Information Security Commons^™

Collaborative Network Traffic Management Strategies Using Distributed Reinforcement Learning And Large Language Models, Saeed Rashed Alkuwaiti

Theses

The focus of this research is to explore collaborative network traffic management strategies using the Distributed Reinforcement Learning (DRL) and Large Language Models (LLMs) approaches. It emphasizes exploring a new tool for addressing network traffic by utilizing Distributed Reinforcement Learning (DRL) and Large Language Models (LLMs). This is achieved by utilizing self-organizing and self-directing techniques to optimize the network performance. Using the NF-TON-IOT dataset, various classifiers such as Random Forest, AdaBoost, C4. 5, Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP), and SVM with an RBF kernel were tested for traffic classification and intrusion detection. Research recommends that DRL optimizes the complexity of the network …

Intelligence Process Of Marine Security: Model Construction And Case Deduction, Xuehui Wang, Feng Hu, Peiwen Wang

Journal of Scientific Information Research

[Purpose/significance]In recent years, our country has been increasingly threatened by security threats from the maritime direction. In this regard, it is necessary to strengthen the intelligence construction in the maritime security system and improve the effectiveness of intelligence in maritime security governance/decision-making.[Method/process]Comprehensively applying the methods of literature research, comparative analysis and case demonstration, on the basis of clarifying the connotation of relevant concepts, sorting out and evaluating the existing intelligence process models in the academic community, combined with the actual scenarios of maritime security incidents, construct an intelligence process model for maritime security assurance and take Fukushima nuclear sewage discharged …

Assessing Readiness For Transformation From Rulebased To Ai-Based Chatbot In Uae Healthcare: A Case Study Of A Rehabilitation Hospital In Abu Dhabi, Mubarak Alketbi

Theses

This study investigates the readiness for transforming rule-based chatbots to AI-based chatbots in UAE healthcare, examining a rehabilitation hospital in Abu Dhabi through quantitative research involving healthcare professionals (N=96) and technical analysis. Findings revealed positive perceptions of the current system alongside enhancement opportunities through AI capabilities, with perceived usefulness strongly correlating with behavioural intention, high service quality ratings for empathy and responsiveness, midcareer professionals demonstrating the highest AI acceptance levels, and system integration identified as the highest priority implementation area.

The research contributes to healthcare technology transformation knowledge in the UAE by providing a structured implementation framework addressing technical requirements, …

Global Crossroads Of Cybercrime: Youth, Enterprise And State Vulnerabilities In The Digital Age, Christopher S. Kayser, Kyung-Shick Choi

International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence & Cybercrime

No abstract provided.

Cybercrime As A Threat To The Banking Sector: A Perspective From Commercial Banks In Bangladesh, Hasibul Hossain, Rezaul Karim Shohag, Nikhil Chandra Nath, Sushmita Das Dalia

International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence & Cybercrime

Cyber and technology related crimes are gradually increasing all over the world due to rapid transitions and transactions in the digital world and cyberspace. Cyber related threats are increasingly becoming universal, multi-faceted, sophisticated and transnational in this tech-driven age. Governments, law enforcement agencies, IT professionals, scholars, and researchers worldwide have been concerned about digital deviance and crime. The transition to this widespread cybercrime is particularly difficult for developing countries. Recently, the banking sectors in Bangladesh have seen the emerging threats to its system and reserves through cyberspace, e. g. cyber-attacks or taking illegal access. Cybercrime is becoming a threat to …

Need Of Paradigm Shift In Cybersecurity Implementation For Small And Medium Enterprises (Smes), Shekhar Pawar, Hemant Palivela

International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence & Cybercrime

The increasing digitization of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) has significantly increased their attack surface, creating opportunities for various cyberthreats. In the global market, there are various cybersecurity standards and frameworks available, but there are still many cyber news stories from each corner of the world talking about increasing sophisticated cyber-attacks among organizations. According to recent studies, one out of five cyberattacks is targeting SMEs. Even though SMEs are relatively smaller as individuals, they are responsible for maximum contribution towards the betterment of the global economy, including the highest role in GDP and various employment opportunities. As compared to large …

