Digital Commons Network^™

A Systematic Review Of K-12 Cybersecurity Education Around The World, Ahmed Ibrahim, Marnie Mckee, Leslie F. Sikos, Nicola F. Johnson

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

This paper presents a systematic review of K-12 cybersecurity education literature from around the world. 24 academic papers dated from 2013-2023 were eligible for inclusion in the literature established within the research protocol. An additional 19 gray literature sources comprised the total. A range of recurring common topics deemed as aspects of cybersecurity behavior or practice were identified. A variety of cybersecurity competencies and skills are needed for K-12 students to apply their knowledge. As may be expected to be the case with interdisciplinary fields, studies are inherently unclear in the use of their terminology, and this is compounded in …

Attitudes And Perceptions Towards Privacy And Surveillance In Australia, Aleatha J. Shanley

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Understanding attitudes towards privacy and surveillance technologies used to enhance security objectives is a complex, but crucial aspect for policy makers to consider. Historically, terrorism-related incidents justified the uptake of surveillance practices. More recently however, biosecurity concerns have motivated nation-states to adopt more intrusive surveillance measures. There is a growing body of literature that supports the public’s desire to maintain privacy despite fears of biological or physical threats.

This research set out to explore attitudes towards privacy and surveillance in an Australian context. Throughout the course of this endeavour, the COVID-19 pandemic emerged bringing with it a variety of track …

A Conceptual Decentralized Identity Solution For State Government, Martin Duclos

Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, state governments, exemplified by Mississippi, have significantly expanded their online service offerings to reduce costs and improve efficiency. However, this shift has led to challenges in managing digital identities effectively, with multiple fragmented solutions in use. This paper proposes a Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) framework based on distributed ledger technology. SSI grants individuals control over their digital identities, enhancing privacy and security without relying on a centralized authority. The contributions of this research include increased efficiency, improved privacy and security, enhanced user satisfaction, and reduced costs in state government digital identity management. The paper provides background on digital …

Building A Diverse Cybersecurity Workforce: A Study On Attracting Learners With Varied Educational Backgrounds, Mubashrah Saddiqa, Kristian Helmer Kjær Larsen1 Helmer Kjær Larsen, Robert Nedergaard Nielsen, Jens Myrup Pedersen

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Cybersecurity has traditionally been perceived as a highly technical field, centered around hacking, programming, and network defense. However, this article contends that the scope of cybersecurity must transcend its technical confines to embrace a more inclusive approach. By incorporating various concepts such as privacy, data sharing, and ethics, cybersecurity can foster diversity among audiences with varying educational backgrounds, thereby cultivating a richer and more resilient security landscape. A more diverse cybersecurity workforce can provide a broader range of perspectives, experiences, and skills to address the complex and ever-evolving threats of the digital age. The research focuses on enhancing cybersecurity education …

Privacy-Preserving Bloom Filter-Based Keyword Search Over Large Encrypted Cloud Data, Yanrong Liang, Jianfeng Ma, Yinbin Miao, Da Kuang, Xiangdong Meng, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

To achieve the search over encrypted data in cloud server, Searchable Encryption (SE) has attracted extensive attention from both academic and industrial fields. The existing Bloom filter-based SE schemes can achieve similarity search, but will generally incur high false positive rates, and even leak the privacy of values in Bloom filters (BF). To solve the above problems, we first propose a basic Privacy-preserving Bloom filter-based Keyword Search scheme using the Circular Shift and Coalesce-Bloom Filter (CSC-BF) and Symmetric-key Hidden Vector Encryption (SHVE) technology (namely PBKS), which can achieve effective search while protecting the values in BFs. Then, we design a …

Metaverse Key Requirements And Platforms Survey, Akbobek Abilkaiyrkyzy, Ahmed Elhagry, Fedwa Laamarti, Abdulmotaleb El Saddik

Computer Vision Faculty Publications

The growing interest in the metaverse has led to an abundance of platforms, each with its own unique features and limitations. This paper's objective is two-fold. First, we aim at providing an objective analysis of requirements that need to be fulfilled by metaverse platforms. We survey a broad set of criteria including interoperability, immersiveness, persistence, multimodal and social interaction, scalability, level of openness, configurability, market access, security, and blockchain integration, among others. Second, we review a wide range of existing metaverse platforms, and we critically evaluate their ability to meet the requirements listed. We identify their limitations, which must be …

