Information Security Commons^™

Dual-Side Privacy-Preserving Task Matching For Spatial Crowdsourcing, Jiangang Shu, Ximeng Liu, Yinghui Zhang, Xiaohua Jia, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

With the popularity of mobile phones and the ubiquity of wireless transmission technologies, spatial crowdsourcing (SC) has emerged as a novel approach to outsource location-based tasks to a set of workers who physically move to the designated locations to perform the tasks. To achieve the accurate task matching, both requesters and workers need to expose their locations or queries to the SC-Server, which raises security concerns. Although many protection measures have been proposed, there are some drawbacks in one-side protection, dual-server setting and user scalability when they are applied to the practical crowdsourcing environment. In this paper, we design a …

Typing-Proof: Usable, Secure And Low-Cost Two-Factor Authentication Based On Keystroke Timings, Ximming Liu, Yingjiu Li, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Two-factor authentication (2FA) systems provide another layer of protection to users' accounts beyond password. Traditional hardware token based 2FA and software token based 2FA are not burdenless to users since they require users to read, remember, and type a onetime code in the process, and incur high costs in deployments or operations. Recent 2FA mechanisms such as Sound-Proof, reduce or eliminate users' interactions for the proof of the second factor; however, they are not designed to be used in certain settings (e.g., quiet environments or PCs without built-in microphones), and they are not secure in the presence of certain attacks …

Secure Smart Health With Privacy-Aware Aggregate Authentication And Access Control In Internet Of Things, Yinghui Zhang, Robert H. Deng, Gang Han, Dong Zheng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

With the rapid technological advancements in the Internet of Things (IoT), wireless communication and cloud computing, smart health is expected to enable comprehensive and qualified healthcare services. It is important to ensure security and efficiency in smart health. However, existing smart health systems still have challenging issues, such as aggregate authentication, fine-grained access control and privacy protection. In this paper, we address these issues by introducing SSH, a Secure Smart Health system with privacy-aware aggregate authentication and access control in IoT. In SSH, privacy-aware aggregate authentication is enabled by an anonymous certificateless aggregate signature scheme, in which users' identity information …

Privacy-Preserving Remote User Authentication With K-Times Untraceability, Yangguang Tian, Yingjiu Li, Binanda Sengupta, Robert H. Deng, Albert Ching, Weiwei Liu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Remote user authentication has found numerous real-world applications, especially in a user-server model. In this work, we introduce the notion of anonymous remote user authentication with k-times untraceability (k-RUA) for a given parameter k, where authorized users authenticate themselves to an authority (typically a server) in an anonymous and k-times untraceable manner. We define the formal security models for a generic k-RUA construction that guarantees user authenticity, anonymity and user privacy. We provide a concrete instantiation of k-RUA having the following properties: (1) a third party cannot impersonate an authorized user by producing valid transcripts for the user while conversing …

Authorized Function Homomorphic Signature, Qingwen Guo, Qiong Huang, Guomin Yang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Homomorphic signature (HS) is a novel primitive that allows an agency to carry out arbitrary (polynomial time) computation f on the signed data (m) over right arrow and accordingly gain a signature sigma(h) for the computation result f ((m) over right arrow) with respect to f on behalf of the data owner (DO). However, since DO lacks control of the agency's behavior, receivers would believe that DO did authenticate the computation result even if the agency misbehaves and applies a function that the DO does not want. To address the problem above, in this paper we introduce a new primitive …

Understanding And Constructing Ake Via Double-Key Key Encapsulation Mechanism, Haiyang Xue, Xianhui Lu, Bao Li, Bei Liang, Jingnan He

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Motivated by abstracting the common idea behind several implicitly authenticated key exchange (AKE) protocols, we introduce a primitive that we call double-key key encapsulation mechanism (2-key KEM). It is a special type of KEM involving two pairs of secret-public keys and satisfying some function and security property. Such 2-key KEM serves as the core building block and provides alternative approaches to simplify the constructions of AKE. To see the usefulness of 2-key KEM, we show how several existing constructions of AKE can be captured as 2-key KEM and understood in a unified framework, including widely used HMQV, NAXOS, Okamoto-AKE, and …

