Information Security Commons^™

The Chain-Link Fence Model: A Framework For Creating Security Procedures, Robert F. Houghton

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Information technology security professionals are facing an ever growing threat to the networks that they defend. The process for creating procedures to help stem this threat is very difficult for security professionals. The Chain-Link Fence Model helps security professionals by guiding them through the process of creating and implementing new security procedures.

Information Security As A Credence Good, Ping Fan Ke, Kai-Lung Hui, Wei Thoo Yue

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

With increasing use of information systems, many organizations are outsourcing information security protection to a managed security service provider (MSSP). However, diagnosing the risk of an information system requires special expertise, which could be costly and difficult to acquire. The MSSP may exploit their professional advantage and provide fraudulent diagnosis of clients’ vulnerabilities. Such an incentive to mis-represent clients’ risks is often called the credence goods problem in the economics literature[3]. Although different mechanisms have been introduced to tackle the credence goods problem, in the information security outsourcing context, such mechanisms may not work well with the presence of system …

Cross-Domain Password-Based Authenticated Key Exchange Revisited, Liqun Chen, Hoon Wei Lim, Guomin Yang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We revisit the problem of secure cross-domain communication between two users belonging to different security domains within an open and distributed environment. Existing approaches presuppose that either the users are in possession of public key certificates issued by a trusted certificate authority (CA), or the associated domain authentication servers share a long-term secret key. In this paper, we propose a generic framework for designing four-party password-based authenticated key exchange (4PAKE) protocols. Our framework takes a different approach from previous work. The users are not required to have public key certificates, but they simply reuse their login passwords they share with …

Front Matter

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Masthead

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Back Matter

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Rootkit Detection Using A Cross-View Clean Boot Method, Bridget N. Flatley

Theses and Dissertations

In cyberspace, attackers commonly infect computer systems with malware to gain capabilities such as remote access, keylogging, and stealth. Many malware samples include rootkit functionality to hide attacker activities on the target system. After detection, users can remove the rootkit and associated malware from the system with commercial tools. This research describes, implements, and evaluates a clean boot method using two partitions to detect rootkits on a system. One partition is potentially infected with a rootkit while the other is clean. The method obtains directory listings of the potentially infected operating system from each partition and compares the lists to …

Mobile Network Defense Interface For Cyber Defense And Situational Awareness, James C. Hannan

Theses and Dissertations

Today's computer networks are under constant attack. In order to deal with this constant threat, network administrators rely on intrusion detection and prevention services (IDS) (IPS). Most IDS and IPS implement static rule sets to automatically alert administrators and resolve intrusions. Network administrators face a difficult challenge, identifying attacks against a vast number of benign network transactions. Also after a threat is identified making even the smallest policy change to the security software potentially has far-reaching and unanticipated consequences. Finally, because the administrator is primarily responding to alerts they may lose situational awareness of the network. During this research a …

Almost Touching: Parent-Child Remote Communication Using The Sharetable System, Svetlana Yarosh, Anthony Tang, Sanika Mokashi, Gregory D. Abowd

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We deployed the ShareTable - a system that provides easy-to-initiate videochat and a shared tabletop task space - in four divorced households. Throughout the month of its use, the families employed the ShareTable to participate in shared activities, share emotional moments, and communicate closeness through metaphorical touch. The ShareTable provided a number of advantages over the phone and was easier to use than standard videoconferencing. However, it did also introduce concerns over privacy and new sources of conflict about appropriate calling practices. We relate our findings to the larger research landscape and present implications for future work.

Accountable Authority Identity-Based Encryption With Public Traceability, Junzuo Lai, Robert H. Deng, Yunlei Zhao, Jian Weng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

At Crypto’07, Goyal introduced the notion of accountable authority identity-based encryption (A-IBE) in order to mitigate the inherent key escrow problem in identity-based encryption, and proposed two concrete constructions. In an A-IBE system, if the private key generator (PKG) distributes a decryption key or produces an unauthorized decryption box for a user maliciously, it runs the risk of being caught and sued in the court of law with the help of a tracing algorithm. Subsequent efforts focused on constructions of A-IBE schemes with enhanced security. In these A-IBE constructions, the tracing algorithm needs to take a user’s decryption key as …

Simple Identity-Based Encryption With Mediated Rsa, Xuhua Ding, Gene Tsudik

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Identity-based encryption (IBE) [5] and digital signatures are important tools in modern secure communication. In general, identity-based cryptographic methods facilitate easy introduction of public key cryptography by allowing an entity’s public key to be derived from some arbitrary identification value such as an email address or a phone number. Identity-based cryptography greatly reduces the need for, and reliance on, public key certificates. Mediated RSA (mRSA) [4] is a simple and practical method of splitting RSA private keys between the user and the Security Mediator (SEM). Neither the user nor the SEM can cheat one another since each signature or decryption …

