Computer Sciences Commons^™

Identifying Bugs In Digital Forensic Tools, Brian Cusack, Alain Homewood

Australian Digital Forensics Conference

Bugs can be found in all code and the consequences are usually managed through upgrade releases, patches, and restarting operating systems and applications. However, in mission critical systems complete fall over systems are built to assure service continuity. In our research we asked the question, what are the professional risks of bugs in digital forensic tools? Our investigation reviewed three high use professional proprietary digital forensic tools, one in which we identified six bugs and evaluated these bug in terms of potential impacts on an investigator’s work. The findings show that yes major brand name digital forensic tools have software …

Forensic Memory Dump Analysis And Recovery Of The Artefacts Of Using Tor Bundle Browser – The Need, Divya Dayalamurthy

Australian Digital Forensics Conference

The Onion Routing (TOR) project is a network of virtual tunnels that facilitates secure, private communications on the internet. A recent article published in “The Registry” claims that TOR bundle browser usage has increased in recent years; statistics show that in January 2012, there were approximately 950,000 users globally and now in August 2013 that figure is estimated to have reached 1,200,000 users. The report also illustrates that The United states of America and the United Kingdom are major contributors towards the massive increase in TOR usage. Similarly, other countries like India and Brazil have increased usage to 32,000 and …

Robust Watermarking Method By Systematic Block Diffusion Using Discrete Cosine Transform, Kazuo Ohzeki, Kazutaka Bannai, Yutaka Hirakawa, Kiyotsugu Sato

Australian Digital Forensics Conference

Digital watermarks have long been considered as a security feature. A watermarking method that involves the diffusion of limited watermark information into a large part of an image’s data has high robustness. The diffused information is summed up to a single component before detecting the watermark. The summing up process eliminates small noises by an averaging effect, which improves the robustness of the embedded watermark against attack. In this field, thus far, only an asymmetrical Chirp transformation with a small block size has been attempted. In this study, a new verification experiment for a large block size of 256 × …

Security Of Internet Protocol Cameras – A Case Example, William Campbell

Australian Digital Forensics Conference

The interaction of consumer devices and the internet, especially in relation to security, has always been tenuous. Where it is in the best interests of companies to produce products that are cheap and accessible, these traits often go against that of security. This investigation undertakes an analysis of one such device – the DCS 930L internet protocol camera from D Link. This camera is analysed for vulnerabilities, with an emphasis on those relating to authentication mechanisms. Several vulnerabilities are identified, and potential attacks based on these are discussed. Solutions or mitigations to these vulnerabilities are presented.

Information Security Management: Factors That Influence Security Investments In Smes, Zhi Xian Ng, Atif Ahmad, Sean B. Maynard

Australian Information Security Management Conference

In the modern information economy, the security of information is critically important to organizations. Information‐security risk assessments (ISRAs) allow organizations to identify key information assets and security risks so security expenditure can be directed cost‐effectively. Unfortunately conducting ISRAs requires special expertise and tends to be complex and costly for small to medium sized organizations (SMEs). Therefore, it remains unclear in practice, and unknown in literature, how SMEs address information security imperatives without the benefit of an ISRA process. This research makes a contribution to theory in security management by identifying the factors that influence key decision-makers in SMEs to address …

A Comparison Of Information Security Curricula In China And The Usa, Huaying Chen, Sean B. Maynard, Atif Ahmad

Australian Information Security Management Conference

Information Security (InfoSec) education varies in its content, focus and level of technicality across the world. In this paper we investigate the differences between graduate InfoSec programs in top universities in China and in the United States of America (USA). In China, curriculum emphasises Telecommunication, Computer Science and InfoSec Technology, whilst in the USA in addition to Computer Science and InfoSec Technology the curriculum also emphasises Enterprise‐level Security Strategy and Policy, InfoSec Management, and Cyber Law. The differences are significant and will have a profound impact on both the perceptions and capabilities of future generations of information security professionals on …

Is Emergency Management Considered A Component Of Business Continuity Management?, Kenny Frohde, David J. Brooks

Australian Security and Intelligence Conference

Emergency Management (EM) and Business Continuity Management (BCM) frameworks incorporate measures of strategic and operational aspects. Defined within a number of Australian and international standards as well as guidelines, such concepts may be integrated to provide increased resilience for disruptive events. However, it has been found that there is some degree of misalignment of concept integration amongst security and EM bodies of knowledge. In line with cognitive psychology exemplar‐based concepts, such misalignments may be associated with a lack of precision in communality in the approach to EM and BCM. This article presents stage 1 of a two‐stage study. Stage 1 …

Procedures And Tools For Acquisition And Analysis Of Volatile Memory On Android Smartphones, Andri P. Heriyanto

