OS and Networks Commons^™

Deaddrop: Message Passing Without Metadata Leakage, Davis Mike Arndt

Computer Science and Software Engineering

Even when network data is encrypted, observers can make inferences about content based on collected metadata. DeadDrop is an exploratory API designed to protect the metadata of a conversation from both outside observers and the facilitating server. To do so, DeadDrop servers are passed no recipient address, instead relying upon the recipient to check for messages of their own volition. In addition, the recipient downloads a copy of every encrypted message on the server to prevent even the server from knowing to whom each message is intended. To these purposes, DeadDrop is mostly successful. However, it does not obscure all …

Survey Of Randomization Defenses On Cloud Computing, Jianming Fu, Yan Lin, Xiuwen Liu, Xu Zhang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Cloud computing has changed the processing mode on resources of individuals and industries by providing computing and storage services to users. However, existing defenses on cloud, such as virtual machine monitoring and integrity detection, cannot counter against attacks result from the homogeneity and vulnerability of services effectively. In this paper, we have investigated the threats on cloud computing platform from the perspective of cloud service, service interface and network interface, such as code reuse attack, side channel attack and SQL injection. Code reuse attack chains code snippets (gadgets) located in binaries to bypass Data Execution Prevention (DEP). Side channel attack …

Contents, Adfsl

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Front Matter, Adfsl

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Analysis Of Data Erasure Capability On Sshd Drives For Data Recovery, Andrew Blyth

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Data Protection and Computer Forensics/Anti-Forensics has now become a critical area of concern for organizations. A key element to this is how data is sanitized at end of life. In this paper we explore Hybrid Solid State Hybrid Drives (SSHD) and the impact that various Computer Forensics and Data Recovery techniques have when performing data erasure upon a SSHD.

Knowledge Expiration In Security Awareness Training, Tianjian Zhang

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Positive Identification Of Lsb Image Steganography Using Cover Image Comparisons, Michael Pelosi, Nimesh Poudel, Pratap Lamichhane, Devon Lam, Gary Kessler, Joshua Macmonagle

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

In this paper we introduce a new software concept specifically designed to allow the digital forensics professional to clearly identify and attribute instances of LSB image steganography by using the original cover image in side-by-side comparison with a suspected steganographic payload image. The “CounterSteg” software allows detailed analysis and comparison of both the original cover image and any modified image, using sophisticated bit- and color-channel visual depiction graphics. In certain cases, the steganographic software used for message transmission can be identified by the forensic analysis of LSB and other changes in the payload image. The paper demonstrates usage and typical …

Exploring The Use Of Graph Databases To Catalog Artifacts For Client Forensics, Rose Shumba

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Cloud computing has revolutionized the methods by which digital data is stored, processed, and transmitted. It is providing users with data storage and processing services, enabling access to resources through multiple devices. Although organizations continue to embrace the advantages of flexibility and scalability offered by cloud computing, insider threats are becoming a serious concern as cited by security researchers. Insiders can use authorized access to steal sensitive information, calling for the need for an investigation. This concept paper describes research in progress towards developing a Neo4j graph database tool to enhance client forensics. The tool, with a Python interface, allows …

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Forensic Investigation Process: Dji Phantom 3 Drone As A Case Study, Alan Roder, Kim-Kwang Raymond Choo, Nhien-A Le-Khac

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Drones (also known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles – UAVs) are a potential source of evidence in a digital investigation, partly due to their increasing popularity in our society. However, existing UAV/drone forensics generally rely on conventional digital forensic investigation guidelines such as those of ACPO and NIST, which may not be entirely fit-for-purpose. In this paper, we identify the challenges associated with UAV/drone forensics. We then explore and evaluate existing forensic guidelines, in terms of their effectiveness for UAV/drone forensic investigations. Next, we present our set of guidelines for UAV/drone investigations. Finally, we demonstrate how the proposed guidelines can be …

Detection And Recovery Of Anti-Forensic (Vault) Applications On Android Devices, Michaila Duncan, Umit Karabiyik

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Significant number of mobile device users currently employ anti-forensics applications, also known as vault or locker applications, on their mobile devices in order to hide files such as photos. Because of this, investigators are required to spend a large portion of their time manually looking at the applications installed on the device. Currently, there is no automated method of detecting these anti-forensics applications on an Android device. This work presents the creation and testing of a vault application detection system to be used on Android devices. The main goal of this work is twofold: (i) Detecting and reporting the presence …

Hypervisor-Based Active Data Protection For Integrity And Confidentiality Of Dynamically Allocated Memory In Windows Kernel, Igor Korkin

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

One of the main issues in the OS security is providing trusted code execution in an untrusted environment. During executing, kernel-mode drivers dynamically allocate memory to store and process their data: Windows core kernel structures, users’ private information, and sensitive data of third-party drivers. All this data can be tampered with by kernel-mode malware. Attacks on Windows-based computers can cause not just hiding a malware driver, process privilege escalation, and stealing private data but also failures of industrial CNC machines. Windows built-in security and existing approaches do not provide the integrity and confidentiality of the allocated memory of third-party drivers. …