Enmob: Unveil The Behavior With Multi-Flow Analysis Of Encrypted App Traffic, Mengmeng Ge, Ruitao Feng, Likun Liu, Xiangzhan Yu, Sachidananda Vinay, Xiaofei Xie, Yang Liu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In the contemporary digital landscape, mobile applications have become the predominant conduit for internet connectivity and daily tasks. Simultaneously, the advent of application encryption technology has safeguarded users’ privacy. However, this encryption, while fortifying privacy, introduces challenges to security by hindering the effective management of network applications within encrypted data streams. Conventional detection methods for encrypted application traffic, relying heavily on statistical metrics like payload, packet size, and distribution, are constrained to single traffic flows, often yielding results of limited specificity. To address this limitation, our paper introduces an innovative approach that elucidates the multi-flow nature of application behavior traffic …

The Urgency Of Instituting Systemic Cybersecurity Curriculum Within Stem At Secondary Educational Levels In Preparation For Postsecondary Institutions., Robert Spencer

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Over the last 20 years, many secondary institutions have made advances developing curriculum defined as “STEM (Science, Engineering and Mathematics)” in order to ensure secondary students are eligible to apply as well excel in technology degree programs at the college and university levels. Although various initiatives exist, there are studies however, which allude to a great possibility that there will be a lack of cybersecurity professionals filling present day and anticipated future positions. Despite a large number of federal and educational enhancements there is need for additional research regarding instituting overall systemic processes and curriculum which supports secondary student transition …

Advanced Techniques In Symmetric Key Cryptanalysis, Debasmita Chakraborty

Doctoral Theses

Symmetric key cryptographic primitives are essential tools used extensively in daily digital interactions. These primitives are mainly designed to provide three key services: ensuring data confidentiality, maintaining data integrity, and verifying the authenticity of data sources. The primary types of symmetric key primitives that deliver these services include block ciphers, stream ciphers, hash functions, message authentication codes, and authenticated encryption with associated data. This thesis mainly explores the security analysis of hash functions, several block ciphers, and stream ciphers using some advanced cryptanalytic techniques. We begin by examining the collision security of a hash function, specifically under the assumption that …

An Efficient Conjunctive Keyword Searchable Encryption For Cloud-Based Iot Systems, Tianqi Peng, Bei Gong, Chong Guo, Akhtar Badshah, Muhammad Waqas, Hisham Alasmary, Sheng Chen

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Data privacy leakage has always been a critical concern in cloud-based Internet of Things (IoT) systems. Dynamic Symmetric Searchable Encryption (DSSE) with forward and backward privacy aims to address this issue by enabling updates and retrievals of ciphertext on untrusted cloud server while ensuring data privacy. However, previous research on DSSE mostly focused on single keyword search, which limits its practical application in cloud-based IoT systems. Recently, Patranabis (NDSS 2021) [1] proposed a groundbreaking DSSE scheme for conjunctive keyword search. However, this scheme fails to effectively handle deletion operations in certain circumstances, resulting in inaccurate query results. Additionally, the scheme …

How To Securely Delegate And Revoke Partial Authorization Credentials, Meng Sun, Junzuo Lai, Wei Wu, Ye Yang, Cheng-Kang Chu, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

An attribute-based credential (ABC) system allows a user, obtaining a credential on a set of attributes from an issuer, to anonymously prove a subset of attributes to a service provider. Nowadays, delegation is an important requirement of ABC, which allows a user to delegate his credentials to other users. However, traditional delegatable ABC systems only support delegating a credential with all attributes. In many scenarios, an appropriate delegation is a user can delegate his credential on parts of attributes to others. Another requirement is revocation of credentials in case of unexpected events. In this article, we propose a delegatable and …

Fully Selective Opening Secure Ibe From Lwe, Dingding Jia, Haiyang Xue, Bao Li

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Selective opening security ensures that, when an adversary is given multiple ciphertexts and corrupts a subset of the senders (thereby obtaining the plaintexts and the senders’ randomness), the privacy of the remaining ciphertexts is still preserved. Previous selective opening secure IBE schemes encrypt messages bit-by-bit, or only achieve selective-id security. In this paper, we present the first adaptive-id, selective opening secure identity-based encryption (IBE) tightly from LWE. To achieve this, we introduce a new primitive called delegatable all-but-many lossy trapdoor functions (DABM-LTDF) and provide a generic construction that converts DABM-LTDF into an adaptive-id, selective opening secure IBE through a tight …