Australian Digital Forensics Conference

Mobile phone forensics have become more prominent since mobile phones have become ubiquitous both for personal and business practice. Android smartphones show tremendous growth in the global market share. Many researchers and works show the procedures and techniques for the acquisition andanalysisthe non volatile memory inmobile phones. On the other hand, the physical memory (RAM) on the smartphone might retain incriminating evidence that could be acquired and analysed by the examiner. This study reveals the proper procedure for acquiring the volatile memory inthe Android smartphone and discusses the use of Linux Memory Extraction (LiME) for dumping the volatile memory. The …

Determining What Characteristics Constitute A Darknet, Symon Aked, Christopher Bolan, Murray Brand

Australian Information Security Management Conference

Privacy on the Internet has always been a concern, but monitoring of content by both private corporations and Government departments has pushed people to search for ways to communicate over the Internet in a more secure manner. This has given rise to the creations of Darknets, which are networks that operate “inside” the Internet, and allow anonymous participation via a de‐centralised, encrypted, peer‐to‐peer network topology. This research investigates some sources of known Internet content monitoring, and how they provided the template for the creation of a system to avoid such surveillance. It then highlights how communications on the Clearnet is …

Privacy And Legal Issues In Cloud Computing - The Smme Position In South Africa, Mathias Mujinga

Australian Information Security Management Conference

Cloud computing (CC) brings substantial benefits to organizations and their clients. Information technology (IT) users in developing countries, especially those in underdeveloped communities, are gaining easy and cost‐effective access to a variety of services, from entertainment to banking. South Africa has outlined a national e‐strategy that aims to improve those communities, by providing frameworks for access to information and communications technology (ICT). The products and services of small‐, medium and micro‐sized enterprises (SMME) are now reaching a wider audience through the use of technology. CC can go a long way to help government realize the national e‐strategy. There are numerous …

A 2013 Study Of Wireless Network Security In New Zealand: Are We There Yet?, Alastair Nisbet

Australian Information Security Management Conference

This research examines the current level of security in wireless networks in New Zealand. A comprehensive wardrive covering the length of the country was made in January 2013 to ensure accurate comparisons from two previous wardrives as well as comparisons between the four main cities and the suburbs can be made. With 16 years since the introduction of the original IEEE 802.11 wireless standard having passed, an examination is made of the current state of wireless security of networks throughout New Zealand and the Auckland suburbs, and where possible compares these results with similar studies undertaken in 2004 and 2011. …

Usability And Security Support Offered Through Adsl Router User Manuals, Patryk Szewczyk

Australian Information Security Management Conference

ADSL routers are often used as either the target or the means for cyber crime. Many ADSL router threats could be mitigated through the effective use of inbuilt security controls and firmware updates available from vendors. Unfortunately, end‐users typically lack the technical expertise to correctly configure and secure the device. Subsequently, end‐users are reliant on well documented procedures provided by vendors in their user manuals and quick start guides. This study investigates the usability and security recommendations and encouragements put forth by vendors in their user manuals. The study demonstrates that user manual usability does not conform to ideal technical …

Complementary Feature Level Data Fusion For Biometric Authentication Using Neural Networks, Mark Abernethy, Shri Rai

Australian Information Warfare and Security Conference

Data fusion as a formal research area is referred to as multi‐sensor data fusion. The premise is that combined data from multiple sources can provide more meaningful, accurate and reliable information than that provided by data from a single source. There are many application areas in military and security as well as civilian domains. Multi‐sensor data fusion as applied to biometric authentication is termed multi‐modal biometrics. Though based on similar premises, and having many similarities to formal data fusion, multi‐modal biometrics has some differences in relation to data fusion levels. The objective of the current study was to apply feature …

The Influence And Deception Of Twitter: The Authenticity Of The Narrative And Slacktivism In The Australian Electoral Process, Benjamin Waugh, Maldini Abdipanah, Omid Hashemi, Shaquille A. Rahman, David M. Cook

Australian Information Warfare and Security Conference

It is uncertain how many discreet users occupy the social media community. Fake tweets, sock puppets, force‐multipliers and botnets have become embedded within the fabric of new media in sufficient numbers that social media support by means of quantity is no longer a reliable metric for determining authority and influence within openly expressed issues and causes. Election campaigns, and their associated political agendas, can now be influenced by non‐specific virtual presences that cajole and redirect opinions without declaring identity or allegiance. In the lead up to the 2013 Australian Federal Election, the open source Twitter activity for the two major …

Sellers Continue To Give Away Confidential Information On Second Hand Memory Cards Sold In Australia, Patryk Szewczyk, Nikki Robins, Krishnun Sansurooah

