Computer Engineering Commons^™

Security-Enhanced Serial Communications, John White, Alexander Beall, Joseph Maurio, Dane Fichter, Dr. Matthew Davis, Dr. Zachary Birnbaum

Military Cyber Affairs

Industrial Control Systems (ICS) are widely used by critical infrastructure and are ubiquitous in numerous industries including telecommunications, petrochemical, and manufacturing. ICS are at a high risk of cyber attack given their internet accessibility, inherent lack of security, deployment timelines, and criticality. A unique challenge in ICS security is the prevalence of serial communication buses and other non-TCP/IP communications protocols. The communication protocols used within serial buses often lack authentication and integrity protections, leaving them vulnerable to spoofing and replay attacks. The bandwidth constraints and prevalence of legacy hardware in these systems prevent the use of modern message authentication and …

Adversarial Patch Attacks On Deep Reinforcement Learning Algorithms, Peizhen Tong

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Adversarial patch attack has demonstrated that it can cause the misclassification of deep neural networks to the target label when the size of patch is relatively small to the size of input image; however, the effectiveness of adversarial patch attack has never been experimented on deep reinforcement learning algorithms. We design algorithms to generate adversarial patches to attack two types of deep reinforcement learning algorithms, including deep Q-networks (DQN) and proximal policy optimization (PPO). Our algorithms of generating adversarial patch consist of two parts: choosing attack position and training adversarial patch on that position. Under the same bound of total …

Vi Energy-Efficient Memristor-Based Neuromorphic Computing Circuits And Systems For Radiation Detection Applications, Jorge Iván Canales Verdial

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

Radionuclide spectroscopic sensor data is analyzed with minimal power consumption through the use of neuromorphic computing architectures. Memristor crossbars are harnessed as the computational substrate in this non-conventional computing platform and integrated with CMOS-based neurons to mimic the computational dynamics observed in the mammalian brain’s visual cortex. Functional prototypes using spiking sparse locally competitive approximations are presented. The architectures are evaluated for classification accuracy and energy efficiency. The proposed systems achieve a 90% true positive accuracy with a high-resolution detector and 86% with a low-resolution detector.

Enabling Security Analysis And Education Of The Ethereum Platform: A Network Traffic Dissection Tool, Joshua Mason Kemp

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Ethereum, the decentralized global software platform powered by blockchain technology known for its native cryptocurrency, Ether (ETH), provides a technology stack for building apps, holding assets, transacting, and communicating without control by a central authority. At the core of Ethereum’s network is a suite of purpose-built protocols known as DEVP2P, which provides the underlying nodes in an Ethereum network the ability to discover, authenticate and communicate confidentiality. This document discusses the creation of a new Wireshark dissector for DEVP2P’s discovery protocols, DiscoveryV4 and DiscoveryV5, and a dissector for RLPx, an extensible TCP transport protocol for a range of Ethereum node …

Using Nyc Open Data To Improve Accessibility For People With Mobility Impairments In New York City., Said Naqwe

Publications and Research

Approximately one-fifth to one-quarter of American families have a family member with a mobility impairment, which poses challenges for many local communities, particularly in New York City Boroughs. To address this issue, Doorfront.org aims to make sidewalks and facilities, such as residential buildings and restaurants, more accessible to disabled residents of New York City. As a research assistant for Doorfront.org, I used NYC Open Data to accumulate data on inaccessible facilities, such as the NYC sidewalk polygons, building footprints, city hydrants, bus shelters, parking meters, street trees, pedestrian ramps, litter baskets, city benches, and newsstands.
I downloaded a non-geospatial CSV …

Types Of Cyber Attacks And Incident Responses, Kaung Myat Thu

Publications and Research

Cyber-attacks are increasingly prevalent in today's digital age, and their impact can be severe for individuals, organizations, and governments. To effectively protect against these threats, it is essential to understand the different types of attacks and have an incident response plan in place to minimize damage and restore normal operations quickly.

This research aims to contribute to the field by addressing the following questions: What are the main types of cyber-attacks, and how can organizations effectively respond to these incidents? How can the incident response process be improved through post-incident activities?

The study examines various cyber-attack types, including malware, phishing, …

Enhancing The Battleverse: The People’S Liberation Army’S Digital Twin Strategy, Joshua Baughman

Military Cyber Affairs

No abstract provided.

Operationalizing Deterrence By Denial In The Cyber Domain, Gentry Lane

Military Cyber Affairs

No abstract provided.

