Computer Sciences Commons^™

A Holistic Review Of Cybersecurity And Reliability Perspectives In Smart Airports, Nickolaos Koroniotis, Nour Moustafa, Francesco Schiliro, Praveen Gauravaram, Helge Janicke

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Advances in the Internet of Things (IoT) and aviation sector have resulted in the emergence of smart airports. Services and systems powered by the IoT enable smart airports to have enhanced robustness, efficiency and control, governed by real-time monitoring and analytics. Smart sensors control the environmental conditions inside the airport, automate passenger-related actions and support airport security. However, these augmentations and automation introduce security threats to network systems of smart airports. Cyber-attackers demonstrated the susceptibility of IoT systems and networks to Advanced Persistent Threats (APT), due to hardware constraints, software flaws or IoT misconfigurations. With the increasing complexity of attacks, …

How Location-Aware Access Control Affects User Privacy And Security In Cloud Computing Systems, Wen Zeng, Reem Bashir, Trevor Wood, Francois Siewe, Helge Janicke, Isabel Wagner

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The use of cloud computing (CC) is rapidly increasing due to the demand for internet services and communications. The large number of services and data stored in the cloud creates security risks due to the dynamic movement of data, connected devices and users between various cloud environments. In this study, we will develop an innovative prototype for location-aware access control and data privacy for CC systems. We will apply location-aware access control policies to role-based access control of Cloud Foundry, and then analyze the impact on user privacy after implementing these policies. This innovation can be used to address the …

A Novel Penalty-Based Wrapper Objective Function For Feature Selection In Big Data Using Cooperative Co-Evolution, A.N.M. Bazlur Rashid, Mohiuddin Ahmed, Leslie F. Sikos, Paul Haskell-Dowland

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The rapid progress of modern technologies generates a massive amount of high-throughput data, called Big Data, which provides opportunities to find new insights using machine learning (ML) algorithms. Big Data consist of many features (also called attributes); however, not all these are necessary or relevant, and they may degrade the performance of ML algorithms. Feature selection (FS) is an essential preprocessing step to reduce the dimensionality of a dataset. Evolutionary algorithms (EAs) are widely used search algorithms for FS. Using classification accuracy as the objective function for FS, EAs, such as the cooperative co-evolutionary algorithm (CCEA), achieve higher accuracy, even …

A Novel Intrusion Detection System Against Spoofing Attacks In Connected Electric Vehicles, Dimitrios Kosmanos, Apostolos Pappas, Leandros Maglaras, Sotiris Moschoyinnais, Francisco J. Aparicio-Navarro, Antonios Argyriou, Helge Janicke

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The Electric Vehicles (EVs) market has seen rapid growth recently despite the anxiety about driving range. Recent proposals have explored charging EVs on the move, using dynamic wireless charging that enables power exchange between the vehicle and the grid while the vehicle is moving. Specifically, part of the literature focuses on the intelligent routing of EVs in need of charging. Inter-Vehicle communications (IVC) play an integral role in intelligent routing of EVs around a static charging station or dynamic charging on the road network. However, IVC is vulnerable to a variety of cyber attacks such as spoofing. In this paper, …

Ecu-Ioht, Mohiuddin Ahmed, Surender Byreddy, Anush Nutakki, Leslie F. Sikos, Paul Haskell-Dowland

Research Datasets

In recent times, cyberattacks on Internet of Health Things (IoHT) have continuously been growing, and so it is important to develop robust countermeasures. However, there is a lack of publicly available datasets reflecting cyberattacks on IoHT, mainly due to privacy concerns. To strengthen the cyber security of IoHT, we have developed the dataset, named ECU-IoHT, that is built upon an IoHT environment having different attacks performed that exploit various vulnerabilities. This dataset was designed to help the healthcare security community in analyzing attack behaviour and developing robust countermeasures. To the best of our knowledge, no other publicly available datasets have …

Iot-Mqtt Based Denial Of Service Attack Modelling And Detection, Naeem Firdous Syed

