Computer Sciences Commons^™

Cybersecurity Issues In The Context Of Cryptographic Shuffling Algorithms And Concept Drift: Challenges And Solutions, Hatim Alsuwat

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, we investigate and address two kinds of data integrity threats. We first study the limitations of secure cryptographic shuffling algorithms regarding preservation of data dependencies. We then study the limitations of machine learning models regarding concept drift detection. We propose solutions to address these threats.

Shuffling Algorithms have been used to protect the confidentiality of sensitive data. However, these algorithms may not preserve data dependencies, such as functional de- pendencies and data-driven associations. We present two solutions for addressing these shortcomings: (1) Functional dependencies preserving shuffle, and (2) Data-driven asso- ciations preserving shuffle. For preserving functional dependencies, …

Detecting Cyberattacks In Industrial Control Systems Using Online Learning Algorithms, Guangxia Li, Yulong Shen, Peilin Zhao, Xiao Lu, Jia Liu, Yangyang Liu, Steven C. H. Hoi

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Industrial control systems are critical to the operation of industrial facilities, especially for critical infrastructures, such as refineries, power grids, and transportation systems. Similar to other information systems, a significant threat to industrial control systems is the attack from cyberspace-the offensive maneuvers launched by "anonymous" in the digital world that target computer-based assets with the goal of compromising a system's functions or probing for information. Owing to the importance of industrial control systems, and the possibly devastating consequences of being attacked, significant endeavors have been attempted to secure industrial control systems from cyberattacks. Among them are intrusion detection systems that …

Blockchain In Internet Of Things (Iot), Debrath Banerjee

Student Theses and Dissertations

Nowadays, Blockchain is not an enigmatic technical term rather a technology that holds promise as a way not only to record financial transactions but also to decentralize infrastructure and build a trust layer for business logic. Currently blockchain development is undoubtedly empowering many financial sectors. However non-financial application areas have incredibly grown complex due to the involvement of IoT. So, although they intend to reshape the model, still lots of uncertainty exist in terms of effectiveness. In convergence of blockchain and IoT, there is no definite design model. We have developed a blockchain based IoT platform to replace the traditional …

Developing And Securing Software For Small Space Systems, Brandon L. Shirley

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The space systems industry is moving towards smaller multi-vendor satellites, known as Small Space. This shift is driven by economic and technological factors that necessitate hardware and software components that are modular, reusable, and secure. This research addresses two problems associated with the development of modular, reusable, and secure space systems: developing software for space systems (the Development Problem) and securing space systems (the Security Problem). These two problems are interrelated and this research addresses them together.

The Development Problem encompasses challenges that space systems developers face as they try to address the constraints induced by reduced budgets, …

Comparing Security Self-Efficacy Amongst College Freshmen And Senior, Female And Male Cybersecurity Students, Lane H. Melton

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This study sought to determine if there was a difference in the self-efficacy of freshman and senior, female and male Cybersecurity students relating to threats associated with various information systems. The design for this quantitative study was non-experimental, causal-comparative and known as group comparison used to determine if there was a causal relationship between variables. The method used to make that determination utilized a self-efficacy survey developed by Phelps (2005), to identify the independent variables specific level of self-efficacy. Research was conducted at a small, southern university with total of 33 participants. Each student was enrolled in the Computer Science …

Cybersecurity Education In Utah High Schools: An Analysis And Strategy For Teacher Adoption, Cariana June Cornel

Theses and Dissertations

The IT Education Specialist for the USBE, Brandon Jacobson, stated:I feel there is a deficiency of and therefore a need to teach Cybersecurity.Cybersecurity is the “activity or process, ability or capability, or state whereby information and communications systems and the information contained therein are protected from and/or defended against damage, unauthorized use or modification, or exploitation” (NICE, 2018). Practicing cybersecurity can increase awareness of cybersecurity issues, such as theft of sensitive information. Current efforts, including but not limited to, cybersecurity camps, competitions, college courses, and conferences, have been created to better prepare cyber citizens nationwide for such cybersecurity occurrences. In …

Process/Equipment Design Implications For Control System Cybersecurity, Helen Durand

Chemical Engineering and Materials Science Faculty Research Publications

An emerging challenge for process safety is process control system cybersecurity. An attacker could gain control of the process actuators through the control system or communication policies within control loops and potentially drive the process state to unsafe conditions. Cybersecurity has traditionally been handled as an information technology (IT) problem in the process industries. In the literature for cybersecurity specifically of control systems, there has been work aimed at developing control designs that seek to fight cyberattacks by either giving the system appropriate response mechanisms once attacks are detected or seeking to make the attacks difficult to perform. In this …

Securing The Human: Broadening Diversity In Cybersecurity, Mohammad Azhar, Sajal Bhatia, Greg Gagne, Chadi Kari, Joseph Maguire, Xenia Montrouidou, Liviana Tudor, David Vosen, Timothy T. Yuen