Out-Of-Band Anomaly Detection For Real Time Operating Systems, Jeff K. Holifield

Shelby Hall Graduate Research Forum Posters

Real Time Operating Systems (RTOS) are increasing present throughout the industrial, business, defense, and healthcare spaces. These lightweight and efficient operating systems are designed to run on embedded, resource constrained devices, often within cyber-physical systems (CFS). A defining characteristic of RTOSs is that they are deterministic. Tasks are scheduled to run on fixed timelines within guaranteed execution windows. To accomplish tasks on time, real time software must conform to worst case execution times (WCETs) as design parameters. WCET is the maximum time a particular task can take to complete. Exceeding the WCET could cause system failure and lead to damage, …

Analysis Of Forensic Techniques For Additive Manufacturing Devices, Daniel B. Miller, Brad Glisson, Mark Yampolskiy, J Todd Mcdonald

Shelby Hall Graduate Research Forum Posters

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is a set of newer computer-dependent production technologies that is seeing rapid adoption across a wide variety of industries, including defense, aerospace, automotive, and healthcare. With increased adoption comes an increased opportunity for misuse and abuse of such systems, which will lead to an increased need for Digital Forensic investigations into these platforms. This research forensically analyzes a number of AM devices to explore the options available for data acquisition as well as the impacts of hardware and software design choices on the analysis and investigation results. Hardware is investigated using Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) sources to determine …

Polyglot File Detection For Forensics, Chase Stevens, Michael Black

Shelby Hall Graduate Research Forum Posters

Polyglot files are problematic as payloads can be hidden inside them while simultaneously evading discovery by current forensic tools. Autopsy, one of the most used forensic tools in investigations, uses known signatures of file types (e.g., headers, trailers) to identify and recover files. Polyglot files are a unique case in which files are intentionally combined with other file types to make them appear benign while still containing malicious payloads. Polyglots are possible due to combinations being considered valid in both formats. Polyglot files inherently evade detection from signature-based forensic tools and malware scanners because the tools and malware scanners are …

Using Image-Based Representation For Network Intrusion Detection, Chakriya Suon, J. Todd Mcdonald

Shelby Hall Graduate Research Forum Posters

The primary focus of our research is to evaluate the effectiveness of converting network traffic data, PCAPs, into image-based representations for anomaly-based network intrusion detection. We aim to analyze PCAPs to detect malware, or malicious software in hopes of creating a useful approach for anomaly detection against cyber threats including Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs). With the rise of cyber threats, cybersecurity continues to play a critical role in the ever-changing landscape of technology, by protecting and defending against threat agents. Our research will apply novel machine learning (ML) techniques to detect potential malware transmitted over a network effectively. The overall …

Learning Without Labels: A Self-Supervised Learning Approach For Anomaly Detection In Control Systmes, Barbara Gladney

Shelby Hall Graduate Research Forum Posters

Oil pipelines, water plant systems, and other critical infrastructure are managed and operated by industrial control systems (ICS). These systems safeguard the operations of critical infrastructures, requiring minimal disruption from cyberattacks or malfunctions. The use of anomaly detection methods in control systems (ICS) can reduce system interruptions. However, anomaly detection methods often require annotated data, which may not be available for the control system. Additionally, the datasets used for the control systems do not include sensor outputs and environmental data, resulting in a restricted view of the system. This research investigates how SSL models can be applied to different control …

Directing Sophisticated Cyberattacks On Public Water Infrastructure, Ayrton C. Purdy, Jordan Shropshire

Shelby Hall Graduate Research Forum Posters

In recent years there has been an increasing number of cyberattacks on public water generation and distribution systems. Advanced persistent attackers could usurp sensor and control systems to contaminate public drinking water. In order to conceal their malicious activity, they can manipulate sensor data flows to give the appearance of normal activity. The compromised sensors would report normal chemical levels even though unsafe water is entering the distribution system. In response, this research proposes a multi-sensor, cross-validation approach to anomaly detection. The proposed approach is designed to detect sophisticated cyberattacks which are not easily detectable using traditional cyber tools. The …

