Information Security Commons^™

Cyber Attacks: Does Physical Boundary Matter?, Qiu-Hong Wang, Seung-Hyun Kim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Information security issues are characterized with interdependence. Particularly, cyber criminals can easily cross national boundaries and exploit jurisdictional limitations between countries. Thus, whether cyber attacks are spatially autocorrelated is a strategic issue for government authorities and a tactic issue for insurance companies. Through an empirical study of cyber attacks across 62 countries during the period 2003-2007, we find little evidence on the spatial autocorrelation of cyber attacks at any week. However, after considering economic opportunity, IT infrastructure, international collaboration in enforcement and conventional crimes, we find strong evidence that cyber attacks were indeed spatially autocorrelated as they moved over time. …

On The Untraceability Of Anonymous Rfid Authentication Protocol With Constant Key-Lookup, Bing Liang, Yingjiu Li, Tieyan Li, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In ASIACCS'08, Burmester, Medeiros and Motta proposed an anonymous RFID authentication protocol (BMM protocol [2]) that preserves the security and privacy properties, and achieves better scalability compared with other contemporary approaches. We analyze BMM protocol and find that some of security properties (especial untraceability) are not fulfilled as originally claimed. We consider a subtle attack, in which an adversary can manipulate the messages transmitted between a tag and a reader for several continuous protocol runs, and can successfully trace the tag after these interactions. Our attack works under a weak adversary model, in which an adversary can eavesdrop, intercept and …

Ensemble And Individual Noise Reduction Method For Induction-Motor Signature Analysis, Zhaoxia Wang, C.S. Chang, Tw Chua, W.W Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Unlike a fixed-frequency power supply, the voltagesupplying an inverter-fed motor is heavily corrupted by noises,which are produced from high-frequency switching leading tonoisy stator currents. To extract useful information from statorcurrentmeasurements, a theoretically sound and robust denoisingmethod is required. The effective filtering of these noisesis difficult with certain frequency-domain techniques, such asFourier transform or Wavelet analysis, because some noises havefrequencies overlapping with those of the actual signals, andsome have high noise-to-frequency ratios. In order to analyze thestatistical signatures of different types of signals, a certainnumber is required of the individual signals to be de-noisedwithout sacrificing the individual characteristic and quantity ofthe …

A Study Of Content Authentication In Proxy-Enabled Multimedia Delivery Systems: Model, Techniques, And Applications, Robert H. Deng, Yanjiang Yang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Compared with the direct server-user approach, the server-proxy-user architecture for multimedia delivery promises significantly improved system scalability. The introduction of the intermediary transcoding proxies between content servers and end users in this architecture, however, brings unprecedented challenges to content security. In this article, we present a systematic study on the end-to-end content authentication problem in the server-proxy-user context, where intermediary proxies transcode multimedia content dynamically. We present a formal model for the authentication problem, propose a concrete construction for authenticating generic data modality and formally prove its security. We then apply the generic construction to authenticating specific multimedia formats, for …

Secure Mobile Agents With Designated Hosts, Qi Zhang, Yi Mu, Minji Zhang, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Mobile agents often travel in a hostile environment where their security and privacy could be compromised by any party including remote hosts in which agents visit and get services. It was proposed in the literature that the host visited by an agent should jointly sign a service agreement with the agent's home, where a proxy-signing model was deployed and every host in the agent system can sign. We observe that this actually poses a serious problem in that a host that should be excluded from an underlying agent network could also send a signed service agreement. In order to solve …

Back Matter

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Masthead

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Robust Lifetime Measurement In Large-Scale P2p Systems With Non-Stationary Arrivals, Xiaoming Wang, Zhongmei Yao, Yueping Zhang, Dmitri Loguinov

