Digital Commons Network^™

Improving The Stealthiness Of Dns-Based Covert Communication, Stephen Sheridan, Anthony Keane

Conference Papers

At present, the recommended stance to take regarding Cyber Security is to assume a state of compromise. With the increase in Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), the Internet of Things (IOT) and Advanced Persistent Threats (ATPs), network boundaries have become porous and difficult to defend from external threats. Modern malware is complex and adept at making its presence hard to detect. Recent studies have shown that some malware variants are capable of using multiple covert communication channels for command and control (C2) and data exfiltration activities. Examples of this level of covert communication can be found in malware that targets …

An Investigation Into Some Security Issues In The Dds Messaging Protocol, Thomas White, Michael N. Johnstone, Matthew Peacock

Australian Information Security Management Conference

The convergence of Operational Technology and Information Technology is driving integration of the Internet of Things and Industrial Control Systems to form the Industrial Internet of Things. Due to the influence of Information Technology, security has become a high priority particularly when implementations expand into critical infrastructure. At present there appears to be minimal research addressing security considerations for industrial systems which implement application layer IoT messaging protocols such as Data Distribution Services (DDS). Simulated IoT devices in a virtual environment using the DDSI-RTPS protocol were used to demonstrate that enumeration of devices is possible by a non-authenticated client in …

Threat Intelligence In Support Of Cyber Situation Awareness, Billy Paul Gilliam

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Despite technological advances in the information security field, attacks by unauthorized individuals and groups continue to penetrate defenses. Due to the rapidly changing environment of the Internet, the appearance of newly developed malicious software or attack techniques accelerates while security professionals continue in a reactive posture with limited time for identifying new threats. The problem addressed in this study was the perceived value of threat intelligence as a proactive process for information security. The purpose of this study was to explore how situation awareness is enhanced by receiving advanced intelligence reports resulting in better decision-making for proper response to security …

From The National Cyber Maturity To The Cyber Resilience: The Lessons Learnt From The Efforts Of Turkey, Bilge Karabacak, Unal Tatar

All Faculty and Staff Scholarship

In this paper, the details of critical infrastructure protection program of United States of America are shared by taking the cyber resilience into account. The academic and institutional studies on the concepts of cyber maturity, critical infrastructure protection program and cyber resilience are explained in detail. By the help of these studies and national efforts, the relations among these concepts are proposed. The key components of a cyber security strategy and action plan for a cyber resilient society is proposed by taking these three concepts into account. As the final step, the recent cyber security efforts of Turkey is shared …

A New Approach To Pulse Deinterleaving Based On Adaptive Thresholding, Mostafa Bagheri, Mohammad Hossein Sedaaghi

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

Since histogram-based methods are formed by some simple differences, they are very desirable for deinterleaving. However, their main imperfection concerns recognizing complex pulse repetition interval (PRI) patterns like jittered and staggered ones.In this paper, we present new thresholds to detect jittered and staggered PRI from histogram-based methods even in complex circumstances such as noisy time of arrival (TOA), complex PRI patterns, and large missing pulses. Simulation results demonstrate that our method can detect and extract constant, jittered, and staggered PRI correctly. Moreover, the method is proved to be considerably robust and reliable at a missing pulses rate up to 30%.

Analysis Of Affective State As Covariate In Human Gait Identification, Kofi Agyemang Adumata

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

There is an increased interest in the need for a noninvasive and nonintrusive biometric identification and recognition system such as Automatic Gait Identification (AGI) due to the rise in crime rates in the US, physical assaults, and global terrorism in public places. AGI, a biometric system based on human gait, can recognize people from a distance and current literature shows that AGI has a 95.75% success rate in a closely controlled laboratory environment. Also, this success rate does not take into consideration the effect of covariate factors such as affective state (mood state); and literature shows that there is a …

Tonga’S Organisational Vulnerability To Social Engineering, Raymond Lutui, Viliami Fe’Aomoeata

Australian Information Security Management Conference

Tonga is a small developing island in the south pacific and ICT is still in its early stages. In this paper we ask the questions, what is social engineering and who is this social engineer, what are the threats to Tonga, how can these threats be identified and which countermeasures can be taken to mitigate the risk of social engineering? The answers to these questions will lead to a social engineering risk management framework to make the risks of social engineering more transparent and help organisations implement mitigating controls against social engineering. The study was performed in four chosen organisations …

A Review Of Data Breaches And Losses That Occurred From Laptops That Were Stolen Or Otherwise Misplaced In 2015 And 2016, Samuel Griffith Wakeling, Peter Hannay, Zubair Baig