Security Vulnerabilities Of A Field Programmable Gate Array, Kylie Arnett

Shelby Hall Graduate Research Forum Posters

The primary goal of this research is to understand and exploit the security vulnerabilities of a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), at the bitstream level. This paper is working to successfully show that an FPGA can be altered via the bitstream file, and a Trojan can be inserted into the device. Once a Trojan is successfully inserted into the FPGA and activated through a certain input value, a Siamese Neural Network (SNN) will be used to test the effectiveness of Trojan detection. Followed by recording the successful flag rate to detect Trojans, which will be averaged to determine the accuracy …

Establishing A Framework For Evaluating Machine Learning Performance And Security Across Computational Ecosystems, Krista Stacey, Todd R. Andel

Shelby Hall Graduate Research Forum Posters

The rapid evolution of computational ecosystems—ranging from embedded systems and cloud platforms to hybrid and quantum architectures—has introduced new challenges in deploying machine learning (ML) applications. While cloud computing offers scalability, it comes with increased latency and security risks, whereas edge computing, such as FPGA-based systems, provides real-time processing with constrained resources. Hybrid and quantum ecosystems further complicate decision-making, requiring careful trade-offs between performance and security. This research seeks to establish a framework for evaluating ML performance and security risks across these ecosystems, forming the foundation of the Computational Performance And Security System (COMPASS) decision-support tool. The study will systematically …

Development Of An Algorithm To Identify The Presence Of Luks-Encrypted Volumes On A Forensic Image Of A Drive, Nicholas Flynn, Michael Black

Shelby Hall Graduate Research Forum Posters

Current forensic tools struggle to effectively detect encrypted storage media. In recent years, there have been significant advancements, but a noticeable gap remains when it comes to identifying encrypted volumes from metadata alone. The goal of this research is to develop a novel algorithm that will identify the presence of volumes on a disk image which have been encrypted with the Linux Unified Key Setup (LUKS) encryption algorithm, in an effort to aid digital forensics investigations. Bad actors often use encryption as an anti-forensics tool to pose significant challenges to forensic investigators, especially when it is done within sections of …

Preserving Privacy In Senior Care At Home Monitoring Systems, Sam Russel, Ryan Benton, Amy Campbell, Scott Sittig

Shelby Hall Graduate Research Forum Posters

Many seniors prefer to live at home which necessitates research into the application of technologies to provide a safer environment with less caregiver resources. However, the application of home health care (HHC) monitoring for seniors is still in an evolutionary stage. Present HHC systems are produced by private companies with general regulatory guidelines lacking specific care of the elderly. As such, each company that produces such a system claims to have better safety, privacy, and security that their competitors. A pressing issues is devising and applying a general framework for the application of technologies that delivers safety while preserving privacy. …

False Narratives, Real Consequences, Russell W. Cantrell, Matt Campbell

Shelby Hall Graduate Research Forum Posters

Social media is an increasingly significant tool in modern cyber warfare, capable of rapidly shaping public opinion. The swift dissemination of information complicates efforts to distinguish fact from fiction [1]. During public health crises, healthcare professionals use these platforms to share updates, yet their credible content must contend with false or deliberately misleading narratives [2]. This environment creates an opportunity for cyberattacks through social media influence campaigns [3]. While disinformation's role in political interference has been widely studied, its potential to destabilize healthcare remains largely unexplored. Prior research primarily focuses on how vaccine misinformation affects the general public [4]. This …

Detecting Sensor Data Manipulation, Ricky Green, Michael Black

Shelby Hall Graduate Research Forum Posters

The integration of Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT) have made OT devices vulnerable to threats that have been successfully exploited with devastating results. Many modern techniques for hardening and securing enterprise IT systems are either incompatible with OT components in an Industrial Control System (ICS), reduce the efficiency of processes, or are prohibitively expensive to implement. Research in the area of ICS security focuses on a top-down approach, such as intrusion prevention by securing the perimeter of the network and hardening computer systems. This approach is useful in business IT systems, but full compatibility with OT components in …

Backdoor Token Unlearning: Exposing And Defending Backdoors In Pretrained Language Models, Peihai Jiang, Xixiang Lyu, Yige Li, Jing Ma