The Role Of Information Communication Technologies (Icts) In Shaping Identity Threats And Responses, Mary Macharia

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With the rising use of social media, people are increasingly experiencing, and responding to, identity threats online. This sometimes leads to online backlash via “cybermobs” or the creation of online social movements that traverse offline. Prior information systems (IS) research on identity threats and responses largely focuses on information communication technology (ICT) implementations within organizations in an offline context. Therefore, we lack understanding of ICT-mediated identity threats and responses and ways to promote healthier and productive interactions online. This two-essay dissertation seeks to fill this gap. Essay 1 combines a review of ICT-mediated identity threats with a qualitative study (based …

Making A Good Thing Better: Enhancing Password/Pin-Based User Authentication With Smartwatch, Bing Chang, Yingjiu Li, Qiongxiao Wang, Wen-Tao Zhu, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Wearing smartwatches becomes increasingly popular in people’s lives. This paper shows that a smartwatch can help its bearer authenticate to a login system effectively and securely even if the bearer’s password has already been revealed. This idea is motivated by our observation that a sensor-rich smartwatch is capable of tracking the wrist motions of its bearer typing a password or PIN, which can be used as an authentication factor. The major challenge in this research is that a sophisticated attacker may imitate a user’s typing behavior as shown in previous research on keystroke dynamics based user authentication. We address this …

Pribioauth: Privacy-Preserving Biometric-Based Remote User Authentication, Yangguang Tian, Yingjiu Li, Ximeng Liu, Robert H. Deng, Binanda Sengupta

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Biometric-based remote user authentication (BRUA) is a useful primitive that allows an authorized user to remotely authenticate to a cloud server using biometrics. However, the existing BRUA solutions in the client-server setting lack certain privacy considerations. For example, authorized user's multiple sessions should not be linked while his identity remains anonymous to cloud server. In this work, we introduce an identity-concealed and unlinkable biometric-based remote user authentication framework, such that authorized users authenticate to an honest-but-curious server in an anonymous and unlinkable manner. In particular, we employ two non-colluding cloud servers to perform the complex biometrics matching. We formalize two …

Material Identification And Target Imaging With Rfids [Iot Connection], Ju Wang, Xiaojiang Chen, Dingyi Fang, Jie Xiong, Hongbo Jiang, Rajesh Krishna Balan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

TagScan is a system that determines the material type and shape of an object with inexpensive commercial RFID technology. Real-world experiments show that TagScan can identify 10 common liquids with accuracy greater than 94%.

Preprocess-Then-Ntt Technique And Its Applications To Kyber And Newhope, Shuai Zhou, Haiyang Xue, Daode Zhang, Kunpeng Wang, Xianhui Lu, Bao Li, Jingnan He

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The Number Theoretic Transform (NTT) provides efficient algorithm for multiplying large degree polynomials. It is commonly used in cryptographic schemes that are based on the hardness of the Ring Learning With Errors problem (RLWE), which is a popular basis for post-quantum key exchange, encryption and digital signature.To apply NTT, modulus q should satisfy that , RLWE-based schemes have to choose an oversized modulus, which leads to excessive bandwidth. In this work, we present “Preprocess-then-NTT (PtNTT)” technique which weakens the limitation of modulus q, i.e., we only require or . Based on this technique, we provide new parameter settings for KYBER …

Ensuring Data Confidentiality Via Plausibly Deniable Encryption And Secure Deletion: A Survey, Qionglu Zhang, Shijie Jia, Bing Chang, Bo Chen

