Information Security Commons^™

Encryption Decrypted, Alex Ramsey

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Encryption is a complex and bewildering process, yet it is absolutely foundational for secure and safe activities on the internet. Encryption, in its many forms, ultimately enables identity verification, password protection, secure conversation, cryptocurrency trade, and other online activities. Despite this widespread use, encryption is not a process easily explained to the layperson due to its complexity. Thus, the object of this research is to demystify the process of encryption and provide an understanding of one of the most common forms of modern encryption - RSA Encryption. This will be accomplished through the information provided on my poster as well …

Automated Tool Support - Repairing Security Bugs In Mobile Applications, Larry Singleton

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Cryptography is often a critical component in secure software systems. Cryptographic primitive misuses often cause several vulnerability issues. To secure data and communications in applications, developers often rely on cryptographic algorithms and APIs which provide confidentiality, integrity, and authentication based on solid mathematical foundations. While many advanced crypto algorithms are available to developers, the correct usage of these APIs is challenging. Turning mathematical equations in crypto algorithms into an application is a difficult task. A mistake in cryptographic implementations can subvert the security of the entire system. In this research, we present an automated approach for Finding and Repairing Bugs …

A Virtual Machine Introspection Based Multi-Service, Multi-Architecture, High-Interaction Honeypot For Iot Devices, Cory A. Nance

Masters Theses & Doctoral Dissertations

Internet of Things (IoT) devices are quickly growing in adoption. The use case for IoT devices runs the gamut from household applications (such as toasters, lighting, and thermostats) to medical, battlefield, or Industrial Control System (ICS) applications used in life or death situations. A disturbing trend is that for IoT devices is that they are not developed with security in mind. This lack of security has led to the creation of massive botnets that conduct nefarious acts. A clear understanding of the threat landscape IoT devices face is needed to address these security issues. One technique used to understand threats …

Mobile Identity, Credential, And Access Management Framework, Peggy Renee Carnley

Masters Theses & Doctoral Dissertations

Organizations today gather unprecedented quantities of data from their operations. This data is coming from transactions made by a person or from a connected system/application. From personal devices to industry including government, the internet has become the primary means of modern communication, further increasing the need for a method to track and secure these devices. Protecting the integrity of connected devices collecting data is critical to ensure the trustworthiness of the system. An organization must not only know the identity of the users on their networks and have the capability of tracing the actions performed by a user but they …

Iot-Hass: A Framework For Protecting Smart Home Environment, Tarig Mudawi

Masters Theses & Doctoral Dissertations

While many solutions have been proposed for smart home security, the problem that no single solution fully protects the smart home environment still exists. In this research we propose a security framework to protect the smart home environment. The proposed framework includes three engines that complement each other to protect the smart home IoT devices. The first engine is an IDS/IPS module that monitors all traffic in the home network and then detects, alerts users, and/or blocks packets using anomaly-based detection. The second engine works as a device management module that scans and verifies IoT devices in the home network, …

Network Traffic Analysis Framework For Cyber Threat Detection, Meshesha K. Cherie

Masters Theses & Doctoral Dissertations

The growing sophistication of attacks and newly emerging cyber threats requires advanced cyber threat detection systems. Although there are several cyber threat detection tools in use, cyber threats and data breaches continue to rise. This research is intended to improve the cyber threat detection approach by developing a cyber threat detection framework using two complementary technologies, search engine and machine learning, combining artificial intelligence and classical technologies.

In this design science research, several artifacts such as a custom search engine library, a machine learning-based engine and different algorithms have been developed to build a new cyber threat detection framework based …

How Secure Having Iot Devices In Our Homes?, Debora Estrada, Lo'ai A. Tawalbeh, Robert Vinaja

Computer Science Faculty Publications (Archived)

Nowadays, technology has evolved to be in our daily lives to assist in making our lives easier. We now have technology helping us in our lives at home. Devices used to create our “smart home” have done a great deal in making our lives at home less burdensome, but sadly, these devices have secured our personal lives to be more accessible to outsiders. In this paper, the security of home smart devices and their communication will be researched by using other academic articles to support facts found. The operation of the devices will be discussed along with security risks and …

Cyber Risk Assessment And Scoring Model For Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Dillon M. Pettit

Theses and Dissertations

The commercial-off-the-shelf small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) market is expanding rapidly in response to interest from hobbyists, commercial businesses, and military operators. The core commercial mission set directly relates to many current military requirements and strategies, with a priority on short range, low cost, real time aerial imaging, and limited modular payloads. These small vehicles present small radar cross sections, low heat signatures, and carry a variety of sensors and payloads. As with many new technologies, security seems secondary to the goal of reaching the market as soon as innovation is viable. Research indicates a growth in exploits and vulnerabilities …