School of Computer Science & Engineering Faculty Publications

Recent global demand for cybersecurity professionals is promising, with the U.S. job growth rate at 28%, three times the national average [1]. Lacking qualified applicants, many organizations struggle to fill open positions [2]. In a global survey, 2,300 security managers reported that 59% of their security positions were unfilled, although 82% anticipated cyberattacks to their systems [3]. At the same time, the cybersecurity field is broadening, not only in technical concepts but also in human factors, business processes, and international law. The field has not become culturally diversified, however. Professionals hired in 2018 included only 24.9% women, 12.3% African Americans, …

The Chilling Effect Of Enforcement Of Computer Misuse: Evidences From Online Hacker Forums, Qiu-Hong Wang, Rui-Bin Geng, Seung Hyun Kim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

To reduce the availability of hacking tools for violators in committing cybersecurity offences, many countries have enacted the legislation to criminalize the production, distribution and possession of computer misuse tools with offensive intent. However, the dual-use nature of cybersecurity technology increases the difficulty in the legal process to recognize computer misuse tools and predict their harmful outcome, which leads to unintended impacts of the enforcement on the provision of techniques valuable for information security defence. Leveraging an external shock in online hacker forums, this study examines the potential impacts of the enforcement of computer misuse on users' contribution to information …

Car Hacking: Accessing And Exploiting The Can Bus Protocol, Bryson R. Payne

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

With the rapid adoption of internet-connected and driver-assist technologies, and the spread of semi-autonomous to self-driving cars on roads worldwide, cybersecurity for smart cars is a timely concern and one worth exploring both in the classroom and in the real world. Highly publicized hacks against production cars, and a relatively small number of crashes involving autonomous vehicles, have brought the issue of securing smart cars to the forefront as a matter of public and individual safety, and the cybersecurity of these “data centers on wheels” is of greater concern than ever.

However, up to this point there has been a …

A Design Case: Assessing The Functional Needs For A Multi-Faceted Cybersecurity Learning Space, Charles J. Lesko Jr.

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Following a multi-year effort that developed not only a detailed list of functional requirements but also the preliminary physical and logical design layouts, the concept for a multi-faceted cybersecurity center was approved and the physical, as well as, additional infrastructure space was subsequently allocated. This effort briefly describes the structure and scope of the current cybersecurity program being supported and then draws out the functional requirements that were identified for the center based on the needs of the institution’s cybersecurity program. It also highlights the physical and logical design specifications of the center, as well as, the many external program …

Information Privacy: Not Just Gdpr, Danilo Bruschi

Computer Ethics - Philosophical Enquiry (CEPE) Proceedings

The "information rush" which is characterizing the current phase of the information age calls for actions aimed at enforcing the citizens' right to privacy. Since the entire information life-cycle (collection, manipulation, storing) is now carried out by digital technologies, most of such actions consists of the adoption of severe measures (both organizational and technological) aimed at improving the security of computer systems, as in the case of the EU General Data Protection Regulation. Usually, data processors which comply with these requirements are exempted by any other duty. Unfortunately recent trends in the computer attack field show that even the adoption …

Cybersecurity For Critical Infrastructure: Addressing Threats And Vulnerabilities In Canada, Samuel A. Cohen

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

The aim of this thesis is to assess the unique technical and policy-based cybersecurity challenges facing Canada’s critical infrastructure environment and to analyze how current government and industry practices are not equipped to remediate or offset associated strategic risks to the country. Further, the thesis also provides cases and evidence demonstrating that Canada’s critical infrastructure has been specifically targeted by foreign and domestic cyber threat actors to pressure the country’s economic, safety and national security interests. Essential services that Canadians and Canadian businesses rely on daily are intricately linked to the availability and integrity of vital infrastructure sectors, such as …

Management And Security Of Multi-Cloud Applications, Lav Gupta

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Single cloud management platform technology has reached maturity and is quite successful in information technology applications. Enterprises and application service providers are increasingly adopting a multi-cloud strategy to reduce the risk of cloud service provider lock-in and cloud blackouts and, at the same time, get the benefits like competitive pricing, the flexibility of resource provisioning and better points of presence. Another class of applications that are getting cloud service providers increasingly interested in is the carriers' virtualized network services. However, virtualized carrier services require high levels of availability and performance and impose stringent requirements on cloud services. They necessitate the …

Analyzing And Estimating Cyberattack Trends By Performing Data Mining On A Cybersecurity Data Set, Chan Young Koh

Honors Program Theses and Projects

More than five billion personal information has been compromised over the past eight years through data breaches from notable companies, and the damage related to cybercrime is expected to reach six trillion USD annually by the year of 2021. Interestingly, recent cyberattacks were aimed specifically at credit agencies and companies that hold credit information of their customers and employees. The question is: “Why is it difficult to protect against or evade cyberattacks even for these prestigious companies?”. The purpose of this research is to bring the notion of notorious, rapidly-multiplying cyberthreats. Hence, the research focuses on analyzing cyberattack techniques and …

Cyber Security- A New Secured Password Generation Algorithm With Graphical Authentication And Alphanumeric Passwords Along With Encryption, Akash Rao

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Graphical passwords are always considered as an alternative of alphanumeric passwords for their better memorability and usability [1]. Alphanumeric passwords provide an adequate amount of satisfaction, but they do not offer better memorability compared to graphical passwords [1].

