Information Security Commons^™

Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (Cmmc) Compliance For Dod Contractors, Sierra Burnett

Cybersecurity Undergraduate Research Showcase

The DoD is currently taking a supply-chain risk management strategy to foster cybersecurity. This unique strategy is often referred to as CMMC which stands for “Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification”. The approach requires that all the 300,000 DoD contractors acquire third-party authentication that may attain the requirements for the CMMC maturity level suitable to the work they desire to do for the DoD. CMMC typically examines the organization's capability to safeguard Federal Contract Information as well as CUI. It integrates various cybersecurity standards already in place and plots the best practices alongside processes to five maturity levels that range from the …

Internet Of Things: Cybersecurity In Small Businesses, Zobair Wali

Cybersecurity Undergraduate Research Showcase

Small businesses are the most vital part of a nation’s economy. In today’s world, as we are moving towards digitizing almost everything around us, cybersecurity is essential and vital for our digitalized world to function. Small businesses are no exception. All businesses collect, use, and store information. They store employees’ information, tax information, customers’ information, business transaction information, and all other operational information that is needed for a business to function. Without an appropriate cybersecurity program, these businesses are vulnerable and can be easily impacted by cyber incidents and malicious attacks. Businesses are putting resources to protect their systems against …

Efficient Server-Aided Secure Two-Party Computation In Heterogeneous Mobile Cloud Computing, Yulin Wu, Xuan Wang, Willy Susilo, Guomin Yang, Zoe L. Jiang, Qian Chen, Peng Xu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

With the ubiquity of mobile devices and rapid development of cloud computing, mobile cloud computing (MCC) has been considered as an essential computation setting to support complicated, scalable and flexible mobile applications by overcoming the physical limitations of mobile devices with the aid of cloud. In the MCC setting, since many mobile applications (e.g., map apps) interacting with cloud server and application server need to perform computation with the private data of users, it is important to realize secure computation for MCC. In this article, we propose an efficient server-aided secure two-party computation (2PC) protocol for MCC. This is the …

Leap: Leakage-Abuse Attack On Efficiently Deployable, Efficiently Searchable Encryption With Partially Known Dataset, Jianting Ning, Xinyi Huang, Geong Sen Poh, Jiaming Yuan, Yingjiu Li, Jian Weng, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Searchable Encryption (SE) enables private queries on encrypted documents. Most existing SE schemes focus on constructing industrialready, practical solutions at the expense of information leakages that are considered acceptable. In particular, ShadowCrypt utilizes a cryptographic approach named “efficiently deployable, efficiently searchable encryption” (EDESE) that reveals the encrypted dataset and the query tokens among other information. However, recent attacks showed that such leakages can be exploited to (partially) recover the underlying keywords of query tokens under certain assumptions on the attacker’s background knowledge. We continue this line of work by presenting LEAP, a new leakageabuse attack on EDESE schemes that can …

Efficient Online-Friendly Two-Party Ecdsa Signature, Haiyang Xue, Ho Man Au, Xiang Xie, Hon Tsz Yuen, Handong Cui

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Two-party ECDSA signatures have received much attention due to their widespread deployment in cryptocurrencies. Depending on whether or not the message is required, we could divide two-party signing into two different phases, namely, offline and online. Ideally, the online phase should be made as lightweight as possible. At the same time, the cost of the offline phase should remain similar to that of a normal signature generation. However, the existing two-party protocols of ECDSA are not optimal: either their online phase requires decryption of a ciphertext, or their offline phase needs at least two executions of multiplicative-to-additive conversion which dominates …

Traffic Collision Avoidance System: False Injection Viability, John Hannah, Robert F. Mills, Richard Dill, Douglas D. Hodson

Faculty Publications

Safety is a simple concept but an abstract task, specifically with aircraft. One critical safety system, the Traffic Collision Avoidance System II (TCAS), protects against mid-air collisions by predicting the course of other aircraft, determining the possibility of collision, and issuing a resolution advisory for avoidance. Previous research to identify vulnerabilities associated with TCAS’s communication processes discovered that a false injection attack presents the most comprehensive risk to veritable trust in TCAS, allowing for a mid-air collision. This research explores the viability of successfully executing a false injection attack against a target aircraft, triggering a resolution advisory. Monetary constraints precluded …

Emotional Analysis Of Learning Cybersecurity With Games Using Iot, Maria Valero, Md Jobair Hossain, Shahriar Sobhan