Interoperable Ads-B Confidentiality, Brandon C. Burfeind

Theses and Dissertations

The worldwide air traffic infrastructure is in the late stages of transition from legacy transponder systems to Automatic Dependent Surveillance - Broadcast (ADS-B) based systems. ADS-B relies on position information from GNSS and requires aircraft to transmit their identification, state, and position. ADS-B promises the availability of high-fidelity air traffic information; however, position and identification data are not secured via authentication or encryption. This lack of security for ADS-B allows non-participants to observe and collect data on both government and private flight activity. This is a proposal for a lightweight, interoperable ADS-B confidentiality protocol which uses existing format preserving encryption …

Space Efficient Revocable Ibe For Mobile Devices In Cloud Computing, Baodong Qin, Ximeng Liu, Zhuo Wei, Dong Zheng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Revocation capacity is one of the main properties for an identity-based encryption (IBE), as in practice users’ private keys are possibly leaked or expired. However, existing revocable IBE schemes usually lack of short keys. Recently, Lin et al. proposed a method to design space efficient revocable IBE scheme from non-monotonic key-policy attribute-based encryption scheme. But, it requires too many pairings (linear to the number of revoked users) to decrypt an IBE ciphertext. In this study, we overcome this problem by adopting the technique of server-aided revocation, recently proposed by Qin et al. in ESORICS 2015. The main contribution is a …

Privacy-Preserving Data Processing With Flexible Access Control, Wenxiu Ding, Zheng Yan, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Cloud computing provides an efficient and convenient platform for cloud users to store, process and control their data. Cloud overcomes the bottlenecks of resource-constrained user devices and greatly releases their storage and computing burdens. However, due to the lack of full trust in cloud service providers, the cloud users generally prefer to outsource their sensitive data in an encrypted form, which, however, seriously complicates data processing, analysis, as well as access control. Homomorphic encryption (HE) as a single key system cannot flexibly control data sharing and access after encrypted data processing. How to realize various computations over encrypted data in …

Review Of Fundamental To Know About The Future, Hannarae Lee

International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence & Cybercrime

What we consider fundamental elements can be easily overlooked or perceived as facts without the process of empirical testing. Especially in the field of cybercrime and cybersecurity, there are more speculations regarding the prevalence and the scope of harm carried out by wrongdoers than empirically tested studies. To fill the void, three articles included in the current issue addresses empirical findings of fundamental concerns and knowledge in the field of cybercrime and cybersecurity.

Illegal Gambling And Its Operation Via The Darknet And Bitcoin: An Application Of Routine Activity Theory, Sinyong Choi, Kyung-Shick Choi, Yesim Sungu-Eryilmaz, Hee-Kyung Park

International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence & Cybercrime

The Darknet and Bitcoins have been widely utilized by those who wish to anonymously perform illegal activities in cyberspace. Restricted in many countries, gambling websites utilize Bitcoin payments that allow users to freely engage in illegal gambling activities with the absence of a formal capable guardian. Despite the urgency and limited knowledge available to law enforcement regarding this issue, few empirical studies have focused on illegal gambling websites. The current study attempts to examine the characteristics and operations of online gambling websites on both the Darknet and Surface Web, which allow Bitcoin payments. The findings suggest that both websites on …

An Empirical Study To Determine The Role Of File-System In Modification Of Hash Value, Kumarshankar Raychaudhuri, M. George Christopher

International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence & Cybercrime

In digital forensics, maintaining the integrity of digital exhibits is an essential aspect of the entire investigation and examination process, which is established using the technique of hashing. Lack of knowledge, while handling digital exhibits, might lead to unintentional alteration of computed hash, rendering the exhibit unacceptable in the court of Law. The hash value of a physical drive does not solely depend upon the data files present in it but also its file-system. Therefore, any change to the file-system might result in the change of the disk hash, even when the data files within it remain untouched. In this …

A Reverse Digital Divide: Comparing Information Security Behaviors Of Generation Y And Generation Z Adults, Scott M. Debb, Daniel R. Schaffer, Darlene G. Colson

International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence & Cybercrime

How individuals conceptualize their accountability related to digital technology. There may also be age-based vulnerabilities resulting from personal perceptions about the importance of engaging in best-practices. However, age may not be as critical as experience when it comes to implementation of these behaviors. Using the Cybersecurity Behaviors subscale of the Online Security Behaviors and Beliefs Questionnaire (OSBBQ), this study compared the self-reported cybersecurity attitudes and behaviors across college-aged individuals from Generation Y and Generation Z. Data were derived from a convenience sample of predominantly African-American and Caucasian respondents (N=593) recruited from two public universities in Virginia, USA. Four of the …

Book Review: The Cyber Risk Handbook By Domenic Antonucci, Stanley Mierzwa

International Journal of Cybersecurity Intelligence & Cybercrime

No abstract provided.