On the other hand, graphical passwords are considered less secured and provide better memorability [1]. Therefore many researchers have researched on graphical passwords to overcome the vulnerability. One of the most significant weaknesses of the graphical passwords is "Shoulder Surfing Attack," which means, sneaking into a victim's computer to learn the whole password or part of password or some confidential information. Such …

Cybersecurity In The Maritime Domain, Gary C. Kessler

Publications

In 2017 and 2018, the maritime industry saw a record number of attempted—and many successful—frauds via email, phishing, or other means. Demonstrated and actual attacks on vessel networks, communication systems, and navigation systems have become practically routine. Port and shipping line networks are increasingly vulnerable to what appears to be increasingly targeted attacks against maritime systems.

Unguided Cyber Education Techniques Of The Non-Expert, Seth A. Martin

Theses and Dissertations

The United States Air Force and Department of Defense continues to rely on its total workforce to provide the first layer of protection against cyber intrusion. Prior research has shown that the workforce is not adequately educated to perform this task. As a result, DoD cybersecurity strategy now includes attempting to improve education and training on cyber-related concepts and technical skills to all users of DoD networks. This paper describes an experiment designed to understand the broad methods that non-expert users may use to educate themselves on how to perform technical tasks. Preliminary results informed subsequent experiments that directly compared …

A Blockchain-Based Anomalous Detection System For Internet Of Things Devices, Joshua K. Mosby

Theses and Dissertations

Internet of Things devices are highly susceptible to attack, and owners often fail to realize they have been compromised. This thesis describes an anomalous-based intrusion detection system that operates directly on Internet of Things devices utilizing a custom-built Blockchain. In this approach, an agent on each node compares the node's behavior to that of its peers, generating an alert if they are behaving differently. An experiment is conducted to determine the effectiveness at detecting malware. Three different code samples simulating common malware are deployed against a testbed of 12 Raspberry Pi devices. Increasing numbers are infected until two-thirds of the …

A Comprehensive Cybersecurity Defense Framework For Large Organizations, Willarvis Smith

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

There is a growing need to understand and identify overarching organizational requirements for cybersecurity defense in large organizations. Applying proper cybersecurity defense will ensure that the right capabilities are fielded at the right locations to safeguard critical assets while minimizing duplication of effort and taking advantage of efficiencies. Exercising cybersecurity defense without an understanding of comprehensive foundational requirements instills an ad hoc and in many cases conservative approach to network security. Organizations must be synchronized across federal and civil agencies to achieve adequate cybersecurity defense. Understanding what constitutes comprehensive cybersecurity defense will ensure organizations are better protected and more efficient. …

Explainable Neural Networks Based Anomaly Detection For Cyber-Physical Systems, Kasun Amarasinghe

Theses and Dissertations

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) are the core of modern critical infrastructure (e.g. power-grids) and securing them is of paramount importance. Anomaly detection in data is crucial for CPS security. While Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) are strong candidates for the task, they are seldom deployed in safety-critical domains due to the perception that ANNs are black-boxes. Therefore, to leverage ANNs in CPSs, cracking open the black box through explanation is essential.

The main objective of this dissertation is developing explainable ANN-based Anomaly Detection Systems for Cyber-Physical Systems (CP-ADS). The main objective was broken down into three sub-objectives: 1) Identifying key-requirements that an …

Investigating The Impact Of Publicly Announced Information Security Breaches On Corporate Risk Factor Disclosure Tendencies, Sandra J. Cereola, Joanna Dynowska

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

As the reported number of data breaches increase and senators push for more disclosure regulation, the SEC staff issued a guidance in 2011 on disclosure obligations relating to cybersecurity risks and incidents. More recently, on February 26, 2018 the SEC Commission issued interpretive guidance to help assist public companies prepare disclosures regarding cybersecurity risks and incidents. As reported incidents of cybersecurity breaches occur, investors are concerned about the risks associated with these incidents and the impact they may have on financial performance. Although the SEC staff guidance warns public companies to make timely disclosure, recognizing the threat that cybercrime poses …

Cybersecurity Policy Development At The State Level: A Case Study Of Middle Tennessee, Daniel Leslie Scherr