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Ensuring confidentiality of sensitive data is of paramount importance, since data leakage may not only endanger data owners’ privacy, but also ruin reputation of businesses as well as violate various regulations like HIPPA and Sarbanes-Oxley Act. To provide confidentiality guarantee, the data should be protected when they are preserved in the personal computing devices (i.e., confidentiality during their lifetime); and also, they should be rendered irrecoverable after they are removed from the devices (i.e., confidentiality after their lifetime). Encryption and secure deletion are used to ensure data confidentiality during and after their lifetime, respectively. This work aims to perform a …

Strong Mutation-Based Test Generation Of Xacml Policies, Roshan Shrestha

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

There exist various testing methods for XACML policies which vary in their overall fault detection ability and none of them can detect all the (killable) injected faults except for the simple policies. Further, it is unclear that what is essential for the fault detection of XACML policies. To address these issues, we formalized the fault detection conditions in the well-studied fault model of XACML policies so that it becomes clear what is essential for the fault detection. We formalized fault detection conditions in the form of reachability, necessity and propagation constraint. We, then, exploit these constraints to generate a mutation-based …

Static Analysis Of Android Secure Application Development Process With Findsecuritybugs, Xianyong Meng

Master of Science in Computer Science Theses

Mobile devices have been growing more and more powerful in recent decades, evolving from a simple device for SMS messages and phone calls to a smart device that can install third party apps. People are becoming more heavily reliant on their mobile devices. Due to this increase in usage, security threats to mobile applications are also growing explosively. Mobile app flaws and security defects can provide opportunities for hackers to break into them and access sensitive information. Defensive coding needs to be an integral part of coding practices to improve the security of our code.

We need to consider data …

Sequence Pattern Mining With Variables, James S. Okolica, Gilbert L. Peterson, Robert F. Mills, Michael R. Grimaila

Faculty Publications

Sequence pattern mining (SPM) seeks to find multiple items that commonly occur together in a specific order. One common assumption is that all of the relevant differences between items are captured through creating distinct items, e.g., if color matters then the same item in two different colors would have two items created, one for each color. In some domains, that is unrealistic. This paper makes two contributions. The first extends SPM algorithms to allow item differentiation through attribute variables for domains with large numbers of items, e.g, by having one item with a variable with a color attribute rather than …

Cloud Security, Isabella Roth, Jose Salazar, Yi Hu

Posters-at-the-Capitol

Isabella Roth

Jose Salazar

Professor Yi Hu

Computer Information Technology

Cloud Security: AWS Abstract

With enterprises moving their IT infrastructure to the cloud using providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), security problems have not been reduced. In fact, cloud computing brings new security challenges. Our research investigated better solutions to the security problems that come with using the cloud to store a companies data.

The cloud is a general term for using the internet to receive some sort of data vs connecting directly to a server. This makes it easier to do things such as connecting to an online app …

Performance Indicators Analysis Inside A Call Center Using A Simulation Program, Ditila Ekmekçiu, Markela Muça, Adrian Naço

International Journal of Business and Technology

This paper deals with and shows the results of different performance indicators analyses made utilizing the help of Simulation and concentrated on dimensioning problems of handling calls capacity in a call center. The goal is to measure the reactivity of the call center’s performance to potential changes of critical variables. The literature related to the employment of this kind of instrument in call centers is reviewed, and the method that this problem is treated momentarily is precisely described. The technique used to obtain this paper’s goal implicated a simulation model using Arena Contact Center software that worked as a key …

Modelling Business And Management Systems Using Fuzzy Cognitive Maps: A Critical Overview, Peter P. Groumpos

International Journal of Business and Technology

A critical overview of modelling Business and Management (B&M) Systems using Fuzzy Cognitive Maps is presented. A limited but illustrative number of specific applications of Fuzzy Cognitive Maps in diverse B&M systems, such as e business, performance assessment, decision making, human resources management, planning and investment decision making processes is provided and briefly analyzed. The limited survey is given in a table with statics of using FCMs in B&M systems during the last 15 years. The limited survey shows that the applications of Fuzzy Cognitive Maps to today’s Business and Management studies has been steadily increased especially during the last …