An Alternative To The One-Size-Fits-All Approach To Isa Training: A Design Science Approach To Isa Regarding The Adaption To Student Vulnerability Based On Knowledge And Behavior, Thomas Jernejcic

SDSU Data Science Symposium

Any connection to the university’s network is a conduit that has the potential of being exploited by an attacker, resulting in the possibility of substantial harm to the infrastructure, to the university, and to the student body of whom the university serves. While organizations rightfully “baton down the hatches” by building firewalls, creating proxies, and applying important updates, the most significant vulnerability, that of the student, continues to be an issue due to lack of knowledge, insufficient motivation, and inadequate or misguided training. Utilizing the Design Science Research (DSR) methodology, this research effort seeks to address the latter concern of …

Saga: Efficient And Large-Scale Detection Of Near-Miss Clones With Gpu Acceleration, Guanhua Li, Yijian Wu, Chanchal K. Roy, Jun Sun, Xin Peng, Nanjie Zhan, Bin Hu, Jingyi Ma

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Clone detection on large code repository is necessary for many big code analysis tasks. The goal is to provide rich information on identical and similar code across projects. Detecting near-miss code clones on big code is challenging since it requires intensive computing and memory resources as the scale of the source code increases. In this work, we propose SAGA, an efficient suffix-array based code clone detection tool designed with sophisticated GPU optimization. SAGA not only detects Type-l and Type-2 clones but also does so for cross-project large repositories and for the most computationally expensive Type-3 clones. Meanwhile, it also works …

Deepbindiff: Learning Program-Wide Code Representations For Binary Diffing, Yue Duan, Xuezixiang Li, Jinghan Wang, Wang, Heng Yin

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Binary diffing analysis quantitatively measures the differences between two given binaries and produces fine-grained basic block matching. It has been widely used to enable different kinds of critical security analysis. However, all existing program analysis and machine learning based techniques suffer from low accuracy, poor scalability, coarse granularity, or require extensive labeled training data to function. In this paper, we propose an unsupervised program-wide code representation learning technique to solve the problem. We rely on both the code semantic information and the program-wide control flow information to generate block embeddings. Furthermore, we propose a k-hop greedy matching algorithm to find …

Privacy-Preserving Network Path Validation, Binanda Sengupta, Yingjiu Li, Kai Bu, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The end-users communicating over a network path currently have no control over the path. For a better quality of service, the source node often opts for a superior (or premium) network path to send packets to the destination node. However, the current Internet architecture provides no assurance that the packets indeed follow the designated path. Network path validation schemes address this issue and enable each node present on a network path to validate whether each packet has followed the specific path so far. In this work, we introduce two notions of privacy—path privacy and index privacy—in the context of network …

Joint Learning Of Answer Selection And Answer Summary Generation In Community Question Answering, Yang Deng, Wai Lam, Yuexiang Xie, Daoyuan Chen, Yaliang Li, Min Yang, Ying Shen

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Community question answering (CQA) gains increasing popularity in both academy and industry recently. However, the redundancy and lengthiness issues of crowdsourced answers limit the performance of answer selection and lead to reading difficulties and misunderstandings for community users. To solve these problems, we tackle the tasks of answer selection and answer summary generation in CQA with a novel joint learning model. Specifically, we design a question-driven pointer-generator network, which exploits the correlation information between question-Answer pairs to aid in attending the essential information when generating answer summaries. Meanwhile, we leverage the answer summaries to alleviate noise in original lengthy answers …

Analysis Of Blockchain Protocol Against Static Adversarial Miners Corrupted By Long Delay Attackers, Quan Yuan, Puwen Wei, Keting Jia, Haiyang Xue

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Bitcoin, which was initially introduced by Nakamoto, is the most disruptive and impactive cryptocurrency. The core Bitcoin technology is the so-called blockchain protocol. In recent years, several studies have focused on rigorous analyses of the security of Nakamoto’s blockchain protocol in an asynchronous network where network delay must be considered. Wei, Yuan, and Zheng investigated the effect of a long delay attack against Nakamoto’s blockchain protocol. However, their proof only holds in the honest miner setting. In this study, we improve Wei, Yuan and Zheng’s result using a stronger model where the adversary can perform long delay attacks and corrupt …

Does Reputational Sanctions Deter Negligence In Information Security Management? A Field Quasi-Experiment, Qian Tang, Andrew B. Whinston

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Security negligence, a major cause of data breaches, occurs when an organization’s information technology management fails to adequately address security vulnerabilities. By conducting a field quasi-experiment using outgoing spam as a focal security issue, this study investigates the effectiveness of reputational sanctions in reducing security negligence in a global context. In the quasi-experiment, a reputational sanction mechanism based on outgoing spam was established for four countries, and for each country, reputational sanctions were imposed on the 10 organizations with the largest outgoing spam volumes—that is, these organizations were listed publicly. We find that because of our reputational sanction mechanism, organizations …

