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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Data Verifications For Online Social Networks, Mahmudur Rahman Nov 2015

Data Verifications For Online Social Networks, Mahmudur Rahman

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Social networks are popular platforms that simplify user interaction and encourage collaboration. They collect large amounts of media from their users, often reported from mobile devices. The value and impact of social media makes it however an attractive attack target. In this thesis, we focus on the following social media vulnerabilities. First, review centered social networks such as Yelp and Google Play have been shown to be the targets of significant search rank and malware proliferation attacks. Detecting fraudulent behaviors is thus paramount to prevent not only public opinion bias, but also to curb the distribution of malware. Second, the …


On Robust Image Spam Filtering Via Comprehensive Visual Modeling, Jialie Shen, Deng, Robert H., Zhiyong Cheng, Liqiang Nie, Shuicheng Yan Oct 2015

On Robust Image Spam Filtering Via Comprehensive Visual Modeling, Jialie Shen, Deng, Robert H., Zhiyong Cheng, Liqiang Nie, Shuicheng Yan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The Internet has brought about fundamental changes in the way peoples generate and exchange media information. Over the last decade, unsolicited message images (image spams) have become one of the most serious problems for Internet service providers (ISPs), business firms and general end users. In this paper, we report a novel system called RoBoTs (Robust BoosTrap based spam detector) to support accurate and robust image spam filtering. The system is developed based on multiple visual properties extracted from different levels of granularity, aiming to capture more discriminative contents for effective spam image identification. In addition, a resampling based learning framework …


Modeling Security And Resource Allocation For Mobile Multi-Hop Wireless Neworks Using Game Theory, Laurent L. Y. Njilla Sep 2015

Modeling Security And Resource Allocation For Mobile Multi-Hop Wireless Neworks Using Game Theory, Laurent L. Y. Njilla

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation presents novel approaches to modeling and analyzing security and resource allocation in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). The research involves the design, implementation and simulation of different models resulting in resource sharing and security’s strengthening of the network among mobile devices. Because of the mobility, the network topology may change quickly and unpredictably over time. Moreover, data-information sent from a source to a designated destination node, which is not nearby, has to route its information with the need of intermediary mobile nodes. However, not all intermediary nodes in the network are willing to participate in data-packet transfer of …


From Physical Security To Cybersecurity, Arunesh Sinha, Thanh H. Nguyen, Debarun Kar, Matthew Brown, Milind Tambe, Albert Xin Jiang Sep 2015

From Physical Security To Cybersecurity, Arunesh Sinha, Thanh H. Nguyen, Debarun Kar, Matthew Brown, Milind Tambe, Albert Xin Jiang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Security is a critical concern around the world. In many domains from cybersecurity to sustainability, limited security resources prevent complete security coverage at all times. Instead, these limited resources must be scheduled (or allocated or deployed), while simultaneously taking into account the importance of different targets, the responses of the adversaries to the security posture, and the potential uncertainties in adversary payoffs and observations, etc. Computational game theory can help generate such security schedules. Indeed, casting the problem as a Stackelberg game, we have developed new algorithms that are now deployed over multiple years in multiple applications for scheduling of …


Secure And Authenticated Data Communication In Wireless Sensor Networks, Omar Alfandi, Arne Bochem, Ansgar Kellner, Christian Göge, Dieter Hogrefe Aug 2015

Secure And Authenticated Data Communication In Wireless Sensor Networks, Omar Alfandi, Arne Bochem, Ansgar Kellner, Christian Göge, Dieter Hogrefe

All Works

© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Securing communications in wireless sensor networks is increasingly important as the diversity of applications increases. However, even today, it is equally important for the measures employed to be energy efficient. For this reason, this publication analyzes the suitability of various cryptographic primitives for use in WSNs according to various criteria and, finally, describes a modular, PKI-based framework for confidential, authenticated, secure communications in which most suitable primitives can be employed. Due to the limited capabilities of common WSN motes, criteria for the selection of primitives are security, power efficiency and memory …


Pinpoint: Efficient And Effective Resource Isolation For Mobile Security And Privacy, Paul Ratazzi, Ashok Bommisetti, Nian Ji, Wenliang Du May 2015

Pinpoint: Efficient And Effective Resource Isolation For Mobile Security And Privacy, Paul Ratazzi, Ashok Bommisetti, Nian Ji, Wenliang Du

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - All Scholarship

Virtualization is frequently used to isolate untrusted processes and control their access to sensitive resources. However, isolation usually carries a price in terms of less resource sharing and reduced inter-process communication. In an open architecture such as Android, this price and its impact on performance, usability, and transparency must be carefully considered. Although previous efforts in developing general-purpose isolation solutions have shown that some of these negative sideeffects can be mitigated, doing so involves overcoming significant design challenges by incorporating numerous additional platform complexities not directly related to improved security. Thus, the general purpose solutions become inefficient and burdensome if …