Svar: A Virtual Machine For Portable Code On Reconfigurable Accelerators, Nathaniel Fredricks

Computer Science and Computer Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The SPAR-2 array processor was designed as an overlay architecture for implementation on Xilinx Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). As an overlay, the SPAR-2 array processor can be configured to take advantage of the specific resources available on different FPGAs. However once configured, the SPAR-2 requires programmer’s to have knowledge of the low level architecture, and write platform-specific code. In this thesis SVAR, a hardware/software co-designed virtual machine, is proposed that runs on the SPAR-2. SVAR allows programmers to write portable, platform-independent code once and have it interpreted for any specific configuration. Results are presented that verify the virtual machine …

Reverse Engineering Post-Quantum Cryptography Schemes To Find Rowhammer Exploits, Sam Lefforge

Computer Science and Computer Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Post-quantum cryptography is a necessary countermeasure to protect against attacks from quantum computer. However, the post-quantum cryptography schemes are potentially vulnerable to side channel attacks. One such method of attacking involves creating bit-flips in victim memory through a process called Rowhammer. These attacks can vary in nature, but can involve rowhammering bits to raise the encryption scheme's decryption failure rate, or modifying the scheme's random seed. With a high enough decryption failure rate, it becomes feasible to generate sufficient information about the secret key to perform a key recovery attack. This thesis proposed two attacks on proposed post-quantum cryptography algorithms, …

Radic Voice Authentication: Replay Attack Detection Using Image Classification For Voice Authentication Systems, Hannah Taylor

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Systems like Google Home, Alexa, and Siri that use voice-based authentication to verify their users’ identities are vulnerable to voice replay attacks. These attacks gain unauthorized access to voice-controlled devices or systems by replaying recordings of passphrases and voice commands. This shows the necessity to develop more resilient voice-based authentication systems that can detect voice replay attacks.

This thesis implements a system that detects voice-based replay attacks by using deep learning and image classification of voice spectrograms to differentiate between live and recorded speech. Tests of this system indicate that the approach represents a promising direction for detecting voice-based replay …

Digital Simulations Of Memristors Towards Integration With Reconfigurable Computing, Ivris Raymond

Computer Science and Computer Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The end of Moore’s Law has been predicted for decades. Demand for increased parallel computational performance has been increased by improvements in machine learning. This past decade has demonstrated the ever-increasing creativity and effort necessary to extract scaling improvements in CMOS fabrication processes. However, CMOS scaling is nearing its fundamental physical limits. A viable path for increasing performance is to break the von Neumann bottleneck. In-memory computing using emerging memory technologies (e.g. ReRam, STT, MRAM) offers a potential path beyond the end of Moore’s Law. However, there is currently very little support from industry tools for designers wishing to incorporate …

Niche: A Curated Dataset Of Engineered Machine Learning Projects In Python, Ratnadira Widyasari, Zhou Yang, Ferdian Thung, Sheng Qin Sim, Fiona Wee, Camellia Lok, Jack Phan, Haodi Qi, Constance Tan, David Lo, David Lo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Machine learning (ML) has gained much attention and has been incorporated into our daily lives. While there are numerous publicly available ML projects on open source platforms such as GitHub, there have been limited attempts in filtering those projects to curate ML projects of high quality. The limited availability of such a high-quality dataset poses an obstacle to understanding ML projects. To help clear this obstacle, we present NICHE, a manually labelled dataset consisting of 572 ML projects. Based on the evidence of good software engineering practices, we label 441 of these projects as engineered and 131 as non-engineered. This …

Government Aid Portal, Darshan Togadiya

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

In today’s world, contacting government officials seems a big task when it comes to reporting small concerns. There are many authorities and officials which makes it very difficult for ordinary people to figure out who they should contact to resolve their daily issues. To address this problem, I have developed an application which can act as intermediary between citizens and government authorities. This portal will enable locals to submit complaints regarding personal or general issues through a complaint form, which will then be routed to the appropriate government department. Once a complaint is filed, government teams are immediately alerted and …

Laying The Foundation For A Miniatuairzed Scada Testbed To Be Built At Csusb, Ryan Perera

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This culminating experience sought to lay the foundation for a miniaturized physical SCADA testbed to be built at California State University San Bernardino to enable students to apply the cybersecurity knowledge, skills and abilities in a fun and engaging environment while learning about what SCADA is, how it works, and how to improve the security of it. This project was conducted in response to a growing trend of cybersecurity attacks that have targeted our critical infrastructure systems through SCADA systems which are legacy systems that manage critical infrastructure systems within the past 10 years. Since SCADA systems require constant availability, …