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Internet of Things (IoT) is poised to transform the quality of life and provide new business opportunities with its wide range of applications. However, the bene_ts of this emerging paradigm are coupled with serious cyber security issues. The lack of strong cyber security measures in protecting IoT systems can result in cyber attacks targeting all the layers of IoT architecture which includes the IoT devices, the IoT communication protocols and the services accessing the IoT data. Various IoT malware such as Mirai, BASHLITE and BrickBot show an already rising IoT device based attacks as well as the usage of infected …

Web Content Management System And Accessibility Awareness: A Comparative Study Of Novice Users And Accessibility Outcomes, Fatima Artiba Diaz

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Since its creation, the Web has progressively developed and become a vital source of information in every domain and for almost all people. It is crucial to guarantee that the information contained on the Web is available for everyone, especially for people with special needs. Removing accessibility barriers is fundamentally based on tools, skills and support of all contributors, particularly the content creators, to ensure information is navigable and usable in the context of the end users experience. Web Content Management Systems play a significant role in structuring, storing and provision content to the Web and have evolved to address …

The Challenges Of Digital Legacy Management On The Value Of Digital Objects To Older Australians, Derani Nathasha Dissanayake

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

People spend a considerable amount of time and money in collecting digital objects. Nine out of ten Australians have a social media account but 83% of them have not discussed with their family members what should happen to their social media accounts when they die (Steen, D’Alessandro, Graves, Perkins, Genders, Barbera, Shi, McGrath & Davis, 2017). Only 3% of Australians who had a Will included social media accounts in their Wills. People collect digital objects yet little attention is paid to their preservation. 71% of Australians are unaware of what happens to their digital assets when they die (Ibid, 2017). …

Facial Re-Enactment, Speech Synthesis And The Rise Of The Deepfake, Nicholas Gardiner

Theses : Honours

Emergent technologies in the fields of audio speech synthesis and video facial manipulation have the potential to drastically impact our societal patterns of multimedia consumption. At a time when social media and internet culture is plagued by misinformation, propaganda and “fake news”, their latent misuse represents a possible looming threat to fragile systems of information sharing and social democratic discourse. It has thus become increasingly recognised in both academic and mainstream journalism that the ramifications of these tools must be examined to determine what they are and how their widespread availability can be managed.

This research project seeks to examine …

Anomaly Detection In Bacnet/Ip Managed Building Automation Systems, Matthew Peacock

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Building Automation Systems (BAS) are a collection of devices and software which manage the operation of building services. The BAS market is expected to be a $19.25 billion USD industry by 2023, as a core feature of both the Internet of Things and Smart City technologies. However, securing these systems from cyber security threats is an emerging research area. Since initial deployment, BAS have evolved from isolated standalone networks to heterogeneous, interconnected networks allowing external connectivity through the Internet. The most prominent BAS protocol is BACnet/IP, which is estimated to hold 54.6% of world market share. BACnet/IP security features are …

Integration Of Biometrics And Steganography: A Comprehensive Review, Ian Mcateer, Ahmed Ibrahim, Guanglou Zhang, Wencheng Yang, Craig Valli

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The use of an individual’s biometric characteristics to advance authentication and verification technology beyond the current dependence on passwords has been the subject of extensive research for some time. Since such physical characteristics cannot be hidden from the public eye, the security of digitised biometric data becomes paramount to avoid the risk of substitution or replay attacks. Biometric systems have readily embraced cryptography to encrypt the data extracted from the scanning of anatomical features. Significant amounts of research have also gone into the integration of biometrics with steganography to add a layer to the defence-in-depth security model, and this has …

False Image Injection Prevention Using Ichain, Mohiuddin Ahmed

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The advances in information and communication technology are consistently beneficial for the healthcare sector. A trend in the healthcare sector is the progressive shift in how data are acquired and the storage of such data in different facilities, such as in the cloud, due to the efficiency and effectiveness offered. Digital images related to healthcare are sensitive in nature and require maximum security and privacy. A malicious entity can tamper with such stored digital images to mislead healthcare personnel and the consequences of wrong diagnosis are harmful for both parties. A new type of cyber attack, a false image injection …