Comparing Mobile Privacy Protection Through Cross-Platform Applications, Jin Han, Qiang Yan, Debin Gao, Jianying Zhou, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

With the rapid growth of the mobile market, security of mobile platforms is receiving increasing attention from both research community as well as the public. In this paper, we make the first attempt to establish a baseline for security comparison between the two most popular mobile platforms. We investigate applications that run on both Android and iOS and examine the difference in the usage of their security sensitive APIs (SS-APIs). Our analysis over 2,600 applications shows that iOS applications consistently access more SS-APIs than their counterparts on Android. The additional privileges gained on iOS are often associated with accessing private …

I Can Be You: Questioning The Use Of Keystroke Dynamics As Biometrics, Chee Meng Tey, Payas Gupta, Debin Gao

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Keystroke dynamics refer to information about the typing patterns of individuals, such as the relative timing when the individual presses and releases each key. Prior studies suggest that such patterns are unique and cannot be easily imitated. This lays the foundation for the use of keystroke biometrics in authentication systems. The research effort in this area has thus far focused on novel detection techniques to differentiate between legitimate users and imposters. In this paper, we demonstrate a novel feedback and training interface named Mimesis. Mimesis provides both positive and negative feedback on the differences between a submitted pattern vs. a …

Raising The Game: Applying Theory And Analytics To Real-World Threats, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Safety and security are, on many levels, essential priorities for governments, businesses and individuals. While an increase of defence and security budgets may bring some assurance of peaceful times to come, it seems the world has no lack of insane perpetrators who can still somehow evade, breach, ambush, assail and attack as they please. Enter the “Bayesian Stackelberg Game”, a game theory model that can, and has been applied rather successfully to the allocation of security resources in the United States by Prof Milind Tambe, University of Southern California.

Developing Focused Auditing Tools: A Practical Framework For Creating Formalized Multi-Level Security Policy Specifications, Barbara Ann Brough

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this study is that formalized policy specifications and focused penetration testing are needed to effectively audit any information system. Designing and maintaining the security system information is the primary duty of the cyber security professional. In today's world, nearly all government agencies manage some form of financial, defense, national security, and/or privacy information security policies. It is also necessary in this environment that agencies are accountable for auditing the security systems that protect this information.

The Implementation Of A Thin Client In The Department Of Defense Network System, Sung Ju In

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this project is to introduce and analyze a thin client solution that could enhance the overall Department of Defense (DoD) network system as well as its IT security posture, minimize risk from external threats, and ease of network operations.

Quantum Cryptography, Razvan Augustin Dinu

Theses Digitization Project

This study builds a case for using a quantum computer for solving cryptographic problems. It looks at the quantum turing machine concept, explores why use quantum computers and presents Deutsch's problem which allows one to select from amongst the parallel paths a quantum computer calculates.

Security Risks And Protection In Online Learning: A Survey, Yong Chen, Wu He

Distance Learning Faculty & Staff Publications

This paper describes a survey of online learning which attempts to determine online learning providers' awareness of potential security risks and the protection measures that will diminish them. The authors use a combination of two methods: blog mining and a traditional literature search. The findings indicate that, while scholars have identified diverse security risks and have proposed solutions to mitigate the security threats in online learning, bloggers have not discussed security in online learning with great frequency. The differences shown in the survey results generated by the two different methods confirm that online learning providers and practitioners have not considered …

Use Of General Purpose Graphical Processing Units In Blowfish Encryption Algorithm, Cankat Duman

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this project is to present the findings of the work that has been completed on exploring the possibilities of speedup gained when using General Purpose Graphical Processing Units for the Blowfish encryption algorithm with the use of the CUDA (Computer Unified Device Architecture) programming language and architecture.

College Student Home Computer Security Adoption, Chet L. Claar, Robert C. Shields, David Rawlinson, Robert Lupton

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

The home Internet user faces a hostile environment abundant in potential attacks on their computers. These attacks have been increasing at an alarming rate and cause damage to individuals and organizations regularly, and have the potential to cripple the critical infrastructures of entire countries. Recent research has determined that some individuals are not utilizing additional software protections available to mitigate these potential security risks. This paper seeks to clarify the reasons by proposing a conceptual framework that utilizes the Health Belief Model as a possible way to explain why some people do not perceive a threat sufficient to prompt the …

Table Of Contents

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

A Simple Experiment With Microsoft Office 2010 And Windows 7 Utilizing Digital Forensic Methodology, Gregory H. Carlton