Australian Digital Forensics Conference

Second hand storage devices can be treasure troves of confidential data. This study investigated the remnant data on second hand memory cards that were purchased through Australian second hand auction websites throughout 2013. Memory cards continue to increase in capacity and are used in both smart phones and tablet computers as persistent storage. During this study a total of 140 second hand memory cards were purchased throughout 2013. Each memory card had its data recovered and subsequently analysed. The results show that sellers are sending memory cards with no evidence of erasure; poor attempts to erase data; or simply asking …

Patterns And Patter - An Investigation Into Ssh Activity Using Kippo Honeypots, Craig Valli, Priya Rabadia, Andrew Woodward

Australian Digital Forensics Conference

This is an investigation of the activity detected on three honeypots that utilise the Kippo SSH honeypot system on VPS servers all on the same C class address. The systems ran on identical software bases and hardware configurations. The results are over the period 21st March 2013 until Tuesday 04 June 2013. The initial analysis covered in this paper examines behaviours and patterns detected of the attacking entities. The attack patterns were not consistent and there was large disparity in numbers and magnitude of attacks on all hosts. Some of these issues are explored in the paper.

Using Genetic Algorithms To Find Cellular Automata Rule Sets Capable Of Generating Maze-Like Game Level Layouts, Andrew Pech

Theses : Honours

The video game industry has grown substantially over the last decade and the quality of video games has also been advancing rapidly. In recent years, video games have been advancing to a point that the increased time required to manually create their content is making this process too costly. This has made procedural content generation a desirable option for game developers due to its speed of generating content, and the variety of content that a single PCG method can produced.

The main purpose of this dissertation is to detail a new approach to procedurally generate video game level layouts, and …

Automated Detection Of Vehicles With Machine Learning, Michael N. Johnstone, Andrew Woodward

Australian Information Security Management Conference

Considering the significant volume of data generated by sensor systems and network hardware which is required to be analysed and intepreted by security analysts, the potential for human error is significant. This error can lead to consequent harm for some systems in the event of an adverse event not being detected. In this paper we compare two machine learning algorithms that can assist in supporting the security function effectively and present results that can be used to select the best algorithm for a specific domain. It is suggested that a naive Bayesian classiifer (NBC) and an artificial neural network (ANN) …

Dynamically Adjusting Game-Play In 2d Platformers Using Procedural Level Generation, Daniel Wheat

Theses : Honours

The rapid growth of the entertainment industry has presented the requirement for more efficient development of computerized games. Importantly, the diversity of audiences that participate in playing games has called for the development of new technologies that allow games to address users with differing levels of skills and preferences. This research presents a systematic study that explored the concept of dynamic difficulty using procedural level generation with interactive evolutionary computation. Additionally, the design, development and trial of computerized agents the play game levels in the place of a human player is detailed. The work presented in this thesis provides a …

Testing A Distributed Denial Of Service Defence Mechanism Using Red Teaming, Samaneh Rastegari, Philip Hingston, Chiou-Peng Lam, Murray Brand

Research outputs 2013

The increased number of security threats against the Internet has made communications more vulnerable to attacks. Despite much research and improvement in network security, the number of denial of service (DoS) attacks has rapidly grown in frequency, severity, and sophistication in recent years. Thus, serious attention needs to be paid to network security. However, to create a secure network that can stay ahead of all threats, detection and response features are real challenges. In this paper, we look at the the interaction between the attacker and the defender in a Red Team/Blue Team exercise. We also propose a quantitative decision …

Usefulness Of Infeasible Solutions In Evolutionary Search: An Empirical And Mathematical Study, Lyndon While, Philip Hingston

Research outputs 2013

When evolutionary algorithms are used to solve constrained optimization problems, the question arises how best to deal with infeasible solutions in the search space. A recent theoretical analysis of two simple test problems argued that allowing infeasible solutions to persist in the population can either help or hinder the search process, depending on the structure of the fitness landscape. We report new empirical and mathematical analyses that provide a different interpretation of the previous theoretical predictions: that the important effect is on the probability of finding the global optimum, rather than on the time complexity of the algorithm. We also …

Mobile Games With Intelligence: A Killer Application?, Philip Hingston, Clare Bates Congdon, Graham Kendall

Research outputs 2013

Mobile gaming is an arena full of innovation, with developers exploring new kinds of games, with new kinds of interaction between the mobile device, players, and the connected world that they live in and move through. The mobile gaming world is a perfect playground for AI and CI, generating a maelstrom of data for games that use adaptation, learning and smart content creation. In this paper, we explore this potential killer application for mobile intelligence. We propose combining small, light-weight AI/CI libraries with AI/CI services in the cloud for the heavy lifting. To make our ideas more concrete, we describe …

Developing An Explanatory Model For The Process Of Online Radicalisation And Terrorism, Robyn Torok