Aligning Security Practice With Policy: Guiding And Nudging Towards Better Behavior, Steven M. Furnell, Faisal Alotaibi, Rawan Esmael

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Despite an abundance of policies being directed towards them, users often struggle to follow good cybersecurity practice. Recognizing that such behaviors do not come naturally, a logical approach is to ensure that users are guided and supported in knowing what to do and how to do it. Unfortunately, such support is often lacking. The paper uses the example of password authentication as a specific context in which cybersecurity behavior is frequently criticized, but where users are often left to manage without sufficient support (as evidenced by examining the lack of related guidance and enforcement of good practice on leading websites). …

Proof-Of-Familiarity: A Privacy-Preserved Blockchain Scheme For Collaborative Medical Decision-Making, Jinhong Yang, Md Mehedi Hassan Hasan Onik, Nam-Yong Lee, Mohiuddin Ahmed, Chul-Soo Kim

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The current healthcare sector is facing difficulty in satisfying the growing issues, expenses, and heavy regulation of quality treatment. Surely, electronic medical records (EMRs) and protected health information (PHI) are highly sensitive, personally identifiable information (PII). However, the sharing of EMRs, enhances overall treatment quality. A distributed ledger (blockchain) technology, embedded with privacy and security by architecture, provides a transparent application developing platform. Privacy, security, and lack of confidence among stakeholders are the main downsides of extensive medical collaboration. This study, therefore, utilizes the transparency, security, and efficiency of blockchain technology to establish a collaborative medical decision-making scheme. This study …

Rethinking Global-Regulation: World’S Law Meets Artificial Intelligence, Nachshon Sean Goltz, Addison Cameron-Huff, Giulia Dondoli

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

This article takes a critical look at Machine Translation of legal text, especially global legislation, through the discussion of Global-Regulation, a state of the art online search engine of the world’s legislation in English. Part 2 explains the rationale for an online platform such as Global-Regulation. Part 3 provides a brief account of the history of the development of machine translation, and it describes some of the limits of the use of statistical machine translation for translating legal texts. Part 4 describes Neural Machine Translation (NMT), which is a new generation of machine translation systems. Finally, Parts 5 and 6 …

Security And Accuracy Of Fingerprint-Based Biometrics: A Review, Wencheng Yang, Song Wang, Jiankun Hu, Guanglou Zhang, Craig Valli

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Biometric systems are increasingly replacing traditional password- and token-based authentication systems. Security and recognition accuracy are the two most important aspects to consider in designing a biometric system. In this paper, a comprehensive review is presented to shed light on the latest developments in the study of fingerprint-based biometrics covering these two aspects with a view to improving system security and recognition accuracy. Based on a thorough analysis and discussion, limitations of existing research work are outlined and suggestions for future work are provided. It is shown in the paper that researchers continue to face challenges in tackling the two …

Doppler Radar-Based Non-Contact Health Monitoring For Obstructive Sleep Apnea Diagnosis: A Comprehensive Review, Vinh Phuc Tran, Adel Ali Al-Jumaily, Syed Mohammed Shamsul Islam

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Today’s rapid growth of elderly populations and aging problems coupled with the prevalence of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and other health related issues have affected many aspects of society. This has led to high demands for a more robust healthcare monitoring, diagnosing and treatments facilities. In particular to Sleep Medicine, sleep has a key role to play in both physical and mental health. The quality and duration of sleep have a direct and significant impact on people’s learning, memory, metabolism, weight, safety, mood, cardio-vascular health, diseases, and immune system function. The gold-standard for OSA diagnosis is the overnight sleep monitoring …

Effective Plant Discrimination Based On The Combination Of Local Binary Pattern Operators And Multiclass Support Vector Machine Methods, Vi N T Le, Beniamin Apopei, Kamal Alameh