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Characterizing user churn has become an important topic in studying P2P networks, both in theoretical analysis and system design. Recent work has shown that direct sampling of user lifetimes may lead to certain bias (arising from missed peers and round-off inconsistencies) and proposed a technique that estimates lifetimes based on sampled residuals. In this paper, however, we show that under non-stationary arrivals, which are often present in real systems, residual-based sampling does not correctly reconstruct user lifetimes and suffers a varying degree of bias, which in some cases makes estimation completely impossible. We overcome this problem using two contributions: a …

Efficient Conditional Proxy Re-Encryption With Chosen-Ciphertext Security, Jian Weng, Yanjiang Yang, Qiang Tang, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Recently, a variant of proxy re-encryption, named conditional proxy re-encryption (C-PRE), has been introduced. Compared with traditional proxy re-encryption, C-PRE enables the delegator to implement fine-grained delegation of decryption rights, and thus is more useful in many applications. In this paper, based on a careful observation on the existing definitions and security notions for C-PRE, we re-formalize more rigorous definition and security notions for C-PRE. We further propose a more efficient C-PRE scheme, and prove its chosen-ciphertext security under the decisional bilinear Diffie-Hellman (DBDH) assumption in the random oracle model. In addition, we point out that a recent C-PRE scheme …

Hierarchical Self-Healing Key Distribution For Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Networks, Yanjiang Yang, Jianying Zhou, Robert H. Deng, Feng Bao

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Self-healing group key distribution aims to achieve robust key distribution over lossy channels in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). However, all existing self-healing group key distribution schemes in the literature consider homogenous WSNs which are known to be unscalable. Heterogeneous WSNs have better scalability and performance than homogenous ones. We are thus motivated to study hierarchial self-healing group key distribution, tailored to the heterogeneous WSN architecture. In particular, we revisit and adapt Dutta et al.’s model to the setting of hierarchical self-healing group key distribution, and propose a concrete scheme that achieves computational security and high efficiency.

Application Of Dual-Tree Complex Wavelet Transforms To Burst Detection And Rf Fingerprint Classification, Randall W. Klein

Theses and Dissertations

This work addresses various Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) Physical (PHY) layer mechanisms to extract and exploit RF waveform features (”fingerprints”) that are inherently unique to specific devices and that may be used to provide hardware specific identification (manufacturer, model, and/or serial number). This is addressed by applying a Dual-Tree Complex Wavelet Transform (DT-CWT) to improve burst detection and RF fingerprint classification. A ”Denoised VT” technique is introduced to improve performance at lower SNRs, with denoising implemented using a DT-CWT decomposition prior to Traditional VT processing. A newly developed Wavelet Domain (WD) fingerprinting technique is presented using statistical WD fingerprints with …

Wireless Networks: Spert: A Stateless Protocol For Energy-Sensitive Real-Time Routing For Wireless Sensor Network, Sohail Jabbar, Abid Ali Minhas, Raja Adeel Akhtar

International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies

Putting constraints on performance of a system in the temporal domain, some times turns right into wrong and update into outdate. These are the scenarios where apposite value of time inveterate in the reality. But such timing precision not only requires tightly scheduled performance constraints but also requires optimal design and operation of all system components. Any malfunctioning at any relevant aspect may causes a serious disaster and even loss of human lives. Managing and interacting with such real-time system becomes much intricate when the resources are limited as in wireless sensor nodes. A wireless sensor node is typically comprises …

Wireless Networks: Certificateless Id-Based Authentication Using Threshold Signature For P2p Manets, Aasia Samreen, Seema Ansari

International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies

As far as the security of MANET (mobile and ad hoc network) is concerned, it depends upon the secure authentication especially for P2P MANETs. Identity based encryption was introduced to construct Public Key without requiring a certificate. Therefore, certificateless authentication combined with threshold digital signature and efficient key generation using identities such as IP address, are the challenging issues in front of researchers. In this paper we have addressed the problem of identity based secure authentication employing well-known RSA algorithm and secret sharing to generate threshold signature on a message.

