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Computer Engineering

2018

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

Articles 1 - 11 of 11

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Mrsh-Mem: Approximate Matching On Raw Memory Dumps, Lorenz Liebler, Frank Breitinger Nov 2018

Mrsh-Mem: Approximate Matching On Raw Memory Dumps, Lorenz Liebler, Frank Breitinger

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

This paper presents the fusion of two subdomains of digital forensics: (1) raw memory analysis and (2) approximate matching. Specifically, this paper describes a prototype implementation named MRSH-MEM that allows to compare hard drive images as well as memory dumps and therefore can answer the question if a particular program (installed on a hard drive) is currently running / loaded in memory. To answer this question, we only require both dumps or access to a public repository which provides the binaries to be tested. For our prototype, we modified an existing approximate matching algorithm named MRSH-NET and combined it with …

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Androparse - An Android Feature Extraction Framework & Dataset, Robert Schmicker, Frank Breitinger, Ibrahim Baggili Sep 2018

Androparse - An Android Feature Extraction Framework & Dataset, Robert Schmicker, Frank Breitinger, Ibrahim Baggili

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

Android malware has become a major challenge. As a consequence, practitioners and researchers spend a significant time analyzing Android applications (APK). A common procedure (especially for data scientists) is to extract features such as permissions, APIs or strings which can then be analyzed. Current state of the art tools have three major issues: (1) a single tool cannot extract all the significant features used by scientists and practitioners (2) Current tools are not designed to be extensible and (3) Existing parsers do not have runtime efficiency. Therefore, this work presents AndroParse which is an open-source Android parser written in Golang …

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I Know What You Did Last Summer: Your Smart Home Internet Of Things And Your Iphone Forensically Ratting You Out, Gokila Dorai, Shiva Houshmand, Ibrahim Baggili Aug 2018

I Know What You Did Last Summer: Your Smart Home Internet Of Things And Your Iphone Forensically Ratting You Out, Gokila Dorai, Shiva Houshmand, Ibrahim Baggili

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

The adoption of smart home Internet of Things (IoT) devices continues to grow. What if your devices can snitch on you and let us know where you are at any given point in time? In this work we examined the forensic artifacts produced by Nest devices, and in specific, we examined the logical backup structure of an iPhone used to control a Nest thermostat, Nest Indoor Camera and a Nest Outdoor Camera. We also integrated the Google Home Mini as another method of controlling the studied Smart Home devices. Our work is the primary account for the examination of Nest …

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Digital Forensics In The Next Five Years, Laoise Luciano, Ibrahim Baggili, Mateusz Topor, Peter Casey, Frank Breitinger Aug 2018

Digital Forensics In The Next Five Years, Laoise Luciano, Ibrahim Baggili, Mateusz Topor, Peter Casey, Frank Breitinger

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

Cyber forensics has encountered major obstacles over the last decade and is at a crossroads. This paper presents data that was obtained during the National Workshop on Redefining Cyber Forensics (NWRCF) on May 23-24, 2017 supported by the National Science Foundation and organized by the University of New Haven. Qualitative and quantitative data were analyzed from twenty-four cyber forensics expert panel members. This work identified important themes that need to be addressed by the community, focusing on (1) where the domain currently is; (2) where it needs to go and; (3) steps needed to improve it. Furthermore, based on the …

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Chaos Firefly Algorithm With Self-Adaptation Mutation Mechanism For Solving Large-Scale Economic Dispatch With Valve-Point Effects And Multiple Fuel Options, Yude Yang, Bori Wei, Hui Liu, Yiyi Zhang, Junhui Zhao, Emad Manla Aug 2018

Chaos Firefly Algorithm With Self-Adaptation Mutation Mechanism For Solving Large-Scale Economic Dispatch With Valve-Point Effects And Multiple Fuel Options, Yude Yang, Bori Wei, Hui Liu, Yiyi Zhang, Junhui Zhao, Emad Manla

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

This paper presents a new metaheuristic optimization algorithm, the firefly algorithm (FA), and an enhanced version of it, called chaos mutation FA (CMFA), for solving power economic dispatch problems while considering various power constraints, such as valve-point effects, ramp rate limits, prohibited operating zones, and multiple generator fuel options. The algorithm is enhanced by adding a new mutation strategy using self-adaptation parameter selection while replacing the parameters with fixed values. The proposed algorithm is also enhanced by a self-adaptation mechanism that avoids challenges associated with tuning the algorithm parameters directed against characteristics of the optimization problem to be solved. The …

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Forensic Analysis Of Immersive Virtual Reality Social Applications: A Primary Account, Ananya Yarramreddy, Peter Gromkowski, Ibrahim Baggili Aug 2018

Forensic Analysis Of Immersive Virtual Reality Social Applications: A Primary Account, Ananya Yarramreddy, Peter Gromkowski, Ibrahim Baggili