Infrastructure-As-Code: Automating The Deployment On Aws Using Terraform, Srikar Pratap

Masters Projects

In my master’s project, I used Terraform to create a scalable infrastructure on Amazon Web Services (AWS) for my personal website. Terraform is an open-source infrastructure-as-code (IAC) tool that allows you to create, manage and provision infrastructure resources, such as virtual machines, storage accounts, networks, and more, across multiple cloud providers and on-premises data centers using a declarative configuration language. A scalable infrastructure is important because it enables a system or application to handle increasing amounts of traffic or workload without experiencing performance issues or downtime. It ensures that the system remains responsive, available, and reliable as an organization grows …

Analysis Of The Adherence Of Mhealth Applications To Hipaa Technical Safeguards, Bilash Saha

Master of Science in Information Technology Theses

The proliferation of mobile health technology, or mHealth apps, has made it essential to protect individual health details. People now have easy access to digital platforms that allow them to save, share, and access their medical data and treatment information as well as easily monitor and manage health-related issues. It is crucial to make sure that protected health information (PHI) is effectively and securely transmitted, received, created, and maintained in accordance with the rules outlined by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), as the use of mHealth apps increases. Unfortunately, many mobile app developers, particularly those of mHealth …

Models Of Team Structure In Information Security Incident Investigation, Fayzullajon Botirov

Chemical Technology, Control and Management

This article discusses the models of the group structure in the investigation of information security incidents, contradictions in the investigation of information security incidents, methods for assessing information security incidents at the enterprise, processes for assessing information security incidents based on its factors.

Ransomware: What Is Ransomware, And How To Prevent It, Brandon Chambers

Cybersecurity Undergraduate Research Showcase

This research paper answers the question, “What is Ransomware, and How to prevent it?”. This paper will discuss what ransomware is, its history about ransomware, how ransomware attacks Windows systems, how to prevent ransomware, how to handle ransomware once it is already on the network, ideas for training professionals to avoid ransomware, and how anti-virus helps defend against ransomware. Many different articles, case studies, and professional blogs will be used to complete the research on this topic.

From Policy Promotion To Research Output: Brief Analysis Of Technical Challenges Of Hospital-Led Artificial Intelligence Research, Yu Zhuang, Cheng Zhou

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

In recent years, artificial intelligence has become a key direction of medical and health-related research and a hot spot of international competition. In order to investigate the current situation and challenges in hospital-led artificial intelligence researched, this study selects 14 national pilot hospitals to promote the high-quality development of public hospitals as samples, adopts a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, analyzes the research articles related to artificial intelligence published by the sample hospitals in recent years, and analyzes the technical challenges in the hospital-led artificial intelligence research. The results show that although the number of hospital-led artificial intelligence research …

Research On Construction Method Of Ubiquitous Operating System Open Source Ecosystem Based On Internet Of Everything, Meng Wang, Weidong Li

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

Building an independent, healthy, and sustainable open source ecosystem is a key link in the development and application of ubiquitous operating system. Aiming at the Internet of Everything, combined with the new characteristics of ubiquitous operating system, this study summarizes the constituent elements and system model of ubiquitous operating system open source ecosystem, and puts forward the construction method of ubiquitous operating system open source ecosystem. This study provides new ideas to promote the iterative innovation of ubiquitous operating system, integrate the isolated island of ubiquitous operating system open source ecosystem, and promote the preliminary practice and collaborative development of …

Role Of Ai In Threat Detection And Zero-Day Attacks, Kelly Morgan

Cybersecurity Undergraduate Research Showcase

Cybercrime and attack methods have been steadily increasing since the 2019 pandemic. In the years following 2019, the number of victims and attacks per hour rapidly increased as businesses and organizations transitioned to digital environments for business continuity amidst lockdowns. In most scenarios cybercriminals continued to use conventional attack methods and known vulnerabilities that would cause minimal damage to an organization with a robust cyber security posture. However, zero-day exploits have skyrocketed across all industries with an increasingly growing technological landscape encompassing internet of things (IoT), cloud hosting, and more advanced mobile technologies. Reports by Mandiant Threat Intelligence (2022) concluded …

Blockchain Accelerators And An Application On Covid-19 Contact Tracing, Tao Lu

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Blockchain technology has been an emerging technology in recent years. Its nature of decentralization and anonymity enables many applications to be built in a trustless environment but can still be validated and agreed upon by all the participants. Ever since the invention of blockchain technology, its concepts and forms are explored extensively, and it has shown the potential to be used in many industries. However, the low efficiency and the poor performance have prevented the technology to be adopted in practical largescale usage. In this dissertation, we present three major works around blockchain technology. The first one is BPU, an …