Architectural Design Of A Blockchain-Enabled, Federated Learning Platform For Algorithmic Fairness In Predictive Health Care: Design Science Study, Xueping Liang, Juan Zhao, Yan Chen, Eranga Bandara, Sachin Shetty

VMASC Publications

Background: Developing effective and generalizable predictive models is critical for disease prediction and clinical decision-making, often requiring diverse samples to mitigate population bias and address algorithmic fairness. However, a major challenge is to retrieve learning models across multiple institutions without bringing in local biases and inequity, while preserving individual patients' privacy at each site.

Objective: This study aims to understand the issues of bias and fairness in the machine learning process used in the predictive health care domain. We proposed a software architecture that integrates federated learning and blockchain to improve fairness, while maintaining acceptable prediction accuracy and minimizing overhead …

Group-Level Frameworks For Data Ethics, Privacy, Safety And Security In Digital Environments, Juniper Lovato

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

In today's digital age, the widespread collection, utilization, and sharing of personal data are challenging our conventional beliefs about privacy and information security. This thesis will explore the boundaries of conventional privacy and security frameworks and investigate new methods to handle online privacy by integrating groups. Additionally, we will examine approaches to monitoring the types of information gathered on individuals to tackle transparency concerns in the data broker and data processor sector. We aim to challenge traditional notions of privacy and security to encourage innovative strategies for safeguarding them in our interconnected, dispersed digital environment.

This thesis uses a multi-disciplinary …

Governing Smart Cities As Knowledge Commons - Introduction, Chapter 1 & Conclusion, Brett M. Frischmann, Michael J. Madison, Madelyn Sanfilippo

Book Chapters

Smart city technology has its value and its place; it isn’t automatically or universally harmful. Urban challenges and opportunities addressed via smart technology demand systematic study, examining general patterns and local variations as smart city practices unfold around the world. Smart cities are complex blends of community governance institutions, social dilemmas that cities face, and dynamic relationships among information and data, technology, and human lives. Some of those blends are more typical and common. Some are more nuanced in specific contexts. This volume uses the Governing Knowledge Commons (GKC) framework to sort out relevant and important distinctions. The framework grounds …

A Survey Of Using Machine Learning In Iot Security And The Challenges Faced By Researchers, Khawlah M. Harahsheh, Chung-Hao Chen

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

The Internet of Things (IoT) has become more popular in the last 15 years as it has significantly improved and gained control in multiple fields. We are nowadays surrounded by billions of IoT devices that directly integrate with our lives, some of them are at the center of our homes, and others control sensitive data such as military fields, healthcare, and datacenters, among others. This popularity makes factories and companies compete to produce and develop many types of those devices without caring about how secure they are. On the other hand, IoT is considered a good insecure environment for cyber …

An Optimized And Scalable Blockchain-Based Distributed Learning Platform For Consumer Iot, Zhaocheng Wang, Xueying Liu, Xinming Shao, Abdullah Alghamdi, Md. Shirajum Munir, Sujit Biswas

School of Cybersecurity Faculty Publications

Consumer Internet of Things (CIoT) manufacturers seek customer feedback to enhance their products and services, creating a smart ecosystem, like a smart home. Due to security and privacy concerns, blockchain-based federated learning (BCFL) ecosystems can let CIoT manufacturers update their machine learning (ML) models using end-user data. Federated learning (FL) uses privacy-preserving ML techniques to forecast customers' needs and consumption habits, and blockchain replaces the centralized aggregator to safeguard the ecosystem. However, blockchain technology (BCT) struggles with scalability and quick ledger expansion. In BCFL, local model generation and secure aggregation are other issues. This research introduces a novel architecture, emphasizing …

Software Protection And Secure Authentication For Autonomous Vehicular Cloud Computing, Muhammad Hataba

Dissertations

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing every technology we deal with. Autonomy has been a sought-after goal in vehicles, and now more than ever we are very close to that goal. Vehicles before were dumb mechanical devices, now they are becoming smart, computerized, and connected coined as Autonomous Vehicles (AVs). Moreover, researchers found a way to make more use of these enormous capabilities and introduced Autonomous Vehicles Cloud Computing (AVCC). In these platforms, vehicles can lend their unused resources and sensory data to join AVCC.