KSU Proceedings on Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

The constant rise of cyber-attacks poses an increasing demand for more qualified people with cybersecurity knowledge. Games have emerged as a well-fitted technology to engage users in learning processes. In this paper, we analyze the emotional parameters of people while learning cybersecurity through computer games. The data are gathered using a non-invasive Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) to study the signals directly from the users’ brains. We analyze six performance metrics (engagement, focus, excitement, stress, relaxation, and interest) of 12 users while playing computer games to measure the effectiveness of the games to attract the attention of the participants. Results show participants …

Resilience Vs. Prevention. Which Is The Better Cybersecurity Practice?, Frank Katz

KSU Proceedings on Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Students in multiple cohorts of our 3000 level Fundamentals of Information Systems Security course were given a discussion question where they had to either agree or disagree with the premise that given all the constant threats to our systems, we should dedicate more of our efforts to quickly repairing the damage of an attack rather than dedicate more of our time and energies to preventing such attacks. They were required to give their reasoning and provide sources to back up their analysis of his comment.

This paper will describe and explain the concept of cyber resiliency. It will then evaluate …

Warshipping: Hacking The Mailroom, Jackson Szwast, Bryson Payne

KSU Proceedings on Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Everyone knows what package shipping is, but not everyone knows what warshipping is. Corporate mailrooms are rarely considered as part of the cybersecurity attack surface of most organizations, but they offer physical access to millions of uninspected packages daily. UPS shipped 5.5 billion items last year, with their daily average being 21.9 million items and operating through 1,800 locations in 2020. FedEx shipped 6.5 million packages daily and operates 2,150 locations. The United States Postal Service delivered 143 billion pieces of mail in 2019. Increasingly the world’s consumers are relying on e-commerce, and during the recent COVID-19 pandemic, package deliveries …

Towards Assessing Password Workarounds And Perceived Risk To Data Breaches For Organizational Cybersecurity Risk Management Taxonomy, Michael J. Rooney, Yair Levy, Wei Li, Ajoy Kumar

KSU Proceedings on Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Cybersecurity involves a broad range of techniques, including cyber-physical, managerial, and technical, while authentication provides a layer of protection for Information Systems (IS) against data breaches. The recent COVID-19 pandemic brought a tsunami of data breach incidents worldwide. Authentication serves as a mechanism for IS against unauthorized access utilizing various defense techniques, with the most popular and frequently used technique being passwords. However, the dramatic increase of user accounts over the past few decades has exposed the realization that technological measures alone cannot ensure high level of IS security; this leaves the end-users holding a critical role in protecting their …

Analyzing Robotics Software Vulnerabilities, Hossain Shahriar, Md Jobair Hossain Faruk, Shahriar Sobhan, Mohammad Nazim

KSU Proceedings on Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Robots are widely used in our day-to-day life in various domains. For example, eldercare robots, such as CareO-Bots [1]are used to perform household tasks and provide mobility assistance [2]. Amazon uses manufacturing robots to accomplish manufacturing labor activities, such as welding and assembling equipment [2]. According to the International Data Corporation, spending on robotics is expected to reach USD 241.4 billion by the end of 2023 [4].

However, malicious users can exploit security vulnerabilities in hardware and software components of robotics systems to conduct security attacks and cause malfunction, i.e., deviate robots from their expected behaviors. Security attacks on robots …

A Taxonomy Of Cyberattacks Against Critical Infrastructure, Miloslava Plachkinova, Ace Vo

KSU Proceedings on Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

The current study proposes a taxonomy to organize existing knowledge on cybercrimes against critical infrastructure such as power plants, water treatment facilities, dams, and nuclear facilities. Routine Activity Theory is used to inform a three-dimensional taxonomy with the following dimensions: hacker motivation (likely offender), cyber, physical, and cyber-physical components of any cyber-physical system (suitable target), and security (capable guardian). The focus of the study is to develop and evaluate the classification tool using Design Science Research (DSR) methodology. Publicly available data was used to evaluate the utility and usability of the proposed artifact by exploring three possible scenarios – Stuxnet, …

A Multiple Case Study Of Meti Cybersecurity Education And Training : A Basis For The Development Of A Guiding Framework For Educational Approaches, Jeric Bacasdoon

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Maritime Cybersecurity : Comparing Practices Between Developing Countries : The Case Study Of Kenya And Spain, Bibian Turyahumura

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Professional Responsibility, Legal Malpractice, Cybersecurity, And Cyber-Insurance In The Covid-19 Era, Ethan S. Burger

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, law firms conformed their activities to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and state health authority guidelines by immediately reducing the size of gatherings, encouraging social distancing, and mandating the use of protective gear. These changes necessitated the expansion of law firm remote operations, made possible by the increased adoption of technological tools to coordinate workflow and administrative tasks, communicate with clients, and engage with judicial and governmental bodies.