Enhancing Cyberspace Monitoring In The United States Aviation Industry: A Multi-Layered Approach For Addressing Emerging Threats, Matthew Janson

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

This research project examined the cyberspace domain in the United States (U.S.) aviation industry from many different angles. The research involved learning about the U.S. aviation cyberspace environment, the landscape of cyber threats, new technologies like 5G and smart airports, cybersecurity frameworks and best practices, and the use of aviation cyberspace monitoring capabilities. The research looked at how vulnerable the aviation industry is from cyber-attacks, analyzed the possible effects of cyber-attacks on the industry, and suggests ways to improve the industry's cybersecurity posture. The project's main goal was to protect against possible cyber-attacks and make sure that the aviation industry …

Chatgpt As Metamorphosis Designer For The Future Of Artificial Intelligence (Ai): A Conceptual Investigation, Amarjit Kumar Singh (Library Assistant), Dr. Pankaj Mathur (Deputy Librarian)

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this research paper is to explore ChatGPT’s potential as an innovative designer tool for the future development of artificial intelligence. Specifically, this conceptual investigation aims to analyze ChatGPT’s capabilities as a tool for designing and developing near about human intelligent systems for futuristic used and developed in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Also with the helps of this paper, researchers are analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of ChatGPT as a tool, and identify possible areas for improvement in its development and implementation. This investigation focused on the various features and functions of ChatGPT that …

Procedural Model Of The Monitoring System, Fayzullajon Botirov

Chemical Technology, Control and Management

This article discusses the process of monitoring information security incidents and factors affecting the effectiveness of monitoring. A procedural model of the functioning of the information security incident monitoring system is constructed, based on the study of its structure, the principles of operation of individual components and literature data, the analysis of individual stages.

Machine Learning Applications In Malware Classification: A Metaanalysis Literature Review, Tjada Nelson, Austin O'Brien, Cherie Noteboom

Research & Publications

With a text mining and bibliometrics approach, this study reviews the literature on the evolution of malware classification using machine learning. This work takes literature from 2008 to 2022 on the subject of using machine learning for malware classification to understand the impact of this technology on malware classification. Throughout this study, we seek to answer three main research questions: RQ1: Is the application of machine learning for malware classification growing? RQ2: What is the most common machine-learning application for malware classification? RQ3: What are the outcomes of the most common machine learning applications? The analysis of 2186 articles resulting …

Resource Management In Mobile Edge Computing For Compute-Intensive Application, Xiaojie Zhang

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

With current and future mobile applications (e.g., healthcare, connected vehicles, and smart grids) becoming increasingly compute-intensive for many mission-critical use cases, the energy and computing capacities of embedded mobile devices are proving to be insufficient to handle all in-device computation. To address the energy and computing shortages of mobile devices, mobile edge computing (MEC) has emerged as a major distributed computing paradigm. Compared to traditional cloud-based computing, MEC integrates network control, distributed computing, and storage to customizable, fast, reliable, and secure edge services that are closer to the user and data sites. However, the diversity of applications and a variety …

Data Integration Based Human Activity Recognition Using Deep Learning Models, Basamma Umesh Patil, D V Ashoka, Ajay Prakash B. V

Karbala International Journal of Modern Science

Regular monitoring of physical activities such as walking, jogging, sitting, and standing will help reduce the risk of many diseases like cardiovascular complications, obesity, and diabetes. Recently, much research showed that the effective development of Human Activity Recognition (HAR) will help in monitoring the physical activities of people and aid in human healthcare. In this concern, deep learning models with a novel automated hyperparameter generator are proposed and implemented to predict human activities such as walking, jogging, walking upstairs, walking downstairs, sitting, and standing more precisely and robustly. Conventional HAR systems are unable to manage real-time changes in the surrounding …

A Literature Review On Agile Methodologies Quality, Extreme Programming And Scrum, Naglaa A. Eldanasory, Engy Yehia, Amira M. Idrees

Future Computing and Informatics Journal

most applied methods in the software development industry. However, agile methodologies face some challenges such as less documentation and wasting time considering changes. This review presents how the previous studies attempted to cover issues of agile methodologies and the modifications in the performance of agile methodologies. The paper also highlights unresolved issues to get the attention of developers, researchers, and software practitioners.