In this dissertation, we investigate security and privacy issues in AVCC. As background, we built our …

A Novel Qkd Approach To Enhance Iiot Privacy And Computational Knacks, Kranthi Kumar Singamaneni, Gaurav Dhiman, Sapna Juneja, Ghulam Muhammad, Salman A Alqahtani, John Zaki

Journal Articles

The industry-based internet of things (IIoT) describes how IIoT devices enhance and extend their capabilities for production amenities, security, and efficacy. IIoT establishes an enterprise-to-enterprise setup that means industries have several factories and manufacturing units that are dependent on other sectors for their services and products. In this context, individual industries need to share their information with other external sectors in a shared environment which may not be secure. The capability to examine and inspect such large-scale information and perform analytical protection over the large volumes of personal and organizational information demands authentication and confidentiality so that the total data …

Emerging Technologies, Evolving Threats: Next-Generation Security Challenges, Tamara Bonaci, Katina Michael, Pablo Rivas, Lindsay J. Roberston, Michael Zimmer

Computer Science Faculty Research and Publications

Security is a fundamental human requirement. We desire the security of our person against injury, security of our capability to provide for our families, security of income linked to needs (food, water, clothing, and shelter), and much more. Most also hope for security of a way of life that is fulfilling and pleasant and peaceful [1] . In 2003, Alkire [2] defined “human security” as: “[t]he objective … to safeguard the vital core of all human lives from critical pervasive threats, in a way that is consistent with long-term human fulfillment.” Today most of the world’s population is highly dependent, …

Presenting A Method To Detect Intrusion In Iot Through Private Blockchain, Rezvan Mahmoudie, Saeed Parsa, Amir Masoud Rahmani

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

Blockchain (BC) has been used as a new solution to overcome security and privacy challenges in the Internet of Things (IoT). However, recent studies have indicated that the BC has a limited scalability and is computationally costly. Also, it has significant overhead and delay in the network, which is not suitable to the nature of IoT. This article aims at implementing BC in the IoT context for smart home management, as the integration of these two technologies ensures the IoT's security and privacy. Therefore, we proposed an overlay network in private BC to optimize its compatibility with IoT by increasing …

Online Privacy Challenges And Their Forensic Solutions, Bandr Fakiha

Journal of the Arab American University مجلة الجامعة العربية الامريكية للبحوث

In the digital age, internet users are exposed to privacy issues online. Few rarely know when someone else is eavesdropping or about to scam them. Companies, governments, and individual internet users are all vulnerable to security breaches due to the challenges of online privacy ranging from trust and hierarchical control to financial losses. As systems advance, people are optimistic that forensic science will provide long-term interventions that surpass the current solutions, including setting stronger passwords and firewall protection. The future of online privacy is changing, and more practical interventions, such as email, malware, mobile, and network forensics, must be integrated, …

Torsh: Obfuscating Consumer Internet-Of-Things Traffic With A Collaborative Smart-Home Router Network, Adam Vandenbussche

Dartmouth College Undergraduate Theses

When consumers install Internet-connected "smart devices" in their homes, metadata arising from the communications between these devices and their cloud-based service providers enables adversaries privy to this traffic to profile users, even when adequate encryption is used. Internet service providers (ISPs) are one potential adversary privy to users’ incom- ing and outgoing Internet traffic and either currently use this insight to assemble and sell consumer advertising profiles or may in the future do so. With existing defenses against such profiling falling short of meeting user preferences and abilities, there is a need for a novel solution that empowers consumers to …

Towards Practicalization Of Blockchain-Based Decentralized Applications, Songlin He