Wireless Networks: Improved Secure Network Authentication Protocol (Isnap) For Ieee 802.16, Raheel M. Hashmi, Arooj M. Siddiqui, M. Jabeen, K. Shehzad, A. Zubair, K. S. Alimgeer

International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies

Security is amongst one of the major issues in broadband wireless access (BWA) networks. After the launch of the IEEE 802.16 standard (WiMAX), a number of security issues were reported in several articles. Ever since the beginning, work has been in progress for the neutralization of these identified threats. In this paper, the analysis of the authentication protocols implemented in WiMAX has been presented along with the description of the threats posed to them. The paper also describes security sub-layer and limitations of the existing architecture. An approach has also been presented for the prevention of these threats like the …

Networks - Ii: Overhead Analysis Of Security Implementation Using Ipsec, Muhammad Awais Azam, Zaka -Ul- Mustafa, Usman Tahir, S. M. Ahsan, Muhammad Adnan Naseem, Imran Rashid, Muhammad Adeel

International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies

Authentication, access control, encryption and auditing make up the essential elements of network security. Researchers have dedicated a large amount of efforts to implement security features that fully incorporate the use of all these elements. Currently, data networks mainly provide authentication and confidentiality services. Confidentiality alone is not able to protect the system, thus, suitable security measures must be taken. However, this security is itself an overhead which must be accounted for. A trade-off must exist between performance and security. This trade-off must be carefully managed so as not to deteriorate the systems being secured. This calls for the true …

Conditional Proxy Broadcast Re-Encryption, Cheng-Kang Chu, Jian Weng, Sherman S. W. Chow, Jianying Zhou, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

A proxy re-encryption (PRE) scheme supports the delegation of decryption rights via a proxy, who makes the ciphertexts decryptable by the delegatee. PRE is useful in various applications such as encrypted email forwarding. In this paper, we introduce a more generalized notion of conditional proxy broadcast re-encryption (CPBRE). A CPBRE scheme allows Alice to generate a re-encryption key for some condition specified during the encryption, such that the re-encryption power of the proxy is restricted to that condition only. This enables a more fine-grained delegation of decryption right. Moreover, Alice can delegate decryption rights to a set of users at …

On The Effectiveness Of Software Diversity: A Systematic Study On Real-World Vulnerabilities, Jin Han, Debin Gao, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Many systems have been introduced to detect software intrusions by comparing the outputs and behavior of diverse replicas when they are processing the same, potentially malicious, input. When these replicas are constructed using off-the-shelf software products, it is assumed that they are diverse and not compromised simultaneously under the same attack. In this paper, we analyze vulnerabilities published in 2007 to evaluate the extent to which this assumption is valid. We focus on vulnerabilities in application software, and show that the majority of these software products --- including those providing the same service (and therefore multiple software substitutes can be …

Efficient Non-Interactive Range Proof, Tsz Hon Yuen, Qiong Huang, Yi Mu, Willy Susilo, Duncan S. Wong, Guomin Yang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We propose the first constant size non-interactive range proof which is not based on the heuristic Fiat-Shamir transformation and whose security does not rely on the random oracle assumption. The proof consists of a constant number of group elements. Compared with the most efficient constant-size range proof available in the literature, our scheme has significantly reduced the proof size. We showed that our scheme achieves perfect completeness, perfect soundness and composable zero-knowledge under a conventional number-theoretic assumption, namely the Subgroup Decision Problem.