Example-Based Colourization Via Dense Encoding Pyramids, Chufeng Xiao, Chu Han, Zhuming Zhang, Jing Qin, Tien-Tsin Wong, Guoqiang Han, Shengfeng He

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We propose a novel deep example-based image colourization method called dense encoding pyramid network. In our study, we define the colourization as a multinomial classification problem. Given a greyscale image and a reference image, the proposed network leverages large-scale data and then predicts colours by analysing the colour distribution of the reference image. We design the network as a pyramid structure in order to exploit the inherent multi-scale, pyramidal hierarchy of colour representations. Between two adjacent levels, we propose a hierarchical decoder-encoder filter to pass the colour distributions from the lower level to higher level in order to take both …

Divergent Student Views Of Cybersecurity, Susan E. Ramlo, John B. Nicholas

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Cybersecurity is a worldwide issue and concern. Prior studies indicate that many people do not use cybersecurity best practices. Although these prior studies used large-scale surveys or interviews, this study used Q methodology [Q] because Q provides greater insight than Likert-format surveys. In fact, Q was created to scientifically study subjectivity. Within a Q study, various stages as well as philosophical, epistemological, and ontological principles represent a complete methodology. At first, Q researchers collect items that represent the broad range of communications about the topic (called the concourse). Although the items can be pictures, scents, or other means of communication, …

Teaching About The Dark Web In Criminal Justice Or Related Programs At The Community College And University Levels., Scott H. Belshaw, Brooke Nodeland, Lorrin Underwood, Alexandrea Colaiuta

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Increasingly, criminal justice practitioners have been called on to help solve breaches in cyber security. However, while the demand for criminal justice participation in cyber investigations increases daily, most universities are lagging in their educational and training opportunities for students entering the criminal justice fields. This article discusses the need to incorporate courses discussing the Dark Web in criminal justice. A review of existing cyber-criminal justice programs in Texas and nationally suggests that most community colleges and 4-year universities have yet to develop courses/programs in understanding and investigating the Dark Web on the internet. The Dark Web serves as the …

An Assessment Of Practical Hands-On Lab Activities In Network Security Management, Te-Shun Chou, Nicholas Hempenius

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

With the advancement in technology over the past decades, networks have become increasingly large and complex. In the meantime, cyberattacks have become highly sophisticated making them difficult to detect. These changes make securing a network more challenging than ever before. Hence, it is critical to prepare a comprehensive guide of network security management for students assist them in becoming network security professionals.

The objective of this paper is to introduce a variety of techniques related to network security management, such as Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), event management, security policy management, risk management, access control, and remote monitoring. With the …

Key Regeneration-Free Ciphertext-Policy Attribute-Based Encryption And Its Application, Hui Cui, Robert H. Deng, Baodong Qin, Jian Weng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Attribute-based encryption (ABE) provides a promising solution for enabling scalable access control over encrypted data stored in the untrusted servers (e.g., cloud) due to its ability to perform data encryption and decryption defined over descriptive attributes. In order to bind different components which correspond to different attributes in a user's attribute-based decryption key together, key randomization technique has been applied in most existing ABE schemes. This randomization method, however, also empowers a user the capability of regenerating a newly randomized decryption key over a subset of the attributes associated with the original decryption key. Because key randomization breaks the linkage …

Game Theoretical Study On Client-Controlled Cloud Data Deduplication, Xueqin Liang, Zheng Yan, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Data deduplication eliminates redundant data and is receiving increasing attention in cloud storage services due to the proliferation of big data and the demand for efficient storage. Data deduplication not only requires a consummate technological designing, but also involves multiple parties with conflict interests. Thus, how to design incentive mechanisms and study their acceptance by all relevant stakeholders remain important open issues. In this paper, we detail the payoff structure of a client-controlled deduplication scheme and analyze the feasibilities of unified discount and individualized discount under this structure. Through game theoretical study, a privacy-preserving individualized discount-based incentive mechanism is further …

Interpretability Of Api Call Topic Models: An Exploratory Study, Puntitra Glendowne, Dae Glendowne

Faculty Publications

Topic modeling is an unsupervised method for discovering semantically coherent combinations of words, called topics, in unstructured text. However, the human interpretability of topics discovered from non-natural language corpora, specifically Windows API call logs, is unknown. Our objective is to explore the coherence of topics and their ability to represent the themes of API calls from malware analysts’ perspective. Three Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) models were fit to a collection of dynamic API call logs. Topics, or behavioral themes, were manually evaluated by malware analysts. The results were compared to existing automated quality measures. Participants were able to accurately determine …