Dissertations

Blockchain can be defined as an immutable ledger for recording transactions, maintained in a distributed network of mutually untrusting peers. Blockchain technology has been widely applied to various fields beyond its initial usage of cryptocurrency. However, blockchain itself is insufficient to meet all the desired security or efficiency requirements for diversified application scenarios. This dissertation focuses on two core functionalities that blockchain provides, i.e., robust storage and reliable computation. Three concrete application scenarios including Internet of Things (IoT), cybersecurity management (CSM), and peer-to-peer (P2P) content delivery network (CDN) are utilized to elaborate the general design principles for these two main …

An Evaluation Of Security In Blockchain-Based Sharing Of Student Records In Higher Education, Timothy Arndt, Angela Guercio, Yonghun Chae

Information Systems

Blockchain has recently taken off as a disruptive technology, from its initial use in cryptocurrencies to wider applications in areas such as property registration and insurance due to its characteristic as a distributed ledger which can remove the need for a trusted third party to facilitate transactions. This spread of the technology to new application areas has been driven by the development of smart contracts – blockchain-based protocols which can automatically enforce a contract by executing code based on the logic expressed in the contract. One exciting area for blockchain is higher education. Students in higher education are ever more …

Forensic Discoverability Of Ios Vault Applications, Alissa Gilbert, Kathryn C. Seigfried-Spellar

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Vault Applications are used to store potentially sensitive information on a smartphone; and are available on Android and iOS. The purpose of using these applications could be used to hide potential evidence or illicit photos. After comparing five different iOS photo vaults, each vault left evidence and photos behind. However, of the three forensic toolkits used, each produced different results in their scans of the phone. The media left behind was due to the photo vaults not protecting their information as claimed, and using basic obfuscation techniques in place of security controls. Future research will look at how newer security …

Analysis Of Blockchain Solutions For E-Voting: A Systematic Literature Review, Ali Benabdallah, Antoine Audras, Louis Coudert, Nour El Madhoun, Mohamad Badra

All Works

To this day, abstention rates continue to rise, largely due to the need to travel to vote. This is why remote e-voting will increase the turnout by allowing everyone to vote without the need to travel. It will also minimize the risks and obtain results in a faster way compared to a traditional vote with paper ballots. In fact, given the high stakes of an election, a remote e-voting solution must meet the highest standards of security, reliability, and transparency to gain the trust of citizens. In literature, several remote e-voting solutions based on blockchain technology have been proposed. Indeed, …

A Review On Security Issues And Solutions Of The Internet Of Drones, Wencheng Yang, Song Wang, Xuefei Yin, Xu Wang, Jiankun Hu

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The Internet of Drones (IoD) has attracted increasing attention in recent years because of its portability and automation, and is being deployed in a wide range of fields (e.g., military, rescue and entertainment). Nevertheless, as a result of the inherently open nature of radio transmission paths in the IoD, data collected, generated or handled by drones is plagued by many security concerns. Since security and privacy are among the foremost challenges for the IoD, in this paper we conduct a comprehensive review on security issues and solutions for IoD security, discussing IoD-related security requirements and identifying the latest advancement in …

An Exploratory Study Of Social Support Systems To Help Older Adults In Managing Mobile Safety, Tamir Mendel, Debin Gao, David Lo, Eran Toch

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Older adults face increased safety challenges, such as targeted online fraud and phishing, contributing to the growing technological divide between them and younger adults. Social support from family and friends is often the primary way older adults receive help, but it may also lead to reliance on others. We have conducted an exploratory study to investigate older adults' attitudes and experiences related to mobile social support technologies for mobile safety. We interviewed 18 older adults about their existing support and used the think-aloud method to gather data about a prototype for providing social support during mobile safety challenges. Our findings …

Modeling And Analyzing Users' Privacy Disclosure Behavior To Generate Personalized Privacy Policies, A.K.M. Nuhil Mehdy

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Privacy and its importance to society have been studied for centuries. While our understanding and continued theory building to hypothesize how users make privacy disclosure decisions has increased over time, the struggle to find a one-size solution that satisfies the requirements of each individual remains unsolved. Depending on culture, gender, age, and other situational factors, the concept of privacy and users' expectations of how their privacy should be protected varies from person to person. The goal of this dissertation is to design and develop tools and algorithms to support personal privacy management for end-users. The foundation of this research is …