Leak-Free Mediated Group Signatures, Xuhua Ding, Gene Tsudik, Shouhuai Xu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Group signatures are a useful cryptographic construct for privacy-preserving non-repudiable authentication, and there have been many group signature schemes. In this paper, we introduce a variant of group signatures that offers two new security properties called leak-freedom and immediate-revocation. Intuitively, the former ensures that an insider (i.e., an authorized but malicious signer) be unable to convince an outsider (e.g., a signature receiver) that she indeed signed a certain message; whereas the latter ensures that the authorization for a user to issue group signatures can be immediately revoked whenever the need arises (temporarily or permanently). These properties are not offered in …

Back Matter

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Masthead

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Cyber Attacks: Cross-Country Interdependence And Enforcement, Qiu-Hong Wang, Seung Hyun Kim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This study empirically characterizes the interdependence in cyber attacks and examines theimpact from the first international treaty against cybercrimes (Convention on Cybercrimes:Europe Treaty Series No. 185). With the data covering 62 countries over the period from year2003 to 2007, we find that, international cooperation in enforcement as measured by theindicator of joining the Convention on Cybercrimes, deterred cyber attacks originating from anyparticular country by 15.81% ~ 24.77% (in 95% confidence interval). Second, joining theConvention also affected the interdependence in cyber attacks from two angels. First, for anypair of country, closer status in joining or not joining the Convention was associated …

Applying Sanitizable Signature To Web-Service-Enabled Business Processes: Going Beyond Integrity Protection, Kar Way Tan, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper studies the scenario where data in business documents is aggregated by different entities via the use of web services in streamlined business processes. The documents are transported within the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) messages and travel through multiple intermediary entities, each potentially makes changes to the data in the documents. The WS-Security provides integrity protection by allowing portions of a SOAP message to be signed using eXtensible Markup Language (XML) signature scheme. This method however, has not considered the situation where a portion of data may be modified by another entity, therefore a need to allow the …

Cybercrime And The 2012 London Olympics, Denis Edgar-Nevill

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The London 2012 Olympics is just three years away and the clock is ticking to put in place plans get it right. The potential for cybercrime to cause harm during this event is very great; harm to national reputation, harm to the reputation to the Olympic movement, and harm to individuals competing, watching or officiating. This paper considers the need to address these risks by taking a look at what has happened in the past at sporting events and the rising wave of electronic security threats and fraud facilitated by computers at recent Olympics. The problems for law enforcement are …

Methodology For Investigating Individuals Online Social Networking Persona, Jonathan T. Rajewski

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

When investigators from either the private or public sector review digital data surrounding a case for evidentiary value, they typically conduct a systematic categorization process to identify the relevant digital devices. Armed with the proper methodology to accomplish this task, investigators can quickly recognize the appropriate digital devices for forensic processing and review. This paper purposes a methodology for investigating an individual’s online social networking persona.

Keywords: Social Networking, Web 2.0, Internet Investigations, Online Social Networking Community

Bluetooth Hacking: A Case Study, Dennis Browning, Gary C. Kessler

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

This paper describes a student project examining mechanisms with which to attack Bluetooth-enabled devices. The paper briefly describes the protocol architecture of Bluetooth and the Java interface that programmers can use to connect to Bluetooth communication services. Several types of attacks are described, along with a detailed example of two attack tools, Bloover II and BT Info.

Keywords: Bluetooth hacking, mobile phone hacking, wireless hacking

Concerning File Slack, Stephen P. Larson

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

In this paper we discuss the phenomena known as file slack. File slack is created each time a file is created on a hard disk, and can contain private or confidential data. Unfortunately, the methods used by Microsoft Windows operating systems to organize and save files require file slack, and users have no control over what data is saved in file slack. This document will help create awareness about the security issue of file slack and discuss research results concerning file slack.

Keywords : Computer Forensics, File Slack, Ram Slack, Disk Slack

Don’T Touch That! And Other E-Discovery Issues, Linda Volonino

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The ability to preserve and access electronically stored information (ESI) took on greater urgency when amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure went into effect in December 2006. These amendments, referred to as the electronic discovery (e-discovery) amendments, focus on the discovery phase of civil litigation, audits, or investigations. Discovery is the investigative phase of a legal case when opponents learn what evidence is available and how accessible it is. When ESI is the subject of discovery, it is called e-discovery. Recognizing that most business and personal records and communications are electronic, Judge Shira A. Scheindlin stated, "We used …