Handling Human Hacking: Creating A Comprehensive Defensive Strategy Against Modern Social Engineering, Charles Snyder Apr 2015

Handling Human Hacking: Creating A Comprehensive Defensive Strategy Against Modern Social Engineering, Charles Snyder

Senior Honors Theses

Social engineering is one of the most devastating threats to any company or business. Rather than relying upon technical flaws in order to break into computer networks, social engineers utilize a suave personality in order to deceive individuals through clever conversation. These devious conversations frequently provide the attacker with sufficient information to compromise the company’s computer network. Unlike common technical attacks, social engineering attacks cannot be prevented by security tools and software. Instead of attacking a network directly, a social engineer exploits human psychology in order to coerce the victim to inadvertently divulge sensitive information. Further complicating the issue, the …


Constructing Secure Mapreduce Framework In Cloud-Based Environment, Yongzhi Wang Mar 2015

Constructing Secure Mapreduce Framework In Cloud-Based Environment, Yongzhi Wang

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

MapReduce, a parallel computing paradigm, has been gaining popularity in recent years as cloud vendors offer MapReduce computation services on their public clouds. However, companies are still reluctant to move their computations to the public cloud due to the following reason: In the current business model, the entire MapReduce cluster is deployed on the public cloud. If the public cloud is not properly protected, the integrity and the confidentiality of MapReduce applications can be compromised by attacks inside or outside of the public cloud. From the result integrity’s perspective, if any computation nodes on the public cloud are compromised,thosenodes can …


Analysis And Improvement On A Biometric-Based Remote User Authentication Scheme Using Smart Cards, Fengtong Wen, Willy Susilo, Guomin Yang Feb 2015

Analysis And Improvement On A Biometric-Based Remote User Authentication Scheme Using Smart Cards, Fengtong Wen, Willy Susilo, Guomin Yang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In a recent paper (BioMed Research International, 2013/491289), Khan et al. proposed an improved biometrics-based remote user authentication scheme with user anonymity. The scheme is believed to be secure against password guessing attack, user impersonation attack, server masquerading attack, and provide user anonymity, even if the secret information stored in the smart card is compromised. In this paper, we analyze the security of Khan et al.’s scheme, and demonstrate that their scheme doesn’t provide user anonymity. This also renders that their scheme is insecure against other attacks, such as off-line password guessing attack, user impersonation attacks. Subsequently, we propose a …


Evaluating Single Sign On Security Failure In Cloud Services, Brian Cusack, Eghbal Zadeh Jan 2015

Evaluating Single Sign On Security Failure In Cloud Services, Brian Cusack, Eghbal Zadeh

Australian Information Security Management Conference

The business use of cloud computing services is motivated by the ease of use and the potential financial cost reductions. Service failure may occur when the service provider does not protect information or when the use of the services becomes overly complex and difficult. The benefits also bring optimisation challenges for the information owners who must assess the service security risk and the degree to which new human behaviours are required. In this research we look at the risk of identity theft when ease of service access is provided through a Single Sign On (SSO) authorisation and ask: What are …


The Challeges In Implementing Security In Spontaneous Ad Hoc Networks, Alastair Nisbet Jan 2015

The Challeges In Implementing Security In Spontaneous Ad Hoc Networks, Alastair Nisbet

Australian Information Security Management Conference

Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETS) promise much in the ability to rapidly deploy a wireless network in a fashion where no prior planning is needed and the network can be running efficiently and with high security within minutes. Natural disaster response, military, education and business provide areas where MANETS can offer significant advantages in communication where infrastructure networks may take days to set up or may be impossible to implement. This research reviews a selection of MANET protocols to show the progression of the research and the issues that are yet to be addressed. It discusses the challenges to researchers …


Evaluating Policy Layer Security Controls For Value Realisation In Secure Systems, Brian Cusack, Maher Al-Khazrajy Jan 2015

Evaluating Policy Layer Security Controls For Value Realisation In Secure Systems, Brian Cusack, Maher Al-Khazrajy

Australian Information Security Management Conference

A strategic question for any business is: What value do control frameworks give? The question concerns the costs associated with implementing and maintaining control frameworks compared with the benefits gained. Each control framework contains many controls that may or may not benefit a situation and this research is aimed at testing different selections and combinations of controls to forecast probable impacts on business outcomes. The scope of the research is limited to a representative set of security controls and the lesser question: What are the criteria for selecting the most effective and efficient security control configurations for best business value? …


Ransomware: Emergence Of The Cyber-Extortion Menace, Nikolai Hampton, Zubair A. Baig Jan 2015

Ransomware: Emergence Of The Cyber-Extortion Menace, Nikolai Hampton, Zubair A. Baig