Brave New World Reboot: Technology’S Role In Consumer Manipulation And Implications For Privacy And Transparency, Allie Mertensotto

Marketing Undergraduate Honors Theses

Most consumers are aware that our data is being obtained and collected through the use of our devices we keep in our homes or even on our person throughout the day. But, it is understated how much data is being collected. Conversations you have with your peers – in a close proximity of a device – are being used to tailor advertising. The advertisements you receive on your devices are uniquely catered to your individual person, due to the fact it consistently uses our data to produce efficient and personal ads. On the flip side, our government is also tapping …

Forensic Analysis Of Tor Browser On Windows 10 And Android 10 Operating Systems, Muhammad Raheel Arshad, Mehdi Hussain, Hasan Tahir, Sana Qadir, Faraz Iqbal Ahmed Memon, Yousra Javed

Faculty Publications – Technology

Smartphones and Internet have become prevalent in our society with various applications in businesses, education, healthcare, gaming, and research. One of the major issues with the Internet today is its lack of security since an eavesdropper can potentially intercept the communication. This has contributed towards an increased number of cyber-crime incidents, resulting in an increase in users’ consciousness about the security and privacy of their communication . One example is the shift towards using private browsers such as Tor. Tor is a well-recognized and widely used privacy browser based on The Onion Router network that provisions anonymity over the insecure …

A Review Of Security Standards And Frameworks For Iot-Based Smart Environments, Nickson M. Karie, Nor Masri Sahri, Wencheng Yang, Craig Valli, Victor R. Kebande

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Assessing the security of IoT-based smart environments such as smart homes and smart cities is becoming fundamentally essential to implementing the correct control measures and effectively reducing security threats and risks brought about by deploying IoT-based smart technologies. The problem, however, is in finding security standards and assessment frameworks that best meets the security requirements as well as comprehensively assesses and exposes the security posture of IoT-based smart environments. To explore this gap, this paper presents a review of existing security standards and assessment frameworks which also includes several NIST special publications on security techniques highlighting their primary areas of …

Examining The Influence Of Perceived Risk On The Selection Of Internet Access In The U.S. Intelligence Community, Tyler Michael Pieron

CCE Theses and Dissertations

Information technology security policies are designed explicitly to protect IT systems. However, overly restrictive information security policies may be inadvertently creating an unforeseen information risk by encouraging users to bypass protected systems in favor of personal devices, where the potential loss of organizational intellectual property is greater.

Current models regarding the acceptance and use of technology, Technology Acceptance Model Version 3 (TAM3) and the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology Version 2 (UTAUT2), address the use of technology in organizations and by consumers, but little research has been done to identify an appropriate model to begin to understand …

Development Of A Social Engineering Exposure Index (Sexi) Using Open-Source Personal Information, William Shawn Wilkerson

CCE Theses and Dissertations

Millions of people willingly expose their lives via Internet technologies every day, and even the very few ones who refrain from the use of the Internet find themselves exposed through data breaches. Billions of private information records are exposed through the Internet. Marketers gather personal preferences to influence shopping behavior. Providers gather personal information to deliver enhanced services, and underground hacker networks contain repositories of immense data sets. Few users of Internet technologies have considered where their information is going or who has access to it. Even fewer are aware of how decisions made in their own lives expose significant …

An Efficient Privacy Preserving Message Authentication Scheme For Internet-Of-Things, Jiannan Wei, Tran Viet Xuan Phuong, Guomin Yang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

As an essential element of the next generation Internet, Internet of Things (IoT) has been undergoing an extensive development in recent years. In addition to the enhancement of peoples daily lives, IoT devices also generate/gather a massive amount of data that could be utilized by machine learning and big data analytics for different applications. Due to the machine-to-machine communication nature of IoT, data security and privacy are crucial issues that must be addressed to prevent different cyber attacks (e.g., impersonation and data pollution/poisoning attacks). Nevertheless, due to the constrained computation power and the diversity of IoT devices, it is a …