Information Security Commons^™

An Analysis And Examination Of Consensus Attacks In Blockchain Networks, Thomas R. Clark

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

This paper examines consensus attacks as they relate to blockchain networks. Consensus attacks are a significant threat to the security and integrity of blockchain networks, and understanding these attacks is crucial for developers and stakeholders. The primary contribution of the paper is to present blockchain and consensus attacks in a clear and accessible manner, with the aim of making these complex concepts easily understandable for a general audience. Using literature review, the paper identifies various methods to prevent consensus attacks, including multi-chain networks, proof-of-work consensus algorithms, and network auditing and monitoring. An analysis revealed that these methods for preventing consensus …

An Analysis Of Technological Components In Relation To Privacy In A Smart City, Kayla Rutherford, Ben Lands, A. J. Stiles

James Madison Undergraduate Research Journal (JMURJ)

A smart city is an interconnection of technological components that store, process, and wirelessly transmit information to enhance the efficiency of applications and the individuals who use those applications. Over the course of the 21st century, it is expected that an overwhelming majority of the world’s population will live in urban areas and that the number of wireless devices will increase. The resulting increase in wireless data transmission means that the privacy of data will be increasingly at risk. This paper uses a holistic problem-solving approach to evaluate the security challenges posed by the technological components that make up a …

Intrusion-Tolerant Order-Preserving Encryption, John Huson

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Traditional encryption schemes such as AES and RSA aim to achieve the highest level of security, often indistinguishable security under the adaptive chosen-ciphertext attack. Ciphertexts generated by such encryption schemes do not leak useful information. As a result, such ciphertexts do not support efficient searchability nor range queries.

Order-preserving encryption is a relatively new encryption paradigm that allows for efficient queries on ciphertexts. In order-preserving encryption, the data-encrypting key is a long-term symmetric key that needs to stay online for insertion, query and deletion operations, making it an attractive target for attacks.

In this thesis, an intrusion-tolerant order-preserving encryption system …