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Digital forensic examiners are tasked with retrieving data from digital storage devices, and frequently these examiners are expected to explain the circumstances that led to the data being in its current state. Through written reports or verbal, expert testimony delivered in court, digital forensic examiners are expected to describe whether data have been altered, and if so, then to what extent have data been altered. Addressing these expectations results from opinions digital forensic examiners reach concerning their understanding of electronic storage and retrieval methods. The credibility of these opinions evolves from the scientific basis from which they are drawn using …

The Advanced Data Acquisition Model (Adam): A Process Model For Digital Forensic Practice, Richard Adams, Val Hobbs, Graham Mann

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

As with other types of evidence, the courts make no presumption that digital evidence is reliable without some evidence of empirical testing in relation to the theories and techniques associated with its production. The issue of reliability means that courts pay close attention to the manner in which electronic evidence has been obtained and in particular the process in which the data is captured and stored. Previous process models have tended to focus on one particular area of digital forensic practice, such as law enforcement, and have not incorporated a formal description. We contend that this approach has prevented the …

Prism And Privacy: Will This Change Everything?, Fred H. Cate, Christopher Kuner, Christopher Millard, Dan Jerker B. Svantesson

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Warcreate And Wail: Warc, Wayback, And Heritrix Made Easy, Mat Kelly, Michael L. Nelson, Michele C. Weigle

Computer Science Faculty Publications

[First slide]

The Problem

Institutional Tools, Personal Archivists

• ON YOUR MACHINE

-Complex to Operate

-Require Infrastructure

• DELEGATED TO INSTITUTIONS

-$$$

-Lose original perspective

• Locale content tailoring (DC vs. San Francisco)
• Observation Medium (PC web browser vs. Crawler)

Improving Internet Security Through Information Disclosure: A Field Quasi-Experiment, Qian Tang, Leigh L. Linden, John S. Quarterman, Andrew B. Whinston

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Cybersecurity is a national priority in this big data era. Because of negative externalities and the resulting lack of economic incentives, companies often underinvest in security controls, despite government and industry recommendations. Although many existing studies on security have explored technical solutions, only a few have looked at the economic motivations. To fill the gap, we propose an approach to increase the incentives of organizations to address security problems. Specifically, we utilize and process existing security vulnerability data, derive explicit security performance information, and disclose the information as feedback to organizations and the public. We regularly release information on the …

Guardian: Hypervisor As Security Foothold For Personal Computers, Yueqiang Cheng, Xuhua Ding

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Personal computers lack of a security foothold to allow the end-users to protect their systems or to mitigate the damage. Existing candidates either rely on a large Trusted Computing Base (TCB) or are too costly to widely deploy for commodity use. To fill this gap, we propose a hypervisor-based security foothold, named as Guardian, for commodity personal computers. We innovate a bootup and shutdown mechanism to achieve both integrity and availability of Guardian. We also propose two security utilities based on Guardian. One is a device monitor which detects malicious manipulation on camera and network adaptors. The other is hyper-firewall …

Accountable Trapdoor Sanitizable Signatures, Junzuo Lai, Xuhua Ding, Yongdong Wu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Sanitizable signature (SS) allows a signer to partly delegate signing rights to a predetermined party, called sanitizer, who can later modify certain designated parts of a message originally signed by the signer and generate a new signature on the sanitized message without interacting with the signer. One of the important security requirements of sanitizable signatures is accountability, which allows the signer to prove, in case of dispute, to a third party that a message was modified by the sanitizer. Trapdoor sanitizable signature (TSS) enables a signer of a message to delegate the power of sanitization to any parties at anytime …

Verifiable And Private Top-K Monitoring, Xuhua Ding, Hwee Hwa Pang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In a data streaming model, records or documents are pushed from a data owner, via untrusted third-party servers, to a large number of users with matching interests. The match in interest is calculated from the correlation between each pair of document and user query. For scalability and availability reasons, this calculation is delegated to the servers, which gives rise to the need to protect the privacy of the documents and user queries. In addition, the users need to guard against the eventuality of a server distorting the correlation score of the documents to manipulate which documents are highlighted to certain …

A Secure Platform For Information Sharing In Epcglobal Network, Jie Shi, Yingjiu Li, Robert H. Deng, Wei He, Eng Wah Lee

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

With the rapid development of RFID technology, the EPCglobal network has drawn considerable attention from both research and industry communities, which enables supply chain partners to automatically share information and improve the visibility of supply chains. As the information shared in the EPCglobal network is usually sensitive and valuable, security mechanisms should be provided. In this paper, we aim at designing and implementing a secure information sharing platform in the EPCglobal network with a focus on authorization mechanism. We also design and implement a track and trace application based on the proposed secure platform so as to demonstrate its feasibility …