Information Security Commons^™

Threshold Attribute-Based Credentials With Redactable Signature, Rui Shi, Huamin Feng, Yang Yang, Feng Yuan, Yingjiu Li, Hwee Hwa Pang, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Threshold attribute-based credentials are suitable for decentralized systems such as blockchains as such systems generally assume that authenticity, confidentiality, and availability can still be guaranteed in the presence of a threshold number of dishonest or faulty nodes. Coconut (NDSS'19) was the first selective disclosure attribute-based credentials scheme supporting threshold issuance. However, it does not support threshold tracing of user identities and threshold revocation of user credentials, which is desired for internal governance such as identity management, data auditing, and accountability. The communication and computation complexities of Coconut for verifying credentials are linear in the number of each user's attributes and …

Cybersecurity Safeguards: What Cybersecurity Safeguards Could Have Prevented The Intelligence/Data Breach By A Member Of The Air National Guard, Christopher Curtis Royal

Cyber Operations and Resilience Program Graduate Projects

Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old IT specialist Air National Guard found himself on the wrong side of the US law after sharing what is considered classified and extremely sensitive information about USA's operations and role in Ukraine and Russia war. Like other previous cases of leakage of classified intelligence, the case of Teixeira raises concerns about the weaknesses and vulnerability of federal agencies' IT systems and security protocols governing accessibility to classified documents. Internal leakages of such classified documents hurt national security and can harm the country, especially when such secretive intelligence finds its way into the hands of enemies. Unauthorized …

Learning To Ask Clarification Questions With Spatial Reasoning, Yang Deng, Shuaiyi Li, Wai Lam

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Asking clarifying questions has become a key element of various conversational systems, allowing for an effective resolution of ambiguity and uncertainty through natural language questions. Despite the extensive applications of spatial information grounded dialogues, it remains an understudied area on learning to ask clarification questions with the capability of spatial reasoning. In this work, we propose a novel method, named SpatialCQ, for this problem. Specifically, we first align the representation space between textual and spatial information by encoding spatial states with textual descriptions. Then a multi-relational graph is constructed to capture the spatial relations and enable spatial reasoning with relational …

Mitigating Adversarial Attacks On Data-Driven Invariant Checkers For Cyber-Physical Systems, Rajib Ranjan Maiti, Cheah Huei Yoong, Venkata Reddy Palleti, Arlindo Silva, Christopher M. Poskitt

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The use of invariants in developing security mechanisms has become an attractive research area because of their potential to both prevent attacks and detect attacks in Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). In general, an invariant is a property that is expressed using design parameters along with Boolean operators and which always holds in normal operation of a system, in particular, a CPS. Invariants can be derived by analysing operational data of various design parameters in a running CPS, or by analysing the system's requirements/design documents, with both of the approaches demonstrating significant potential to detect and prevent cyber-attacks on a CPS. While …

Multi-Target Backdoor Attacks For Code Pre-Trained Models, Yanzhou Li, Shangqing Liu, Kangjie Chen, Xiaofei Xie, Tianwei Zhang, Yang Liu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Backdoor attacks for neural code models have gained considerable attention due to the advancement of code intelligence. However, most existing works insert triggers into task-specific data for code-related downstream tasks, thereby limiting the scope of attacks. Moreover, the majority of attacks for pre-trained models are designed for understanding tasks. In this paper, we propose task-agnostic backdoor attacks for code pre-trained models. Our backdoored model is pre-trained with two learning strategies (i.e., Poisoned Seq2Seq learning and token representation learning) to support the multi-target attack of downstream code understanding and generation tasks. During the deployment phase, the implanted backdoors in the victim …

Balancing Privacy And Flexibility Of Cloud-Based Personal Health Records Sharing System, Yudi Zhang, Fuchun Guo, Willy Susilo, Guomin Yang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The Internet of Things and cloud services have been widely adopted in many applications, and personal health records (PHR) can provide tailored medical care. The PHR data is usually stored on cloud servers for sharing. Weighted attribute-based encryption (ABE) is a practical and flexible technique to protect PHR data. Under a weighted ABE policy, the data user's attributes will be “scored”, if and only if the score reaches the threshold value, he/she can access the data. However, while this approach offers a flexible access policy, the data owners have difficulty controlling their privacy, especially sharing PHR data in collaborative e-health …

Digital Transformation In Local Governments: A Case Study Of Abu Dhabi Municipality Transport Department, Alia Sahmi Al Ahbabi

Theses

The new generation is rapidly adapting to the digital era, where government and private services are being transformed into electronic services, commonly known as Eservices. Cities are leveraging digitalization to streamline their business processes and business services. This digitalization has improved service delivery time and quality for individuals. With digitalization, business processes align with technology, enhancing performance and customer satisfaction. However, there are challenges associated with digitalization, particularly people working in various municipality departments who find it challenging to adapt to digitization. Employees may take time to adjust to the new techniques and technologies, which may hamper the actions of …