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Cybersecurity is a growing threat not only to nations, critical infrastructure, and major entities, but also to smaller organizations and individuals. The growing number of successful attacks on all manner of U.S. targets highlights the need for effective and comprehensive policy from the local to federal level, though most research focuses on federal policy issues, not state issues. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of the decision-making process within the current cybersecurity policy environment in a southern state of the United States. Sabatier's advocacy coalition framework served as the theoretical framework for the study. Data were …

Strategies To Reduce The Fiscal Impact Of Cyberattacks, Shirley Denise Smith

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

A single cyberattack event involving 1 major corporation can cause severe business and social devastation. In this single case study, a major U.S. airline company was selected for exploration of the strategies information technology administrators and airline managers implemented to reduce the financial devastation that may be caused by a cyberattack. Seven participants, of whom 4 were airline managers and 3 were IT administrators, whose primary responsibility included implementation of strategies to plan for and respond to cyberattacks participated in the data collection process. This study was grounded on the general systems theory. Data collection entailed semistructured face-to-face and telephone …

Cybersecurity Strategies For Universities With Bring Your Own Device Programs, Hai Vu Nguyen

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The bring your own device (BYOD) phenomenon has proliferated, making its way into different business and educational sectors and enabling multiple vectors of attack and vulnerability to protected data. The purpose of this multiple-case study was to explore the strategies information technology (IT) security professionals working in a university setting use to secure an environment to support BYOD in a university system. The study population was comprised of IT security professionals from the University of California campuses currently managing a network environment for at least 2 years where BYOD has been implemented. Protection motivation theory was the study's conceptual framework. …

Exploring Industry Cybersecurity Strategy In Protecting Critical Infrastructure, Mark Boutwell

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Successful attacks on critical infrastructure have increased in occurrence and sophistication. Many cybersecurity strategies incorporate conventional best practices but often do not consider organizational circumstances and nonstandard critical infrastructure protection needs. The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore cybersecurity strategies used by information technology (IT) managers and compliance officers to mitigate cyber threats to critical infrastructure. The population for this study comprised IT managers and compliance officers of 4 case organizations in the Pacific Northwest United States. The routine activity theory developed by criminologist Cohen and Felson in 1979 was used as the conceptual framework. Data …

Comprehending The Safety Paradox And Privacy Concerns With Medical Device Remote Patient Monitoring, Marc Doyle

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Medical literature identifies a number of technology-driven improvements in disease management such as implantable medical devices (IMDs) that are a standard treatment for candidates with specific diseases. Among patients using implantable cardiac defibrillators (ICD), for example, problems and issues are being discovered faster compared to patients without monitoring, improving safety. What is not known is why patients report not feeling safer, creating a safety paradox, and why patients identify privacy concerns in ICD monitoring.

There is a major gap in the literature regarding the factors that contribute to perceived safety and privacy in remote patient monitoring (RPM). To address this …

An Examination Of User Detection Of Business Email Compromise Amongst Corporate Professionals, Shahar Sean Aviv

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

With the evolution in technology and increase in utilization of the public Internet, Internet-based mobile applications, and social media, security risks for organizations have greatly increased. While corporations leverage social media as an effective tool for customer advertisements, the abundance of information available via public channels along with the growth in Internet connections to corporate networks including mobile applications, have made cyberattacks attractive for cybercriminals. Cybercrime against organizations is a daily threat and targeting companies of all sizes. Cyberattacks are continually evolving and becoming more complex that make it difficult to protect against with traditional security methods. Cybercriminals utilize email …

Assessing The Presence Of Mindfulness Within Cyber And Non-Cybersecurity Groups, Christopher Wilder

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Corporations and individuals continue to be under Phishing attack. Researchers categorizes methods corporations and individuals can employ to reduce the impact of being caught in a Phishing scheme. Corporation enable technical mechanisms such as automated filtering, URL blacklisting, and manipulation of browser warning messages to reduce phishing susceptibility costing billions of dollars annually. However, even with robust efforts to educate employees about phishing techniques through security awareness training the abundance of attacks continues to plague organizations. This study aims to identify whether a correlation exists between mindfulness and phishing susceptibility. The goal of this research is to determine if mindful …

Cyber Situational Awareness And Cyber Curiosity Taxonomy For Understanding Susceptibility Of Social Engineering Attacks In The Maritime Industry, Guillermo Francisco Perez

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

The maritime information system (IS) user has to be prepared to deal with a potential safety and environmental risk that can be caused by an unanticipated failure to a cyber system used onboard a vessel. A hacker leveraging a maritime IS user’s Cyber Curiosity can lead to a successful cyber-attack by enticing a user to click on a malicious Web link sent through an email and/or posted on a social media website. At worst, a successful cyber-attack can impact the integrity of a ship’s cyber systems potentially causing disruption or human harm. A lack of awareness of social engineering attacks …