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

Our work presents the primary account for exploring the forensics of immersive Virtual Reality (VR) systems and their social applications. The Social VR applications studied in this work include Bigscreen, Altspace VR, Rec Room and Facebook Spaces. We explored the two most widely adopted consumer VR systems: the HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift. Our tests examined the efficacy of reconstructing evidence from network traffic as well as the systems themselves. The results showed that a significant amount of forensically relevant data such as user names, user profile pictures, events, and system details may be recovered. We anticipate that this …

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Survey Results On Adults And Cybersecurity Education, Frank Breitinger, Joseph Ricci, Ibrahim Baggili Jul 2018

Survey Results On Adults And Cybersecurity Education, Frank Breitinger, Joseph Ricci, Ibrahim Baggili

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

Cyberattacks and identity theft are common problems nowadays where researchers often say that humans are the weakest link in the security chain. Therefore, this survey focused on analyzing the interest for adults for ‘cyber threat education seminars’, e.g., how to project themselves and their loved ones. Specifically, we asked questions to understand a possible audience, willingness for paying / time commitment, or fields of interest as well as background and previous training experience. The survey was conducted in late 2016 and taken by 233 participants. The results show that many are worried about cyber threats and about their children exploring …

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Adaptive Virtual Impedance Droop Control Based On Consensus Control Of Reactive Current, Zhilin Lu, Qing Wei, Yiyi Zhang, Junhui Zhao, Emad Manla Jul 2018

Adaptive Virtual Impedance Droop Control Based On Consensus Control Of Reactive Current, Zhilin Lu, Qing Wei, Yiyi Zhang, Junhui Zhao, Emad Manla

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

It is difficult to achieve accurate distribution of reactive power based on conventional droop control due to the line impedance mismatch in an islanded microgrid. An adaptive virtual impendence method based on consensus control of reactive current is proposed in this paper. A distributed control structure without the central controller has been established. In this structure, each distributed generation unit (DG) is an independent agent, one-way communication is used between the adjacent DGs, and the reactive power sharing is equivalent to a problem of reactive power current consensus. It has been proven that the system is asymptotically stable under the …

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Experience Constructing The Artifact Genome Project (Agp): Managing The Domain's Knowledge One Artifact At A Time, Cinthya Grajeda, Laura Sanchez, Ibrahim Baggili, Devon R. Clark, Frank Breitinger Jul 2018

Experience Constructing The Artifact Genome Project (Agp): Managing The Domain's Knowledge One Artifact At A Time, Cinthya Grajeda, Laura Sanchez, Ibrahim Baggili, Devon R. Clark, Frank Breitinger

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

While various tools have been created to assist the digital forensics community with acquiring, processing, and organizing evidence and indicating the existence of artifacts, very few attempts have been made to establish a centralized system for archiving artifacts. The Artifact Genome Project (AGP) has aimed to create the largest vetted and freely available digital forensics repository for Curated Forensic Artifacts (CuFAs). This paper details the experience of building, implementing, and maintaining such a system by sharing design decisions, lessons learned, and future work. We also discuss the impact of AGP in both the professional and academic realms of digital forensics. …

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An Overview Of The Usage Of Default Passwords, Brandon Knierem, Xiaolu Zhang, Philip Levine, Frank Breitinger, Ibrahim Baggili Jan 2018

An Overview Of The Usage Of Default Passwords, Brandon Knierem, Xiaolu Zhang, Philip Levine, Frank Breitinger, Ibrahim Baggili

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

The recent Mirai botnet attack demonstrated the danger of using default passwords and showed it is still a major problem. In this study we investigated several common applications and their password policies. Specifically, we analyzed if these applications: (1) have default passwords or (2) allow the user to set a weak password (i.e., they do not properly enforce a password policy). Our study shows that default passwords are still a significant problem: 61% of applications inspected initially used a default or blank password. When changing the password, 58% allowed a blank password, 35% allowed a weak password of 1 character.

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If I Had A Million Cryptos: Cryptowallet Application Analysis And A Trojan Proof-Of-Concept, Trevor Haigh, Frank Breitinger, Ibrahim Baggili Jan 2018

If I Had A Million Cryptos: Cryptowallet Application Analysis And A Trojan Proof-Of-Concept, Trevor Haigh, Frank Breitinger, Ibrahim Baggili

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

Cryptocurrencies have gained wide adoption by enthusiasts and investors. In this work, we examine seven different Android cryptowallet applications for forensic artifacts, but we also assess their security against tampering and reverse engineering. Some of the biggest benefits of cryptocurrency is its security and relative anonymity. For this reason it is vital that wallet applications share the same properties. Our work, however, indicates that this is not the case. Five of the seven applications we tested do not implement basic security measures against reverse engineering. Three of the applications stored sensitive information, like wallet private keys, insecurely and one was …

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