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Accurate crop and weed discrimination plays a critical role in addressing the challenges of weed management in agriculture. The use of herbicides is currently the most common approach to weed control. However, herbicide resistant plants have long been recognised as a major concern due to the excessive use of herbicides. Effective weed detection techniques can reduce the cost of weed management and improve crop quality and yield. A computationally efficient and robust plant classification algorithm is developed and applied to the classification of three crops: Brassica napus (canola), Zea mays (maize/corn), and radish. The developed algorithm is based on the …

Learning To Grasp In Unstructured Environments With Deep Convolutional Neural Networks Using A Baxter Research Robot, Shehan Caldera

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Recent advancements in Deep Learning have accelerated the capabilities of robotic systems in terms of visual perception, object manipulation, automated navigation, and human-robot collaboration. The capability of a robotic system to manipulate objects in unstructured environments is becoming an increasingly necessary skill. Due to the dynamic nature of these environments, traditional methods, that require expert human knowledge, fail to adapt automatically. After reviewing the relevant literature a method was proposed to utilise deep transfer learning techniques to detect object grasps from coloured depth images. A grasp describes how a robotic end-effector can be arranged to securely grasp an object and …

Is Working With What We Have Enough?, Brian Cusack, Bryce Antony

Australian Digital Forensics Conference

Augmented reality (AR) digital environments have introduced a new complexity to digital investigation where augmented overlays of real objects may be momentary, changed, distorted and evade the usual methods for evidence collection. It is possible an investigator applying standard investigation methods factually reports a real situation and its digital context but has none of the relevant evidence. In this situation the potential for a fair hearing is low and the chance of retrial high. Such situations are unacceptably dangerous and require redress. In this paper the AR condition is considered in terms of its complexity and management during an investigation. …

Digital Forensics Investigative Framework For Control Rooms In Critical Infrastructure, Brian Cusack, Amr Mahmoud

Australian Digital Forensics Conference

In this paper a cyber-forensic framework with a detailed guideline for protecting control systems is developed to improve the forensic capability for big data in critical infrastructures. The main objective of creating a cyber-forensic plan is to cover the essentials of monitoring, troubleshooting, data reconstruction, recovery, and the safety of classified information. The problem to be addressed in control rooms is the diversity and quantity of data, and for investigators, bringing together the different skill groups for managing data and device diversity. This research embraces establishing of a new digital forensic model for critical infrastructures that supports digital forensic investigators …

Extraction Of Patterns In Selected Network Traffic For A Precise And Efficient Intrusion Detection Approach, Priya Naran Rabadia

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This thesis investigates a precise and efficient pattern-based intrusion detection approach by extracting patterns from sequential adversarial commands. As organisations are further placing assets within the cyber domain, mitigating the potential exposure of these assets is becoming increasingly imperative. Machine learning is the application of learning algorithms to extract knowledge from data to determine patterns between data points and make predictions. Machine learning algorithms have been used to extract patterns from sequences of commands to precisely and efficiently detect adversaries using the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol. Seeing as SSH is one of the most predominant methods of accessing systems it …

Security Vulnerabilities In Android Applications, Crischell Montealegre, Charles Rubia Njuguna, Muhammad Imran Malik, Peter Hannay, Ian Noel Mcateer

Australian Information Security Management Conference

Privacy-related vulnerabilities and risks are often embedded into applications during their development, with this action being either performed out of malice or out of negligence. Moreover, the majority of the mobile applications initiate connections to websites, other apps, or services outside of its scope causing significant compromise to the oblivious user. Therefore, mobile data encryption or related data-protection controls should be taken into account during the application development phase. This paper evaluates some standard apps and their associated threats using publicly available tools and demonstrates how an ignorant user or an organisation can fall prey to such apps.