An Efficient Strategy For Deploying Deception Technology, Noora Abdulla Alhosani

Theses

Implementations of deception technology is crucial in discovering attacks by creating a controlled and monitored environment for detecting malicious activity. This technology involves the deployment of decoys, traps, and honeypots that mimic natural systems and network assets to attract and identify attackers. The use of deception technology provides an early warning system for detecting cyber-attacks, allowing organizations to respond quickly and mitigate damage. This article proposed a framework that focuses on maximizing the efficiency of deception technology in detecting sophisticated attacks. The framework employs multi-layered deception techniques at various levels of the network, system, and application to provide comprehensive coverage …

An Analysis And Examination Of Consensus Attacks In Blockchain Networks, Thomas R. Clark

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

This paper examines consensus attacks as they relate to blockchain networks. Consensus attacks are a significant threat to the security and integrity of blockchain networks, and understanding these attacks is crucial for developers and stakeholders. The primary contribution of the paper is to present blockchain and consensus attacks in a clear and accessible manner, with the aim of making these complex concepts easily understandable for a general audience. Using literature review, the paper identifies various methods to prevent consensus attacks, including multi-chain networks, proof-of-work consensus algorithms, and network auditing and monitoring. An analysis revealed that these methods for preventing consensus …

Blockchain Security: Double-Spending Attack And Prevention, William Henry Scott Iii

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis shows that distributed consensus systems based on proof of work are vulnerable to hashrate-based double-spending attacks due to abuse of majority rule. Through building a private fork of Litecoin and executing a double-spending attack this thesis examines the mechanics and principles behind the attack. This thesis also conducts a survey of preventative measures used to deter double-spending attacks, concluding that a decentralized peer-to-peer network using proof of work is best protected by the addition of an observer system whether internal or external.

Digital Dna: The Ethical Implications Of Big Data As The World’S New-Age Commodity, Clark H. Dotson

Honors Theses

In the emerging digital world that we find ourselves in, it becomes apparent that data collection has become a staple of daily life, whether we like it or not. This research discussion aims to bring light to just how much one’s own digital identity is valued in the technologically-infused world of today, with distinct research and local examples to bring awareness to the ethical implications of your online presence. The paper in question examines anecdotal and research evidence of the collection of data, both through true and unjust means, as well as ethical implications of what this information truly represents. …

Rbac Attack Exposure Auditor. Tracking User Risk Exposure Per Role-Based Access Control Permissions, Adelaide Damrau

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Access control models and implementation guidelines for determining, provisioning, and de-provisioning user permissions are challenging due to the differing approaches, unique for each organization, the lack of information provided by case studies concerning the organization’s security policies, and no standard means of implementation procedures or best practices. Although there are multiple access control models, one stands out, role-based access control (RBAC). RBAC simplifies maintenance by enabling administrators to group users with similar permissions. This approach to managing user permissions supports the principle of least privilege and separation of duties, which are needed to ensure an organization maintains acceptable user access …

Trace Dna Detection Using Diamond Dye: A Recovery Technique To Yield More Dna, Leah Davis

Master's Theses

This study aspires to find a new screening approach to trace DNA recovery techniques to yield a higher quantity of trace DNA from larger items of evidence. It takes the path of visualizing trace DNA on items of evidence with potential DNA so analysts can swab a more localized area rather than attempting to recover trace DNA through the general swabbing technique currently used for trace DNA recovery. The first and second parts consisted of observing trace DNA interaction with Diamond Dye on porous and non-porous surfaces.

The third part involved applying the Diamond Dye solution by spraying it onto …

Rattus Norvegicus As A Biological Detector Of Clandestine Remains And The Use Of Ultrasonic Vocalizations As A Locating Mechanism, Gabrielle M. Johnston

Master's Theses

In investigations, locating missing persons and clandestine remains are imperative. One way that first responder and police agencies can search for the remains is by using cadaver dogs as biological detectors. Cadaver dogs are typically used due to their olfactory sensitivity and ability to detect low concentrations of volatile organic compounds produced by biological remains. Cadaver dogs are typically chosen for their stamina, agility, and olfactory sensitivity. However, what is not taken into account often is the size of the animal and the expense of maintaining and training the animal. Cadaver dogs are typically large breeds that cannot fit in …

Colefunda: Explainable Silent Vulnerability Fix Identification, Jiayuan Zhou, Michael Pacheco, Jinfu Chen, Xing Hu, Xin Xia, David Lo, Ahmed E. Hassan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