Australian Information Security Management Conference

This paper provides an analysis of what information can be found on laptops that may or may not have connections to an organisation of some form, the statistics of the number of laptops stolen or otherwise misplaced in 2015 and 2016, and the number of potentially affected people from each of the cases. As seen in many news articles, laptops are often stolen or otherwise misplaced by employees or contractors in an organisational environment. As discovered in this research, many laptops are stolen from vehicles or homes of employees rather than organisation’s buildings, but not all. The majority of stolen …

Secrecy Rates And Optimal Power Allocation For Full-Duplex Decode-And-Forward Relay Wire-Tap Channels, Lubna Elsaid, Leonardo Jimenez-Rodriguez, Nghi H. Tran, Sachin Shetty, Shivakumar Sastry

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Faculty Publications

This paper investigates the secrecy rates and optimal power allocation schemes for a decode-and-forward wiretap relay channel where the transmission from a source to a destination is aided by a relay operating in a full-duplex (FD) mode under practical residual self-interference. By first considering static channels, we address the non-convex optimal power allocation problems between the source and relay nodes under individual and joint power constraints to establish closed-form solutions. An asymptotic analysis is then given to provide important insights on the derived power allocation solutions. Specifically, by using the method of dominant balance, it is demonstrated that full power …

Social Media Strategies For Increasing Sales, Loretta N. Ezeife

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Social media have transformed business commerce and consumer communication, yet organizational leaders lack clear strategies for using social media platforms to their advantage. The purpose of this qualitative multicase study was to explore social media marketing strategies for increasing sales. The relationship marketing conceptual framework grounded this study. Data collection included semistructured interviews with 5 organizational leaders from 5 different organizations in the San Francisco, California, Bay Area and a review of participants’ documents including marketing materials, social media posts, and published sales reports. Data analysis included coding, categorization, and identification of major themes. The thematic assessment approach revealed 5 …

An Alternative Approach To The Design Of Multiple Beam Constrained Lens Antennas, Rasi̇me Uyguroğlu, Abdullah Yücel Öztoprak

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

Rotman lenses are constrained lenses that are used as beam-forming networks to feed array antennas. Their design is based on three focal points, producing three beams with perfect phase fronts. This paper introduces an alternative constrained lens, which has phase equality at five radiating array elements for each beam position. In addition, the center point of the feed curve produces a perfect beam at broadside. The performance of this lens is analyzed and compared to the conventional Rotman lens. The analysis demonstrates that the new lens has better phase performance for wide angle designs. Our study shows that the phase …

Denial-Of-Service Attack Modelling And Detection For Http/2 Services, Erwin Adi

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Businesses and society alike have been heavily dependent on Internet-based services, albeit with experiences of constant and annoying disruptions caused by the adversary class. A malicious attack that can prevent establishment of Internet connections to web servers, initiated from legitimate client machines, is termed as a Denial of Service (DoS) attack; volume and intensity of which is rapidly growing thanks to the readily available attack tools and the ever-increasing network bandwidths. A majority of contemporary web servers are built on the HTTP/1.1 communication protocol. As a consequence, all literature found on DoS attack modelling and appertaining detection techniques, addresses only …

The 2016 Analysis Of Information Remaining On Computer Hard Disks Offered For Sale On The Second Hand Market In The Uae, Thomas Martin, Andy Jones, Mohammed Alzaabi

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

This research describes our survey of data remaining on computer hard disks sold on the second hand market in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This is a repetition of the first survey conducted in 2012 (Jones, Martin, & Alzaabi, 2012). Similar studies have been carried over the last ten years in the United Kingdom, Australia, USA, Germany and France: (Jones, Mee, Meyler, & Gooch, 2005), (Jones, Valli, Sutherland, & Thomas, 2006), (Jones, Valli, Dardick, & Sutherland, 2008), (Jones, Valli, Dardick, & Sutherland, 2009). This research was undertaken to gain insight into the volumes of data found on second-hand disks purchased …

From The Editors, Herbert J. Mattord, Michael E. Whitman, Carole L. Hollingsworth

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Welcome to the second issue of the Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice (JCERP).

Rationality, Parapsychology, And Artificial Intelligence In Military And Intelligence Research By The United States Government In The Cold War, Guy M. Lomeo

Theses and Dissertations

A study analyzing the roles of rationality, parapsychology, and artificial intelligence in military and intelligence research by the United States Government in the Cold War. An examination of the methodology behind the decisions to pursue research in two fields that were initially considered irrational.