Gender Differences In Identity-Based Social Influence: An Experimental Examination Of Software Piracy Behavior, Noura Eisa Al Khyeli

Information Security Theses

Software piracy is the unauthorized copying, sharing, or using the software. It can be a profitable endeavor for individuals and a tremendous loss for the industry. According to Gulf News, Software piracy losses in the Arabian Gulf states in 2015 was 897$ million (AED 3.29 billion). Therefore, it is critical to understand as much as possible about the phenomenon and investigate the factors that influence subjects’ piracy behavior. Driven by gaps in previously published literature, the study presented here is an experimental investigation into the gender differences in identity-based social influence. In essence, the study examined if males or females …

Healthcare Monitoring System Security Platform Using Software Defined Networking Paradigm, Mohamad Issam Khayat

Information Security Theses

This thesis studies the security and privacy concerns of Healthcare Monitoring System (HMS) and proposes a state-of-the-art Security Platform for HMS using the newly emerging Software Defined Network (SDN) paradigm. In this thesis, we investigate the existing HMS architecture and the relevant solutions proposed for both security and privacy concerns in the literature today. Moreover, we develop a new HMS Security Integration Framework, in the form of a security platform for securing HMS. Finally, we perform a comparison among existing architectures and our proposed framework to highlight the added value of our proposed architecture. Our proposed integration framework eliminates the …

Pestel Analysis Of Hacktivism Campaign Motivations, Mikko Samuli Niemelae

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

A political, economic, socio-cultural, technological, environment and legal (PESTEL) analysis is a framework or tool used to analyse and monitor the macro-environmental factors that have an impact on an organisation. The results identify threats and weaknesses which are used in a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis. In this paper the PESTEL framework was utilized to categorize hacktivism motivations for attack campaigns against certain companies, governments or industries. Our study is based on empirical evidence: of thirty-three hacktivism attack campaigns in manifesto level. Then, the targets of these campaigns were analysed and studied accordingly. As a result, we claim …

Vpsearch: Achieving Verifiability For Privacy-Preserving Multi-Keyword Search Over Encrypted Cloud Data, Zhiguo Wan, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Although cloud computing offers elastic computation and storage resources, it poses challenges on verifiability of computations and data privacy. In this work we investigate verifiability for privacy-preserving multi-keyword search over outsourced documents. As the cloud server may return incorrect results due to system faults or incentive to reduce computation cost, it is critical to offer verifiability of search results and privacy protection for outsourced data at the same time. To fulfill these requirements, we design aVerifiablePrivacy-preserving keywordSearch scheme, called VPSearch, by integrating an adapted homomorphic MAC technique with a privacy-preserving multi-keyword search scheme. The proposed scheme enables the client to …

Privacy-Preserving Communication And Power Injection Over Vehicle Networks And 5g Smart Grid Slice, Yinghui Zhang, Jin Li, Dong Zheng, Ping Li, Yangguang Tian

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

As an important combination of autonomous vehicle networks (AVNs) and smart grid, the vehicle-to-grid (V2G) network can facilitate the adoption of renewable resources. Based on V2G networks, parked electric vehicles (EVs) can charge during off-peak hours and inject excess power to the grid during peak hours for earnings. However, each EV's power injection bids in V2G are sensitive and vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication may be eavesdropped, which has become an obstacle to the wide deployments of AVNs. Aiming to efficiently tackle these security and privacy issues in AVNs, we propose an efficient privacy-preserving communication and power injection (ePPCP) scheme without pairings, …

Vulnerability Assessment & Penetration Testing: Case Study On Web Application Security, Gazmend Krasniqi, Veton Bejtullahu

UBT International Conference

Complexity of information systems are increasing day by day. The security of information systems that are connected to public networks can be compromised by unauthorized, and usually anonymous, attempts to access them. By using public networks businesses and other institutions are exposed to numerous risks. This leads to more and more vulnerabilities in Information Systems. This situation calls for test methods that are devised from the attacker’s perspective to ensure that test conditions are as realistic as possible. In this paper we will describe complete stages of Vulnerability Assessment and Penetration Testing on some systems in UBT and proactive action …