Law firms’ increased use of these technological tools for carrying out legal and administrative activities has implications …

Effects Of Cloud Computing In The Workforce, Kevin Rossi Acosta

Cybersecurity Undergraduate Research Showcase

In recent years, the incorporation of cloud computing and cloud services has increased in many different types of organizations and companies. This paper will focus on the philosophical, economical, and political factors that cloud computing and cloud services have in the workforce and different organizations. Based on various scholarly articles and resources it was observed that organizations used cloud computing and cloud services to increase their overall productivity as well as decrease the overall cost of their operations, as well as the different policies that were created by lawmakers to control the realm of cloud computing. The results of this …

An Exploratory Study Of Social Support Systems To Help Older Adults In Managing Mobile Safety, Tamir Mendel, Debin Gao, David Lo, Eran Toch

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Older adults face increased safety challenges, such as targeted online fraud and phishing, contributing to the growing technological divide between them and younger adults. Social support from family and friends is often the primary way older adults receive help, but it may also lead to reliance on others. We have conducted an exploratory study to investigate older adults' attitudes and experiences related to mobile social support technologies for mobile safety. We interviewed 18 older adults about their existing support and used the think-aloud method to gather data about a prototype for providing social support during mobile safety challenges. Our findings …

Sylpeniot: Symmetric Lightweight Predicate Encryption For Data Privacy Applications In Iot Environments, Tran Viet Xuan Phuong, Willy Susilo, Guomin Yang, Jongkil Kim, Yangwai Chow, Dongxi Liu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Privacy preserving mechanisms are essential for protecting data in IoT environments. This is particularly challenging as IoT environments often contain heterogeneous resource-constrained devices. One method for protecting privacy is to encrypt data with a pattern or metadata. To prevent information leakage, an evaluation using the pattern must be performed before the data can be retrieved. However, the computational costs associated with typical privacy preserving mechanisms can be costly. This makes such methods ill-suited for resource-constrained devices, as the high energy consumption will quickly drain the battery. This work solves this challenging problem by proposing SyLPEnIoT – Symmetric Lightweight Predicate Encryption …

A Comparative Study On Feature Extraction And Classification/Clustering Of Fake News And Conspiracy Theories From Twitter Data, Deb Shana

Theses and Dissertations

Fake news and conspiracy theories have become largely abundant in the expanding world of social media. They predominantly affect the beliefs and thoughts of the public, resulting in chaos. They have always existed throughout the last few decades. They have been linked to prejudice, revolutions and genocide across history. They have also been known to have propelled people to reject mainstream medicines to an extent where some diseases are recurring in some parts of the world. They impose a serious impact since they are capable of spreading very fast Thus, it is very important to find suitable ways to detect …

Covid-19 One Year On: Security And Privacy Review Of Contact Tracing Mobile Apps, Wei Yang Ang, Lwin Khin Shar

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic caused 3.8 million deaths since December 2019. At the current vaccination pace, this global pandemic could persist for several years. Throughout the world, contact tracing (CT) apps were developed, which play a significant role in mitigating the spread of COVID-19. This work examines the current state of security and privacy landscape of mobile CT apps. Our work is the first attempt, to our knowledge, which provides a comprehensive analysis of 70 CT apps used worldwide as of year Q1 2021. Among other findings, we observed that 80% of them may have handled sensitive data without adequate …

The Role Of Public And Private Sectors: How To Promote National Cybersecurity Strategies And Critical Infrastructure Protection In Southeastern Europe, Larry Cruz

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper seeks to address the important role of public and private interests in protecting critical infrastructure in Southeastern Europe, providing examples from Serbia. While the public sector does have a role in protecting critical infrastructure needs, it is the private sector which holds major oversight of the critical infrastructures of the region, therefore having an important role in maintaining their functionality and protection. The literature in this field argues for more collaboration and information sharing between the public and private sectors of the region, though the task is not as simple as it appears given the varying aspirations of …

Privacy-Preserving Voluntary-Tallying Leader Election For Internet Of Things, Tong Wu, Guomin Yang, Liehuang Zhu, Yulin Wu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The Internet of Things (IoT) is commonly deployed with devices of limited power and computation capability. A centralized IoT architecture provides a simplified management for IoT system but brings redundancy by the unnecessary data traffic with a data center. A decentralized IoT reduces the cost on data traffic and is resilient to the single-point-of failure. The blockchain technique has attracted a large amount of research, which is redeemed as a perspective of decentralized IoT system infrastructure. It also brings new privacy challenges for that the blockchain is a public ledger of all digital events executed and shared among all participants. …

On The Usability (In)Security Of In-App Browsing Interfaces In Mobile Apps, Zicheng Zhang, Daoyuan Wu, Lixiang Li, Debin Gao