Evaluating Machine Learning Classifiers For Defensive Cyber Operations, Michael D. Rich, Robert F. Mills, Thomas E. Dube, Steven K. Rogers

Military Cyber Affairs

Today’s defensive cyber sensors are dominated by signature-based analytical methods that require continuous maintenance and lack the ability to detect unknown threats. Anomaly detection offers the ability to detect unknown threats, but despite over 15 years of active research, the operationalization of anomaly detection and machine learning for Defensive Cyber Operations (DCO) is lagging. This article provides an introduction to machine learning concepts with a focus on the unique challenges to using machine learning for DCO. Traditional machine learning evaluation methods are challenged in favor of a value-focused evaluation method that incorporates evaluator-specific weights for classifier and sensitivity threshold selection …

Linchpin: A Yaml Template Based Cross Cloud Resource Provisioning Tool, Samvaran Kashyap Rallabandi

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

A cloud application developed, will have a specific requirement of particular cloud resources and software stack to be deployed to make it run. Resource templates enable the environment design and deployment required for an application. A template describes the infrastructure of the cloud application in a text file which includes servers, floating/public IP, storage volumes, etc. This approach is termed “Infrastructure as a code.” In Amazon public cloud, OpenStack private cloud, Google cloud these templates are called as cloud formation templates, HOT (Heat orchestration templates), Google cloud templates respectively. Though the existing template systems give a flexibility for the end …

Network Forensic Investigation Of Internal Misuse/Crime In Saudi Arabia: A Hacking Case, Abdulrazaq Al-Murjan, Konstantinos Xynos

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

There are ad-hoc guidelines and a limited policy on computer incident response that does not include computer forensic preparation procedures (e.g. logging incidents). In addition, these guidelines do not consider the requirement of Islamic law for admissible evidence at an organisational level in Saudi Arabia. Network forensic investigation might breach the Saudi law if they follow ad-hoc or international digital forensic standards such as Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) guidelines. This might put the organisation in a costly situation when a malicious employee sues an Islamic court. This is because the law of Saudi Arabia is complying with Islamic …

Designing A Data Warehouse For Cyber Crimes, Il-Yeol Song, John D. Maguire, Ki Jung Lee, Namyoun Choi, Xiaohua Hu, Peter Chen

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

One of the greatest challenges facing modern society is the rising tide of cyber crimes. These crimes, since they rarely fit the model of conventional crimes, are difficult to investigate, hard to analyze, and difficult to prosecute. Collecting data in a unified framework is a mandatory step that will assist the investigator in sorting through the mountains of data. In this paper, we explore designing a dimensional model for a data warehouse that can be used in analyzing cyber crime data. We also present some interesting queries and the types of cyber crime analyses that can be performed based on …

A Temporal Framework For Hypergame Analysis Of Cyber Physical Systems In Contested Environments, Nicholas S. Kovach

Theses and Dissertations

Game theory is used to model conflicts between one or more players over resources. It offers players a way to reason, allowing rationale for selecting strategies that avoid the worst outcome. Game theory lacks the ability to incorporate advantages one player may have over another player. A meta-game, known as a hypergame, occurs when one player does not know or fully understand all the strategies of a game. Hypergame theory builds upon the utility of game theory by allowing a player to outmaneuver an opponent, thus obtaining a more preferred outcome with higher utility. Recent work in hypergame theory has …

A Multi-Objective Approach To Tactical Maneuvering Within Real Time Strategy Games, Christopher D. Ball

Theses and Dissertations

The real time strategy (RTS) environment is a strong platform for simulating complex tactical problems. The overall research goal is to develop artificial intelligence (AI) RTS planning agents for military critical decision making education. These agents should have the ability to perform at an expert level as well as to assess a players critical decision-making ability or skill-level. The nature of the time sensitivity within the RTS environment creates very complex situations. Each situation must be analyzed and orders must be given to each tactical unit before the scenario on the battlefield changes and makes the decisions no longer relevant. …

The History Of Chinese Cybersecurity: Current Effects On Chinese Society Economy, And Foreign Relations, Vaughn C. Rogers

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Chinese cybersecurity has become an infamous topic in the field of cybersecurity today, causing a great deal of controversy. The controversy stems from whether or not censorship is hindering Chinese economy, society, and relationships with other countries. The White Papers (中国政府白皮书), the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China (中华人民共和国宪法), and The Internet in China (中国互联网状况) all suggest that there is a free flow of Internet both within and without China that promotes peaceful socioeconomic development which the Chinese government seeks to promote. But is China sacrificing lucrative business prospects to secure …

Identifying Terrorist Affiliations Through Social Network Analysis Using Data Mining Techniques, Govand A. Ali

Information Technology Master Theses

In a technologically enabled world, local ideologically inspired warfare becomes global all too quickly, specifically terrorist groups like Al Quaeda and ISIS (Daesh) have successfully used modern computing technology and social networking environments to broadcast their message, recruit new members, and plot attacks. This is especially true for such platforms as Twitter and encrypted mobile apps like Telegram or the clandestine Alrawi. As early detection of such activity is crucial to attack prevention data mining techniques have become increasingly important in the fight against the spread of global terrorist activity. This study employs data mining tools to mine Twitter for …

A Framework To Manage Sensitive Information During Its Migration Between Software Platforms, Olusegun Ademolu Ajigini, John Andrew Van Der Poll, Jan H. Kroeze Phd

The African Journal of Information Systems

Software migrations are mostly performed by organisations using migration teams. Such migration teams need to be aware of how sensitive information ought to be handled and protected during the implementation of the migration projects. There is a need to ensure that sensitive information is identified, classified and protected during the migration process.