Evaluation Of Routing Protocols With Ftp And P2p, Tyler Wilson, Eman Abdelfattah, Samir Hamada

School of Computer Science & Engineering Faculty Publications

One of the decisions that need to be made when designing and configuring a computer network in which routing protocol should be used. This paper presents a simulation of a high load File Transfer Protocol (FTP) Application and a high load Peer to Peer (P2P) Application using Riverbed Academic Modeler 17.5. The simulation is configured and run in a World environment to replicate a global network. Each simulation employs either RIP, OSPF, or EIGRP routing protocol. The queuing delay, throughput, link utilization, and IP packets dropped are used as performance parameters to determine which routing protocol is the most efficient …

Automated Man-In-The-Middle Attack Against Wi‑Fi Networks, Martin Vondráček, Jan Pluskal, Ondřej Ryšavý

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Currently used wireless communication technologies suffer security weaknesses that can be exploited allowing to eavesdrop or to spoof network communication. In this paper, we present a practical tool that can automate the attack on wireless security. The developed package called wifimitm provides functionality for the automation of MitM attacks in the wireless environment. The package combines several existing tools and attack strategies to bypass the wireless security mechanisms, such as WEP, WPA, and WPS. The presented tool can be integrated into a solution for automated penetration testing. Also, a popularization of the fact that such attacks can be easily automated …

Pattern-Of-Life Modeling Using Data Leakage In Smart Homes, Steven M. Beyer

Theses and Dissertations

This work investigates data leakage in smart homes by providing a Smart Home Automation Architecture (SHAA) and a device classifier and pattern-of-life analysis tool, CITIoT (Classify, Identify, and Track Internet of things). CITIoT was able to capture traffic from SHAA and classify 17 of 18 devices, identify 95% of the events that occurred, and track when users were home or away with near 100% accuracy. Additionally, a mitigation tool, MIoTL (Mitigation of IoT Leakage) is provided to defend against smart home data leakage. With mitigation, CITIoT was unable to identify motion and camera devices and was inundated with an average …

Back Matter, Adfsl

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Front Matter, Adfsl

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Contents, Adfsl

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

The Legacy Of Multics And Secure Operating Systems Today, John Schriner

Publications and Research

This paper looks to the legacy of Multics from 1963 and its influence on computer security. It discusses kernel-based and virtualization-based containment in projects like SELinux and Qubes, respectively. The paper notes the importance of collaborative and research-driven projects like Qubes and Tor Project.

Isolated Mobile Malware Observation, Augustine Paul

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

The idea behind Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) it that personal mobile devices can be used in the workplace to enhance convenience and flexibility. This development encourages organizations to allow access of personal mobile devices to business information and systems for businesses operation. However, BYOD opens a firm to various security risks such as data contamination and the exposure of user interest to criminal activities. Mobile devices were not designed to handle intense data security and advanced security features are frequently turned off. Using personal mobile devices can also expose a system to various forms of security threats like malware. …

A Comparative Study On Machine Learning Algorithms For Network Defense, Abdinur Ali, Yen-Hung Hu, Chung-Chu (George) Hsieh, Mushtaq Khan

Virginia Journal of Science

Network security specialists use machine learning algorithms to detect computer network attacks and prevent unauthorized access to their networks. Traditionally, signature and anomaly detection techniques have been used for network defense. However, detection techniques must adapt to keep pace with continuously changing security attacks. Therefore, machine learning algorithms always learn from experience and are appropriate tools for this adaptation. In this paper, ten machine learning algorithms were trained with the KDD99 dataset with labels, then they were tested with a different dataset without labels. The researchers investigate the speed and the efficiency of these machine learning algorithms in terms of …

Ancr—An Adaptive Network Coding Routing Scheme For Wsns With Different-Success-Rate Links †, Xiang Ji, Anwen Wang, Chunyu Li, Chun Ma, Yao Peng, Dajin Wang, Qingyi Hua, Feng Chen, Dingyi Fang

Department of Computer Science Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

As the underlying infrastructure of the Internet of Things (IoT), wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have been widely used in many applications. Network coding is a technique in WSNs to combine multiple channels of data in one transmission, wherever possible, to save node’s energy as well as increase the network throughput. So far most works on network coding are based on two assumptions to determine coding opportunities: (1) All the links in the network have the same transmission success rate; (2) Each link is bidirectional, and has the same transmission success rate on both ways. However, these assumptions may not be …

On Return Oriented Programming Threats In Android Runtime, Akshaya Venkateswara Raja, Jehyun Lee, Debin Gao