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Due to the frequent encountering of web URLs in various application scenarios (e.g., chatting and email reading), many mobile apps build their in-app browsing interfaces (IABIs) to provide a seamless user experience. Although this achieves user-friendliness by avoiding the constant switching between the subject app and the system built-in browser apps, we find that IABIs, if not well designed or customized, could result in usability security risks. In this paper, we conduct the first empirical study on the usability (in)security of in-app browsing interfaces in both Android and iOS apps. Specifically, we collect a dataset of 25 high-profile mobile apps …

Revocable Policy-Based Chameleon Hash, Shengmin Xu, Jianting Ning, Jinhua Ma, Guowen Xu, Jiaming Yuan, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Policy-based chameleon hash (PCH) is a cryptographic building block which finds increasing practical applications. Given a message and an access policy, for any chameleon hash generated by a PCH scheme, a chameleon trapdoor holder whose rewriting privileges satisfy the access policy can amend the underlying message without affecting the hash value. In practice, it is necessary to revoke the rewriting privileges of a trapdoor holder due to various reasons, such as change of positions, compromise of credentials, or malicious behaviours. In this paper, we introduce the notion of revocable PCH (RPCH) and formally define its security. We instantiate a concrete …

Impact Of Digital Nudging On Information Security Behavior: An Experimental Study On Framing And Priming In Cybersecurity, Kavya Sharma, Xinhui Zhan, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah, Keng Siau, Maggie X. Cheng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Purpose: Phishing attacks are the most common cyber threats targeted at users. Digital nudging in the form of framing and priming may reduce user susceptibility to phishing. This research focuses on two types of digital nudging, framing and priming, and examines the impact of framing and priming on users' behavior (i.e. action) in a cybersecurity setting. It draws on prospect theory, instance-based learning theory and dual-process theory to generate the research hypotheses. Design/methodology/approach: A 3 × 2 experimental study was carried out to test the hypotheses. The experiment consisted of three levels for framing (i.e. no framing, negative framing and …

Internet Of Things Software And Hardware Architectures And Their Impacts On Forensic Investigations: Current Approaches And Challenges, Abel Alex Boozer, Arun John, Tathagata Mukherjee

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The never-before-seen proliferation of interconnected low-power computing devices, patently dubbed the Internet of Things (IoT), is revolutionizing how people, organizations, and malicious actors interact with one another and the Internet. Many of these devices collect data in different forms, be it audio, location data, or user commands. In civil or criminal nature investigations, the data collected can act as evidence for the prosecution or the defense. This data can also be used as a component of cybersecurity efforts. When data is extracted from these devices, investigators are expected to do so using proven methods. Still, unfortunately, given the heterogeneity in …

The Survey On Cross-Border Collection Of Digital Evidence By Representatives From Polish Prosecutors’ Offices And Judicial Authorities, Paweł Olber Dr

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Dynamic development of IT technology poses new challenges related to the cross-border collection of electronic evidence from the cloud. Many times investigators need to secure data stored on foreign servers directly and then look for solutions on how to turn the data into a legitimate source of evidence. To study the situation and propose solutions, I conducted a survey among Polish representatives of public prosecutors' offices and courts. This paper presents information from digital evidence collection practices across multiple jurisdictions. I stated that representatives from the prosecution and the judiciary in Poland are aware of the issues associated with cross-border …

A Novel Approach For Smart Contracts Using Blockchain, Dr Khaled Nagaty, Manar Abdelhamid

Computer Science

No abstract provided.

Generative Adversarial Networks For Classic Cryptanalysis, Deanne Charan

Master's Projects

The necessity of protecting critical information has been understood for millennia. Although classic ciphers have inherent weaknesses in comparison to modern ciphers, many classic ciphers are extremely challenging to break in practice. Machine learning techniques, such as hidden Markov models (HMM), have recently been applied with success to various classic cryptanalysis problems. In this research, we consider the effectiveness of the deep learning technique CipherGAN---which is based on the well- established generative adversarial network (GAN) architecture---for classic cipher cryptanalysis. We experiment extensively with CipherGAN on a number of classic ciphers, and we compare our results to those obtained using HMMs.

Digital Forensic Readiness Framework Based On Honeypot And Honeynet For Byod, Audrey Asante, Vincent Amankona

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The utilization of the internet within organizations has surged over the past decade. Though, it has numerous benefits, the internet also comes with its own challenges such as intrusions and threats. Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) as a growing trend among organizations allow employees to connect their portable devices such as smart phones, tablets, laptops, to the organization’s network to perform organizational duties. It has gained popularity over the years because of its flexibility and cost effectiveness. This adoption of BYOD has exposed organizations to security risks and demands proactive measures to mitigate such incidents. In this study, we propose …