Wireless Intrusion Detection And Device Fingerprinting Through Preamble Manipulation, Benjamin W. Ramsey, Barry E. Mullins

AFIT Patents

A method of establishing a hardware identity of a coordinating device in a wireless network is provided. A standard PHY preamble is modified to a preamble that can be received by the coordinating device having an expected hardware configuration. The modified PHY preamble is transmitted with an association request by a joining device. In response to not receiving a reply containing an association response from the coordinating device by the joining device, determining the hardware configuration of the coordinating device is not the expected hardware configuration. A further method of characterizing a hardware identity of a device in a wireless …

Cross-Referencing Social Media And Public Surveillance Camera Data For Disaster Response, Chittayong Surakitbanharn,, Calvin Yau, Guizhen Wang, Aniesh Chawla, Yinuo Pan, Zhaoya Sun, Sam Yellin, David Ebert, Yung-Hsiang Lu, George K. Thiruvathukal

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Physical media (like surveillance cameras) and social media (like Instagram and Twitter) may both be useful in attaining on-the-ground information during an emergency or disaster situation. However, the intersection and reliability of both surveillance cameras and social media during a natural disaster are not fully understood. To address this gap, we tested whether social media is of utility when physical surveillance cameras went off-line during Hurricane Irma in 2017. Specifically, we collected and compared geo-tagged Instagram and Twitter posts in the state of Florida during times and in areas where public surveillance cameras went off-line. We report social media content …

Mapping Knowledge Units Using A Learning Management System (Lms) Course Framework, Casey Rackley

KSU Proceedings on Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to examine the outcomes of using a Learning Management System (LMS) course as a framework for mapping the Centers of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense (CAE-CD) 2019 Knowledge Units (KU) to college courses. The experience shared herein will be useful to faculty who are interested in performing the mapping and applying for CAE-CDE designation.

Hijacking Wireless Communications Using Wifi Pineapple Nano As A Rogue Access Point, Shawn J. Witemyre, Tamirat T. Abegaz, Bryson R. Payne, Ash Mady

KSU Proceedings on Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Wireless access points are an effective solution for building scalable, flexible, mobile networks. The problem with these access points is often the lack of security. Users regularly connect to wireless access points without thinking about whether they are genuine or malicious. Moreover, users are not aware of the types of attacks that can come from “rogue” access points set up by attackers and what information can be captured by them. Attackers use this advantage to gain access to users’ confidential information. The objective of this study is to examine the effectiveness of the WiFi Pineapple NANO used as a rogue …

Towards A Development Of Predictive Models For Healthcare Hipaa Security Rule Violation Fines, Jim Furstenberg, Yair Levy

KSU Proceedings on Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act’s (HIPAA) Security Rule (SR) mandate provides a national standard for the protection of electronic protected health information (ePHI). The SR’s standards provide healthcare covered entities (CEs’) flexibility in how to meet the standards because the SR regulators realized that all health care organizations are not the same. However, the SR requires CEs’ to implement reasonable and appropriate safeguards, as well as security controls that protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability (CIA) of their ePHI data. However, compliance with the HIPAA SR mandates are confusing, complicated, and can be costly to CEs’. Flexibility in …

Using Project Management Knowledge And Practice To Address Digital Forensic Investigation Challenges, Steven S. Presley, Jeffrey P. Landry, Michael Black

KSU Proceedings on Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

The management of digital forensics investigations represents a unique challenge. The field is relatively new, and combines the technical challenges of Information Systems with the legal challenges of forensics investigations. The challenges for the Digital Forensics Investigators and the organizations they support are many. This research effort examines the characteristics and challenges of Digital Forensics Investigations and compares them with the features and knowledge areas of project management. The goal was to determine if project management knowledge, as defined in a common body of knowledge, would be helpful in addressing digital forensics investigation challenges identified in the literature. The results …