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Android has taken a large share of operating systems forsmart devices including smartphones, and has been an attractive target to theattackers. The arms race between attackers and defenders typically occurs ontwo front lines — the latest attacking technology and the latest updates to theoperating system (including defense mechanisms deployed). In terms of attackingtechnology, Return-Oriented Programming (ROP) is one of the most sophisticatedattack methods on Android devices. In terms of the operating system updates,Android Runtime (ART) was the latest and biggest change to the Android family.In this paper, we investigate the extent to which Android Runtime (ART) makesReturn-Oriented Programming (ROP) attacks …

Understanding Deleted File Decay On Removable Media Using Differential Analysis, James H. Jones Jr, Anurag Srivastava, Josh Mosier, Connor Anderson, Seth Buenafe

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Digital content created by picture recording devices is often stored internally on the source device, on either embedded or removable media. Such storage media is typically limited in capacity and meant primarily for interim storage of the most recent image files, and these devices are frequently configured to delete older files as necessary to make room for new files. When investigations involve such devices and media, it is sometimes these older deleted files that would be of interest. It is an established fact that deleted file content may persist in part or in its entirety after deletion, and identifying the …

Harnessing Predictive Models For Assisting Network Forensic Investigations Of Dns Tunnels, Irvin Homem, Panagiotis Papapetrou

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

In recent times, DNS tunneling techniques have been used for malicious purposes, however network security mechanisms struggle to detect them. Network forensic analysis has been proven effective, but is slow and effort intensive as Network Forensics Analysis Tools struggle to deal with undocumented or new network tunneling techniques. In this paper, we present a machine learning approach, based on feature subsets of network traffic evidence, to aid forensic analysis through automating the inference of protocols carried within DNS tunneling techniques. We explore four network protocols, namely, HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, and POP3. Three features are extracted from the DNS tunneled traffic: …

An Accidental Discovery Of Iot Botnets And A Method For Investigating Them With A Custom Lua Dissector, Max Gannon, Gary Warner, Arsh Arora

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

This paper presents a case study that occurred while observing peer-to-peer network communications on a botnet monitoring station and shares how tools were developed to discover what ultimately was identified as Mirai and many related IoT DDOS Botnets. The paper explains how researchers developed a customized protocol dissector in Wireshark using the Lua coding language, and how this enabled them to quickly identify new DDOS variants over a five month period of study.

Kelihos Botnet: A Never-Ending Saga, Arsh Arora, Max Gannon, Gary Warner

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

This paper investigates the recent behavior of the Kelihos botnet, a spam-sending botnet that accounts for many millions of emails sent each day. The paper demonstrates how a team of students are able to perform a longitudinal malware study, making significant observations and contributions to the understanding of a major botnet using tools and techniques taught in the classroom. From this perspective the paper has two objectives: encouragement and observation. First, by providing insight into the methodology and tools used by student researchers to document and understand a botnet, the paper strives to embolden other academic programs to follow a …

Lightweight Data Aggregation Scheme Against Internal Attackers In Smart Grid Using Elliptic Curve Cryptography, Debiao He, Sherali Zeadally, Huaqun Wang, Qin Liu

Information Science Faculty Publications

Recent advances of Internet and microelectronics technologies have led to the concept of smart grid which has been a widespread concern for industry, governments, and academia. The openness of communications in the smart grid environment makes the system vulnerable to different types of attacks. The implementation of secure communication and the protection of consumers’ privacy have become challenging issues. The data aggregation scheme is an important technique for preserving consumers’ privacy because it can stop the leakage of a specific consumer’s data. To satisfy the security requirements of practical applications, a lot of data aggregation schemes were presented over the …

Monitoring The Dark Web And Securing Onion Services, John Schriner

Publications and Research

This paper focuses on how researchers monitor the Dark Web. After defining what onion services and Tor are, we discuss tools for monitoring and securing onion services. As Tor Project itself is research-driven, we find that the development and use of these tools help us to project where use of the Dark Web is headed.

Understanding Firewalld In Multi-Zone Configurations, Nathan R. Vance, William F. Polik

Faculty Publications

Stories of compromised servers and data theft fill today's news. It isn't difficult for someone who has read an informative blog post to access a system via a misconfigured service, take advantage of a recently exposed vulnerability, or gain control using a stolen password. Any of the many internet services found on a typical Linux server could harbor a vulnerability that grants unauthorized access to the system.

Since it's an impossible task to harden a system at the application level against every possible threat, firewalls provide security by limiting access to a system. Firewalls filter incoming packets based on their …

Edit Distance Based Encryption And Its Application, Tran Viet Xuan Phuong, Guomin Yang, Willy Susilo, Kaitai Liang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Edit distance, also known as Levenshtein distance, is a very useful tool to measure the similarity between two strings. It has been widely used in many applications such as natural language processing and bioinformatics. In this paper, we introduce a new type of fuzzy public key encryption called Edit Distance-based Encryption (EDE). In EDE, the encryptor can specify an alphabet string and a threshold when encrypting a message, and a decryptor can obtain a decryption key generated from another alphabet string, and the decryption will be successful if and only if the edit distance between the two strings is within …