, and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, giving rise to the Cloud-to-Thing Continuum paradigm. This cloud model connects many heterogeneous resources that generate a large amount of data and collaborate to deliver next-generation services. While it has the potential to reshape several application domains, the number of connected entities remarkably broadens the security attack surface. One of the main problems is the lack of security measures to adapt to the dynamic and evolving conditions of the Cloud-To-Thing Continuum. To address this challenge, this dissertation proposes novel adaptable security mechanisms. Adaptable security is the capability of security controls, systems, and protocols to dynamically adjust to changing conditions and scenarios. However, since the design and development of novel security mechanisms can be explored from different perspectives and levels, we place our attention on threat modeling and access control. The contributions of the thesis can be summarized as follows. First, we introduce a model-based methodology that secures the design of edge and cyber-physical systems. This solution identifies threats, security controls, and moving target defense techniques based on system features. Then, we focus on access control management. Since access control policies are subject to modifications, we evaluate how they can be efficiently shared among distributed areas, highlighting the effectiveness of distributed ledger technologies. Furthermore, we propose a risk-based authorization middleware, adjusting permissions based on real-time data, and a federated learning framework that enhances trustworthiness by weighting each client's contributions according to the quality of their partial models. Finally, since authorization revocation is another critical concern, we present an efficient revocation scheme for verifiable credentials in IoT networks, featuring decentralization, demanding minimum storage and computing capabilities. All the mechanisms have been evaluated in different conditions, proving their adaptability to the Cloud-to-Thing Continuum landscape.

Addressing challenges in heterogeneous embedded systems programming: security and performance

Embedded systems are increasingly integral to daily life, improving and facilitating the efficiency of modern Cyber-Physical Systems which provide access to sensor data, and actuators. As modern architectures become increasingly complex and heterogeneous, their optimization becomes a challenging task. Additionally, ensuring platform security is important to avoid harm to individuals and assets. This study primarily addresses challenges in contemporary Embedded Systems, focusing on platform optimization and security enforcement. The initial section of this study delves into the application of machine learning methods to efficiently determine the optimal number of cores for a parallel RISC-V cluster to minimize energy consumption using static source code analysis. Results demonstrate that automated platform configuration is not only viable but also that there is a moderate performance trade-off when relying solely on static features. The second part focuses on addressing the problem of heterogeneous device mapping, which involves assigning tasks to the most suitable computational device in a heterogeneous platform for optimal runtime. The contribution of this section lies in the introduction of novel pre-processing techniques, along with a training framework called Siamese Networks, that enhances the classification performance of DeepLLVM, an advanced approach for task mapping. Importantly, these proposed approaches are independent from the specific deep-learning model used. Finally, this research work focuses on addressing issues concerning the binary exploitation of software running in modern Embedded Systems. It proposes an architecture to implement Control-Flow Integrity in embedded platforms with a Root-of-Trust, aiming to enhance security guarantees with limited hardware modifications. The approach involves enhancing the architecture of a modern RISC-V platform for autonomous vehicles by implementing a side-channel communication mechanism that relays control-flow changes executed by the process running on the host core to the Root-of-Trust. This approach has limited impact on performance and it is effective in enhancing the security of embedded platforms.

A power system control scheme based on security visualisation in parameter space

Power system real time security assessment is one of the fundamental modules of the electricity markets. Typically, when a contingency occurs, it is required that security assessment and enhancement module shall be ready for action within about 20 minutes’ time to meet the real time requirement. The recent California black out again highlighted the importance of system security. This paper proposed an approach for power system security assessment and enhancement based on the information provided from the pre-defined system parameter space. The proposed scheme opens up an efficient way for real time security assessment and enhancement in a competitive electricity market for single contingency case

The Future of the Australian-U.S. Security Relationship

Australia is an increasingly important ally for the United States. It is willing to be part of challenging global missions, and its strong economy and growing self-confi dence suggest a more prominent role in both global and regional affairs. Moreover, its government has worked hard to strengthen the link between Canberra and Washington. Political and strategic affi nities between the two countries have been refl ected in--and complemented by--practiced military interoperability, as the two allies have sustained a pattern of security cooperation in relation to East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq in the last 4 years. This growing collaboration between the two countries suggests that a reinvention of the traditional bilateral security relationship is taking place. At the core of this process lies an agreement about the need for engaging in more proactive strategic behavior in the changing global security environment, and a mutual acceptance of looming military and technological interdependence. But this new alliance relationship is already testing the boundaries of bipartisan support for security policy within Australia. Issues of strategic doctrine, defense planning, and procurement are becoming topics of fi erce policy debate. Such discussion is likely to be sharpened in the years ahead as Australia’s security relationship with the United States settles into a new framework.

Identity and security in Korea

The summit meeting between the two Korean heads of state, which took place in Pyongyang in June 2000, constitutes a major turning point in the peninsula's history. As the effects of the meeting are gradually unfolding, a period of detente no longer seems impossible. But major difficulties remain unsolved and Korea will continue to be one of the world's most volatile areas. The task of this essay is to identify and analyse some of the entrenched political patterns that will challenge policy-makers in the years ahead. To do so it is necessary to portray the conflict in Korea not only in conventional ideological and geopolitical terms, but also, and primarily, as a question of identity. From such a vantage-point two components are essential in the search for a more peaceful peninsula. Substantial progress has recently been made in the first realm, the need to approach security problems, no matter how volatile they seem. in a cooperative and dialogical, rather than merely a coercive manner. The second less accepted but perhaps more important factor, revolves around the necessity to recognize that dialogue has its limits, that the party on the other side of the DMZ cannot always be accommodated or subsumed into compromise. Needed is an ethics of difference: a willingness to accept that the other's sense of identity and politics may be inherently incompatible with one's own.