Xmpp Architecture And Security Challenges In An Iot Ecosystem, Muhammad Imran Malik, Ian Noel Mcateer, Peter Hannay, Syed Naeem Firdous, Zubair Baig

Australian Information Security Management Conference

The elusive quest for technological advancements with the aim to make human life easier has led to the development of the Internet of Things (IoT). IoT technology holds the potential to revolutionise our daily life, but not before overcoming barriers of security and data protection. IoTs’ steered a new era of free information that transformed life in ways that one could not imagine a decade ago. Hence, humans have started considering IoTs as a pervasive technology. This digital transformation does not stop here as the new wave of IoT is not about people, rather it is about intelligent connected devices. …

International Students’ Expectations Of Information Literacy Instruction, Nicole Johnston, Meggan Houlihan, Jodi Neindorf

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

This paper presents the findings of a case study that investigated international university students’ expectations and experiences of information literacy across two countries. The results from this case study provide insights that can be utilized by librarians working with international students, to plan and develop their information literacy instruction classes and programs. Armed with an awareness of what international students’ expectations and experiences with information literacy programs are, librarians can develop more meaningful instruction that better meets the information needs of international students. Moving beyond the pilot survey, the researchers aim to improve the survey instrument and collaborate with librarians …

Automatic Log Parser To Support Forensic Analysis, Hudan Studiawan, Ferdous Sohel, Christian Payne

Australian Digital Forensics Conference

Event log parsing is a process to split and label each field in a log entry. Existing approaches commonly use regular expressions or parsing rules to extract the fields. However, such techniques are time-consuming as a forensic investigator needs to define a new rule for each log file type. In this paper, we present a tool, namely nerlogparser, to parse the log entries automatically, where log parsing is modeled as a named entity recognition problem. We use a deep machine learning technique, specifically the bidirectional long short-term memory networks, as the underlying architecture for this purpose. Unlike existing tools, nerlogparser …

Detection Techniques In Operational Technology Infrastructure, Glenn Murray, Matthew Peacock, Priya Rabadia, Paresh Kerai

Australian Information Security Management Conference

In previous decades, cyber-attacks have not been considered a threat to critical infrastructure. However, as the Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT) domains converge, the vulnerability of OT infrastructure is being exploited. Nation-states, cyber criminals and hacktivists are moving to benefit from economic and political gains. The OT network, i.e. Industrial Control System (ICS) is referred to within OT infrastructure as Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA). SCADA systems were introduced primarily to optimise the data transfer within OT network infrastructure. The introduction of SCADA can be traced back to the 1960’s, a time where cyber-attacks were not considered. …

The Relevance Of A Good Internal Control System In A Computerised Accounting Information System, Raymond Lutui, Tau’Aho ‘Ahokovi

Australian Information Security Management Conference

Advancements in information technology (IT) have enabled companies to use computers to carry out their activities that were previously performed manually. Accounting systems that were previously performed manually can now be performed with the help of computers. With all the advantages of computerized accounting software, business owners need to realize that problems do arise for a variety of reasons. Dependence on computers sometimes leads to bigger problems. This paper, therefore provide a detail information about the concept of internal control to its relevance in a computerised accounting information. This study also considers the trend between manual and computerised accounting system. …

An Investigation Into A Denial Of Service Attack On An Ethereum Network, Richard Greene, Michael N. Johnstone

Australian Information Security Management Conference

Apart from its much-publicised use in crypto-currency, blockchain technology is used in a wide range of application areas, from diamonds to wine. The most common application of this technology is in smart contracts in supply chain management, where assurance of delivery and provenance are important. One problem for an Ethereum consortium is the potential for disruption caused by a Denial-of-Service attack across the consortium nodes. Such an attack can be launched from a single source or multiple sources to amplify the effect. This paper investigates the impact of various Denial-of-Service attacks on an Ethereum Consortium deployed on the Azure Cloud …

Mobile Device Wardriving Tools’ Comparison: Nuku’Alofa As Case Study, Raymond Lutui, ‘Osai Tete’Imoana, George Maeakafa

Australian Information Security Management Conference

This paper describes the justification for a project to assess the security status of wireless networks usage in Nuku’alofa, the CBD of Tonga, By War Driving these suburbs, actual data was gathered to indicate the security status of wireless networks and provide an understanding of the users’ level of awareness and attitudes towards wireless security. This paper also takes the opportunity to compare the performance of the War driving tools that this study employed – GMoN, SWardriving, and Wi-Fi Scan. Wireless network communication remains a challenging and critical issue. This study takes an exploratory approach in which it allows the …