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Supervised fine-tuning has become the predominant method for adapting large pretrained models to downstream tasks. However, recent studies have revealed that these models are vulnerable to backdoor attacks, where even a small number of malicious samples can successfully embed backdoor triggers into the model. While most existing defense methods focus on post-training backdoor defense, efficiently defending against backdoor attacks during training phase remains largely unexplored. To address this gap, we propose a novel defense method called Backdoor Token Unlearning (BTU), which proactively detects and neutralizes trigger tokens during the training stage. Our work is based on two key findings: 1) …

Private Reachability Queries On Structured Encrypted Temporal Bipartite Graphs, Yulin Wu, Lanxiang Chen, Gaolin Chen, Yi Mu, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

A temporal bipartite graph is a graph model that incorporates time-related information into its edges, making it suitable for modeling real-world phenomena like disease outbreaks. However, this temporal information is often sensitive. To protect the privacy of graph data, researchers have explored various approaches to preserve privacy in graph queries, with reachability queries being popular and fundamental as they determine the possibility of reaching one node from others in a graph. While privacy-preserving reachability queries have been extensively studied, existing efforts often overlook the valuable attribute information present in both edges and nodes of the graphs. Moreover, reachability queries on …

Forward-Secure Hierarchical Delegable Signature For Smart Homes, Jianfei Sun, Guowen Xu, Yang Yang, Xuehuan Yang, Xiaoguo Li, Cong Wu, Zhen Liu, Guomin Yang, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Aiming to provide people with great convenience and comfort, smart home systems have been deployed in thousands of homes. In this paper, we focus on handling the security and privacy issues in such a promising system by customizing a new cryptographic primitive to provide the following security guarantees: (1) fine-grained, privacy-preserving authorization for smart home users and integrity protection of communication contents; (2) flexible self-sovereign permission delegation; (3) forward security of previous messages. To our knowledge, no previous system has been designed to consider these three security and privacy requirements simultaneously. To tackle these challenges, we put forward the first-ever …

Generative Ai And Llms For Critical Infrastructure Protection: Evaluation Benchmarks, Agentic Ai, Challenges, And Opportunities, Yagmur Yigit, Mohamed Amine Ferrag, Mohamed C. Ghanem, Iqbal H. Sarker, Leandros A. Maglaras, Christos Chrysoulas, Naghmeh Moradpoor, Norbert Tihanyi, Helge Janicke

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Critical National Infrastructures (CNIs)—including energy grids, water systems, transportation networks, and communication frameworks—are essential to modern society yet face escalating cybersecurity threats. This review paper comprehensively analyzes AI-driven approaches for Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP). We begin by examining the reliability of CNIs and introduce established benchmarks for evaluating Large Language Models (LLMs) within cybersecurity contexts. Next, we explore core cybersecurity issues, focusing on trust, privacy, resilience, and securability in these vital systems. Building on this foundation, we assess the role of Generative AI and LLMs in enhancing CIP and present insights on applying Agentic AI for proactive defense mechanisms. Finally, …

Provable Security In Idealised Models, Chandranan Dhar

Doctoral Theses

This thesis is a compilation of provable security analyses of various cryptographic constructions in idealised models. The first construction examined is the ABR hash. We revisit the existing proof of the ABR hash in the random oracle model and identify significant errors in the proof. Although we are unable to correct the original proof, we establish the security of the ABR tree of height 3 from scratch, addressing the first non-trivial case. As our second contribution, we conduct a tight and comprehensive security analysis of the Ascon AEAD mode in the random permutation model. We show that the efficiency of …

Educating Students On The Behavioral And Psychological Aspects Of Romance Scam Victimization Via A Social Engineering Competition, Rachel Bleiman, Hwanhee Park, Aunshul Rege

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

The online dating industry generated 2.98 billion USD in 2023 and is estimated to reach 3.6 billion USD by 2025. Not surprisingly, online dating platforms are rife with romance scams that cause financial damages, with estimated losses of 1.3 billion USD in 2022 alone. Additionally, victims suffer emotional and psychological harms. This paper shares findings from a 2023 Romance Scam and Social Engineering Competition (RSSEC) that introduced students to the behavioral and psychological aspects of romance scams. Specifically, the competition aimed to expose students to (i) understanding how victims experience social engineering (SE) - the psychological manipulation of human behavior, …