It is common practice for OSS users to leverage and monitor security advisories to discover newly disclosed OSS vulnerabilities and their corresponding patches for vulnerability remediation. It is common for vulnerability fixes to be publicly available one week earlier than their disclosure. This gap in time provides an opportunity for attackers to exploit the vulnerability. Hence, OSS users need to sense the fix as early as possible so that the vulnerability can be remediated before it is exploited. However, it is common for OSS to adopt a vulnerability disclosure policy which causes the majority of vulnerabilities to be fixed silently, …

Premium Wireless, Dakota Burkhart, Andrew Clark, Garrett Kenney, Brandon Monroe

ATU Scholars Symposium

Our work implements an inventory system and appointment system for the Premium Wireless phone company. It includes separate views for employees to manage inventory and view appointments for the day and the near future and allows customers to view all current inventory and set an appointment.

An Analysis Of Successful Sqlia For Future Evolutionary Prediction, Andrew Pechin

Senior Honors Theses

Web applications are a fundamental component of the internet, many interact with backend databases. Securing web applications and their databases from hackers should be a top priority for cybersecurity researchers. Structured Query Language (SQL) injection attacks (SQLIA) constitute a significant threat to web applications. They can hijack the backend databases to steal personally identifiable information (PII), initiate scams, or launch more sophisticated cyberattacks. SQLIA has evolved since its conception in the early 2000s and will continue to do so in the coming years. This paper analyzes past literature and successful SQLIA from specific time periods to identify themes and methods …

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

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Abstract

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

Campus Safety Data Gathering, Classification, And Ranking Based On Clery-Act Reports, Walaa F. Abo Elenin

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Most existing campus safety rankings are based on criminal incident history with minimal or no consideration of campus security conditions and standard safety measures. Campus safety information published by universities/colleges is usually conceptual/qualitative and not quantitative and are based-on criminal records of these campuses. Thus, no explicit and trusted ranking method for these campuses considers the level of compliance with the standard safety measures. A quantitative safety measure is important to compare different campuses easily and to learn about specific campus safety conditions.

In this thesis, we utilize Clery-Act reports of campuses to automatically analyze their safety conditions and generate …

T-Counter: Trustworthy And Efficient Cpu Resource Measurement Using Sgx In The Cloud, Chuntao Dong, Qingni Shen, Xuhua Ding, Daoqing Yu, Wu Luo, Pengfei Wu, Zhonghai Wu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

As cloud services have become popular, and their adoption is growing, consumers are becoming more concerned about the cost of cloud services. Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) generally use a pay-per-use billing scheme in the cloud services model: consumers use resources as they needed and are billed for their resource usage. However, CSPs are untrusted and privileged; they have full control of the entire operating system (OS) and may tamper with bills to cheat consumers. So, how to provide a trusted solution that can keep track of and verify the consumers’ resource usage has been a challenging problem. In this paper, …

An Empirical Assessment Of The Use Of Password Workarounds And The Cybersecurity Risk Of Data Breaches, Michael Joseph Rooney

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Passwords have been used for a long time to grant controlled access to classified spaces, electronics, networks, and more. However, the dramatic increase in user accounts over the past few decades has exposed the realization that technological measures alone cannot ensure a high level of IS security; this leaves the end-users holding a critical role in protecting their organization and personal information. The increased use of IS as a working tool for employees increases the number of accounts and passwords required. Despite being more aware of password entropy, users still often participate in deviant password behaviors, known as ‘password workarounds’ …

High Performance Distributed File System Based On Blockchain, Ajinkya Rajguru

Master's Projects

Distributed filesystem architectures use commodity hardware to store data on a large scale with maximum consistency and availability. Blockchain makes it possible to store information that can never be tampered with and incentivizes a traditional decentralized storage system. This project aimed to implement a decentralized filesystem that leverages the blockchain to keep a record of all the transactions on it. A conventional filesystem viz. GFS [1] or HDFS [2] uses designated servers owned by their organization to store the data and are governed by a master service. This project aimed at removing a single point of failure and makes use …

Reks: Role-Based Encrypted Keyword Search With Enhanced Access Control For Outsourced Cloud Data, Yibin Miao, Feng Li, Xiaohua Jia, Huaxiong Wang, Ximeng Liu, Kim-Kwang Raymond Choo, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Keyword-based search over encrypted data is an important technique to achieve both data confidentiality and utilization in cloud outsourcing services. While commonly used access control mechanisms, such as identity-based encryption and attribute-based encryption, do not generally scale well for hierarchical access permissions. To solve this problem, we propose a Role-based Encrypted Keyword Search (REKS) scheme by using the role-based access control and broadcast encryption. Specifically, REKS allows owners to deploy hierarchical access control by allowing users with parent roles to have access permissions from child roles. Using REKS, we further facilitate token generation preprocessing and efficient user management, thereby significantly …