Australian Information Security Management Conference

Ransomware is increasingly posing a threat to the security of information resources. Millions of dollars of monetary loss have been afflicted on end-users and corporations alike through unlawful deployment of ransomware. Through malware injection into end-user devices and subsequent extortion of their system or data, ransomware has emerged as a threat requiring immediate attention and containment by the cyber-security community. We conduct a detailed analysis of the steps of execution involved in ransomware deployment to facilitate readiness of the cyber-security community in containing the rapid proliferation of ransomware. This paper examines the evolution of malware over a period of 26 …


Innovating Additional Layer 2 Security Requirements For A Protected Stack, Brian Cusack, Raymond Lutui Jan 2015

Innovating Additional Layer 2 Security Requirements For A Protected Stack, Brian Cusack, Raymond Lutui

Australian Information Security Management Conference

Security is only as good as the weakest link and if the weakness is at a low level in the communication stack then every other Layer has potential to inherit the problem. The OSI Layer model has defined the theoretical architecture for network communications (ISO/IEC 7498-1). Standardisation assures that each element of an internetwork uses the same model and hence a message can be moved intelligibly and correctly between participants. The OSI model divides communications into seven hierarchical Layers that provide the necessary services from the application Layer through to the physical Layer of electricity (ISO/IEC 7498-2). Each Layer is …


An Empirical Comparison Of Widely Adopted Hash Functions In Digital Forensics: Does The Programming Language And Operating System Make A Difference?, Satyendra Gurjar, Ibrahim Baggili, Frank Breitinger, Alice E. Fischer Jan 2015

An Empirical Comparison Of Widely Adopted Hash Functions In Digital Forensics: Does The Programming Language And Operating System Make A Difference?, Satyendra Gurjar, Ibrahim Baggili, Frank Breitinger, Alice E. Fischer

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

Hash functions are widespread in computer sciences and have a wide range of applications such as ensuring integrity in cryptographic protocols, structuring database entries (hash tables) or identifying known files in forensic investigations. Besides their cryptographic requirements, a fundamental property of hash functions is efficient and easy computation which is especially important in digital forensics due to the large amount of data that needs to be processed when working on cases. In this paper, we correlate the runtime efficiency of common hashing algorithms (MD5, SHA-family) and their implementation. Our empirical comparison focuses on C-OpenSSL, Python, Ruby, Java on Windows and …


Timing Attack Detection On Bacnet Via A Machine Learning Approach, Michael N. Johnstone, Matthew Peacock, J I. Den Hartog Jan 2015

Timing Attack Detection On Bacnet Via A Machine Learning Approach, Michael N. Johnstone, Matthew Peacock, J I. Den Hartog

Australian Information Security Management Conference

Building Automation Systems (BAS), alternatively known as Building Management Systems (BMS), which centralise the management of building services, are often connected to corporate networks and are routinely accessed remotely for operational management and emergency purposes. The protocols used in BAS, in particular BACnet, were not designed with security as a primary requirement, thus the majority of systems operate with sub-standard or non-existent security implementations. As intrusion is thus likely easy to achieve, intrusion detection systems should be put in place to ensure they can be detected and mitigated. Existing intrusion detection systems typically deal only with known threats (signature-based approaches) …


Ciphercard: A Token-Based Approach Against Camera-Based Shoulder Surfing Attacks On Common Touchscreen Devices, Teddy Seyed, Xing-Dong Yang, Anthony Tang, Saul Greenberg, Jiawei Gu, Bin Zhu, Xiang Ciao Jan 2015

Ciphercard: A Token-Based Approach Against Camera-Based Shoulder Surfing Attacks On Common Touchscreen Devices, Teddy Seyed, Xing-Dong Yang, Anthony Tang, Saul Greenberg, Jiawei Gu, Bin Zhu, Xiang Ciao

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We present CipherCard, a physical token that defends against shoulder-surfing attacks on user authentication on capacitive touchscreen devices. When CipherCard is placed over a touchscreen’s pin-pad, it remaps a user’s touch point on the physical token to a different location on the pin-pad. It hence translates a visible user password into a different system password received by a touchscreen, but is hidden from observers as well as the user. CipherCard enhances authentication security through Two-Factor Authentication (TFA), in that both the correct user password and a specific card are needed for successful authentication. We explore the design space of CipherCard, …


Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities In Medical Devices: A Complex Environment And Multifaceted Problem, Patricia A.H. Williams, Andrew J. Woodward Jan 2015

Cybersecurity Vulnerabilities In Medical Devices: A Complex Environment And Multifaceted Problem, Patricia A.H. Williams, Andrew J. Woodward

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The increased connectivity to existing computer networks has exposed medical devices to cybersecurity vulnerabilities from which they were previously shielded. For the prevention of cybersecurity incidents, it is important to recognize the complexity of the operational environment as well as to catalog the technical vulnerabilities. Cybersecurity protection is not just a technical issue; it is a richer and more intricate problem to solve. A review of the factors that contribute to such a potentially insecure environment, together with the identification of the vulnerabilities, is important for understanding why these vulnerabilities persist and what the solution space should look like. This …