This paper suggests how sensitive information in organisations can be handled and protected during migrations, by using the migration from proprietary software to open source software to develop a management framework that can be used to manage such a migration process. The research employed a sequential explanatory mixed …

Cyberspace And Organizational Structure: An Analysis Of The Critical Infrastructure Environment, Michael D. Quigg Ii

Theses and Dissertations

Now more than ever, organizations are being created to protect the cyberspace environment. The capability of cyber organizations tasked to defend critical infrastructure has been called into question by numerous cybersecurity experts. Organizational theory states that organizations should be constructed to fit their operating environment properly. Little research in this area links existing organizational theory to cyber organizational structure. Because of the cyberspace connection to critical infrastructure assets, the factors that influence the structure of cyber organizations designed to protect these assets warrant analysis to identify opportunities for improvement.

This thesis analyzes the cyber‐connected critical infrastructure environment using the dominant …

Deception In Game Theory: A Survey And Multiobjective Model, Austin L. Davis

Theses and Dissertations

Game theory is the study of mathematical models of conflict. It provides tools for analyzing dynamic interactions between multiple agents and (in some cases) across multiple interactions. This thesis contains two scholarly articles. The first article is a survey of game-theoretic models of deception. The survey describes the ways researchers use game theory to measure the practicality of deception, model the mechanisms for performing deception, analyze the outcomes of deception, and respond to, or mitigate the effects of deception. The survey highlights several gaps in the literature. One important gap concerns the benefit-cost-risk trade-off made during deception planning. To address …

Position And Volume Estimation Of Atmospheric Nuclear Detonations From Video Reconstruction, Daniel T. Schmitt

Theses and Dissertations

Recent work in digitizing films of foundational atmospheric nuclear detonations from the 1950s provides an opportunity to perform deeper analysis on these historical tests. This work leverages multi-view geometry and computer vision techniques to provide an automated means to perform three-dimensional analysis of the blasts for several points in time. The accomplishment of this requires careful alignment of the films in time, detection of features in the images, matching of features, and multi-view reconstruction. Sub-explosion features can be detected with a 67% hit rate and 22% false alarm rate. Hotspot features can be detected with a 71.95% hit rate, 86.03% …

Teaching Critical Media Literacy Through Videogame Creation In Scratch Programming, Elizabeth Anne Gregg

LMU Theses and Dissertations

Critical media literacy (Kellner & Share, 2005) may better equip children to interpret videogame content and to create games that are nonviolent and socially just. Videogames are growing in popularity in classrooms. Yet educators and parents have concerns about the violent and stereotypical content they include. An earlier study based on the curriculum Beyond Blame: Challenging Violence in the Media (Webb, Martin, Afifi, & Kraus, 2009) examined the value of a media awareness curriculum. In this mixed-method study, I explored the effectiveness of a critical media literacy program that incorporated collaboratively creating nonviolent or sociallyjust games in teaching fourth-grade students …

Ultrasonic Data Steganography, Alexander Orosz Edwards

KSU Journey Honors College Capstones and Theses

What started off as a question on the possibly of data transmission via sound above the level of human hearing evolved into a project exploring the possibility of ultrasonic data infiltration and exfiltration in an information security context. It is well known that sound can be used to transmit data as this can be seen in many old technologies, most notably and simply DTMF tones for phone networks. But what if the sound used to transmit signals was in in the ultrasonic range? It would go generally unnoticed to anyone not looking for it with tools such as a spectrum …

Understanding Effects Of Autonomous Agent Timing On Human-Agent Teams Using Iterative Modeling, Simulation And Human-In-The-Loop Experimentation, Tyler J. Goodman

Theses and Dissertations

Recent U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory strategy documents have suggested the need for research in human-agent teaming. Teaming supports a dynamic shift in roles between the human and the agent, depending upon human performance and mission needs. Further, because the performance of these agents will be highly dependent upon the state of the human and the mission, this strategy suggests the need for increased use of modeling to provide a broader understanding of the automated agent’s behavior. This thesis applies a combination of static modeling in SysML activity diagrams, dynamic modeling of human and agent behavior in IMPRINT, and human …