Software Supply Chain Security Attacks And Analysis Of Defense, Juanjose Rodriguez-Cardenas, Jobair Hossain Faruk, Masura Tansim, Asia Shavers, Corey Brookins, Shamar Lake, Ava Norouzi, Marie Nassif, Kenneth Burke, Miranda Dominguez

Symposium of Student Scholars

The Software Supply chain or SSC is the backbone of the logistics industry and is crucial to a business's success and operation. The surge of attacks and risks for the SSC has grown in coming years with each attack's impact becoming more significant. These attacks have led to the leaking of both client and company sensitive information, corruption of the data, and having it subject to malware and ransomware installation, despite new practices implemented and investments into SSC security and its branches that have not stopped attackers from developing new vulnerabilities and exploits. In our research, we have investigated Software …

Secure Cloud-Based Iot Water Quality Gathering For Analysis And Visualization, Soin Abdoul Kassif Baba M Traore

Symposium of Student Scholars

Water quality refers to measurable water characteristics, including chemical, biological, physical, and radiological characteristics usually relative to human needs. Dumping waste and untreated sewage are the reasons for water pollution and several diseases to the living hood. The quality of water can also have a significant impact on animals and plant ecosystems. Therefore, keeping track of water quality is a substantial national interest. Much research has been done for measuring water quality using sensors to prevent water pollution. In summary, those systems are built based on online and reagent-free water monitoring SCADA systems in wired networks. However, centralized servers, transmission …

The Rise Of Terrorism In Africa And What It Means For U.S. Policymakers, Bridget Mary Hughes

Master's Theses

This thesis utilizes three case studies to measure the rise of terrorism in Africa. This qualitative data leads the reader to one ultimate question: what does the rise in terrorism in Africa mean for the United States (U.S.) and U.S. policymakers, National Security academia, students in National Security, if anything at all? The answer is: if civilian and military compounds are being targeted by these violent extremists, as these three case studies demonstrate, it is my recommendation that U.S. policymakers cease sending troops to the African theater and, instead, allocate funding to the citizens and nonprofits of the countries whom …

M-Edese: Multi-Domain, Easily Deployable, And Efficiently Searchable Encryption, Jiaming Yuan, Yingjiu Li, Jianting Ning, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Searchable encryption is an essential component of cryptography, which allows users to search for keywords and retrieve records from an encrypted database at cloud storage while ensuring the confidentiality of users’ queries. While most existing research on searchable encryption focuses on the single domain setting, we propose the first Multi-Domain, Easily-Deployable, Efficiently-Searchable Encryption (M-EDESE) system that allows users to query keywords cross domains with high efficiency and preserved privacy without additional cooperation from the cloud storage. In the multi-domain setting, a user who belongs to a domain can query keywords from another domain under an inter-domain partnership. Any party can …

Social Access And Representation For Autistic Adult Livestreamers, Terrance Mok, Anthony Tang, Adam Mccrimmon, Lora Oehlberg

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We interviewed 10 autistic livestreamers to understand their motivations for livestreaming on Twitch. Our participants explained that streaming helped them fulfill social desires by: supporting them in making meaningful social connections with others; giving them a safe space to practice social skills like “small talk”; and empowering them to be autistic role models and to share their true selves. This work offers an early report on how autistic individuals leverage livestreaming as a beneficial social platform while struggling with audience expectations.

Soci: A Toolkit For Secure Outsourced Computation On Integers, Bowen Zhao, Jiaming Yuan, Ximeng Liu, Yongdong Wu, Hwee Hwa Pang, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Secure outsourced computation is a key technique for protecting data security and privacy in the cloud. Although fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) enables computations over encrypted data, it suffers from high computation costs in order to support an unlimited number of arithmetic operations. Recently, secure computations based on interactions of multiple computation servers and partially homomorphic encryption (PHE) were proposed in the literature, which enable an unbound number of addition and multiplication operations on encrypted data more efficiently than FHE and do not add any noise to encrypted data; however, these existing solutions are either limited in functionalities (e.g., computation on …

Secure Hierarchical Deterministic Wallet Supporting Stealth Address, Xin Yin, Zhen Liu, Guomin Yang, Guoxing Chen, Haojin Zhu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Over the past decade, cryptocurrency has been undergoing a rapid development. Digital wallet, as the tool to store and manage the cryptographic keys, is the primary entrance for the public to access cryptocurrency assets. Hierarchical Deterministic Wallet (HDW), proposed in Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 32 (BIP32), has attracted much attention and been widely used in the community, due to its virtues such as easy backup/recovery, convenient cold-address management, and supporting trust-less audits and applications in hierarchical organizations. While HDW allows the wallet owner to generate and manage his keys conveniently, Stealth Address (SA) allows a payer to generate fresh address (i.e., …