Research outputs 2013

While the use of the internet and social media as a tool for extremists and terrorists has been well documented, understanding the mechanisms at work has been much more elusive. This paper begins with a grounded theory approach guided by a new theoretical approach to power that utilizes both terrorism cases and extremist social media groups to develop an explanatory model of radicalization. Preliminary hypotheses are developed, explored and refined in order to develop a comprehensive model which is then presented. This model utilizes and applies concepts from social theorist Michel Foucault, including the use of discourse and networked power …

Artificial Intelligence And Data Mining: Algorithms And Applications, Jianhong Xia, Fuding Xie, Yong Zhang, Craig Caulfield

Research outputs 2013

Artificial intelligence and data mining techniques have been used in many domains to solve classification, segmentation, association, diagnosis, and prediction problems. The overall aim of this special issue is to open a discussion among researchers actively working on algorithms and applications. The issue covers a wide variety of problems for computational intelligence, machine learning, time series analysis, remote sensing image mining, and pattern recognition. After a rigorous peer review process, 20 papers have been selected from 38 submissions. The accepted papers in this issue addressed the following topics: (i) advanced artificial intelligence and data mining techniques; (ii) computational intelligence in …

A Conceptual Framework For Secure Use Of Mobile Health, Patricia A. Williams, Anthony Maeder

Research outputs 2013

Mobile health is characterised by its diversity of applicability, in a multifaceted and multidisciplinary healthcare delivery continuum. In an environment of rapid change with the increasing development of mobile health, issues related to security and privacy must be well thought out. The different competing tensions in the development of mobile health from the device technologies and associated regulation, to clinical workflow and patient acceptance, require a framework for security that reflects the complex structure of this emerging field. There are three distinct associated elements that require investigation: technology, clinical, and human factors. Each of these elements consists of multiple aspects …

On The Recognition Of Emotion From Physiological Data, Warren Creemers

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This work encompasses several objectives, but is primarily concerned with an experiment where 33 participants were shown 32 slides in order to create ‗weakly induced emotions‘. Recordings of the participants‘ physiological state were taken as well as a self report of their emotional state. We then used an assortment of classifiers to predict emotional state from the recorded physiological signals, a process known as Physiological Pattern Recognition (PPR). We investigated techniques for recording, processing and extracting features from six different physiological signals: Electrocardiogram (ECG), Blood Volume Pulse (BVP), Galvanic Skin Response (GSR), Electromyography (EMG), for the corrugator muscle, skin temperature …

Mining Climate Data For Shire Level Wheat Yield Predictions In Western Australia, Yunous Vagh

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Climate change and the reduction of available agricultural land are two of the most important factors that affect global food production especially in terms of wheat stores. An ever increasing world population places a huge demand on these resources. Consequently, there is a dire need to optimise food production.

Estimations of crop yield for the South West agricultural region of Western Australia have usually been based on statistical analyses by the Department of Agriculture and Food in Western Australia. Their estimations involve a system of crop planting recommendations and yield prediction tools based on crop variety trials. However, many crop …

Human Factors And Cultural Influences In Implementing Agile Philosophy And Agility In Global Software Development, Anuradha Sutharshan

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

As software becomes increasingly important to all aspects of industry, developers should be encouraged to adopt best practice and hence improve the quality of the processes used, and achieve targets relating to time, budget and quality. In the software industry, several software methodologies have been used to address software development problems; however some of these processes may be too bureaucratic. The Agile Alliance formed in 2001, sought to address this problem; accordingly, they developed a manifesto and twelve principles, to which all agile software methods adhere. The purpose of the manifesto and its principles is to uncover better ways of …

Eavesdropping On The Smart Grid, Craig Valli, Andrew Woodward, Clinton Carpene, Peter Hannay, Murray Brand, Reino Karvinen, Christopher Holme

Australian Digital Forensics Conference

An in-situ deployment of smart grid technology, from meters through to access points and wider grid connectivity, was examined. The aim of the research was to determine what vulnerabilities were inherent in this deployment, and what other consideration issues may have led to further vulnerability in the system. It was determined that there were numerous vulnerabilities embedded in both hardware and software and that configuration issues further compounded these vulnerabilities. The cyber threat against critical infrastructure has been public knowledge for several years, and with increasing awareness, attention and resource being devoted to protecting critical in the structure, it is …

Experimenting With Anomaly Detection By Mining Large-Scale Information Networks, A. Taleb-Bendiab

Australian Information Security Management Conference

Social networks have formed the basis of many studies into large networks analysis. Whilst much is already known regarding efficient algorithms for large networks analysis, data mining, knowledge diffusion, anomaly detection, viral marketing, to mention. More recent research is focussing on new classes of efficient approximate algorithms that can scale to billion nodes and edges. To this end, this paper presents an extension of an algorithm developed originally to analyse large scale-free autonomic networks called the Global Observer Model. In this paper, the algorithm is studied in the context of monitoring large-scale information networks. Hence, taking into account the size …