Information Security Commons^™

Computer Security Documentation For A Non-Technical Audience, Salman Quraishi

Undergraduate Research Celebration 2018

This research project investigates the development of computer security documentation. Computer security includes the protection of hardware, software, and/or digital information from theft and/or damage, along with preventing disruption or misdirection of the services a computer may provide.The scope of the research was to develop a document detailing the basic fundamental concepts of computer security that individuals of all backgrounds can use without requiring prerequisite knowledge of computer security. The core concepts of the document encompass phishing, social engineering, password security, trusted/untrusted networks, viruses, malware, and antivirus software. Both technical and non-technical individuals can utilize the document to learn how …

Quantum Attacks On Modern Cryptography And Post-Quantum Cryptosystems, Zachary Marron

Senior Honors Theses

Cryptography is a critical technology in the modern computing industry, but the security of many cryptosystems relies on the difficulty of mathematical problems such as integer factorization and discrete logarithms. Large quantum computers can solve these problems efficiently, enabling the effective cryptanalysis of many common cryptosystems using such algorithms as Shor’s and Grover’s. If data integrity and security are to be preserved in the future, the algorithms that are vulnerable to quantum cryptanalytic techniques must be phased out in favor of quantum-proof cryptosystems. While quantum computer technology is still developing and is not yet capable of breaking commercial encryption, these …

Entropic Bounds On Two-Way Assisted Secret-Key Agreement Capacities Of Quantum Channels, Noah Anthony Davis

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In order to efficiently put quantum technologies into action, we must know the characteristics of the underlying quantum systems and effects. An interesting example is the use of the secret-key-agreement capacity of a quantum channel as a guide and measure for the implementation of quantum key distribution (QKD) and distributed quantum computation. We define the communication task of establishing a secret key over a quantum channel subject to an energy constraint on the input state and while allowing for unlimited local operations and classical communication (LOCC) between a sender and receiver. We then use the energy-constrained squashed entanglement to bound …

Surveying Digital Collections Stewardship In Nebraska [Original Survey Form], Jennifer L. Thoegersen, Blake Graham

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Data Repository

No abstract provided.

A Survey Of Security And Privacy In Mobile Cloud Computing, Bhuvaneswari Rayapuri

Masters Theses

Cloud Computing is an emerging technology that provides shared processing resources and data to computers and other devices on demand. On the other hand, Mobile Computing allows transmission of data, voice and video. From these two there emerges a new concept Mobile Cloud Computing which not only overcomes the problems of Mobile Computing but also integrates Cloud Computing into Mobile Environments to overcome obstacles related to Performance, Security and Environment. This paper also provides a decent description on Security and Privacy, its related problems, threats and challenges. This paper first provides details on survey of Mobile Cloud Computing, then it …

Application Of Huffman Data Compression Algorithm In Hashing Computation, Lakshmi Narasimha Devulapalli Venkata,

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Cryptography is the art of protecting information by encrypting the original message into an unreadable format. A cryptographic hash function is a hash function which takes an arbitrary length of the text message as input and converts that text into a fixed length of encrypted characters which is infeasible to invert. The values returned by the hash function are called as the message digest or simply hash values. Because of its versatility, hash functions are used in many applications such as message authentication, digital signatures, and password hashing [Thomsen and Knudsen, 2005].

The purpose of this study is to apply …

Privus: Take Back Your Privacy The Effect Of A User-Centered Approach On Privacy Management, Aral Tasher

Theses and Dissertations

Rapid innovations in science and engineering have created a greater opportunity for disruptive technologies to be established at a faster rate. Less than a decade ago mobile, phones were a mere tool for communication, nowadays, we rely on their successors to remind us about our next appointment, what we need from the grocery store, or even where we parked our car. But this assistance comes with a cost; in order to help us, our devices rely on using our personal information like GPS, contacts list and personal notes, –in some cases more information than what the app needs. While there …

Ethical Hacking: Network Security And Penetration Testing, Lei Li, Zhigang Li, Hossain Shahriar, Rebecca Rutherfoord, Svetana Peltsverger, Dawn Tatum

Computer Science and Information Technology Grants Collections

This Grants Collection for Ethical Hacking: Network Security and Penetration Testing was created under a Round Eight ALG Textbook Transformation Grant.

Affordable Learning Georgia Grants Collections are intended to provide faculty with the frameworks to quickly implement or revise the same materials as a Textbook Transformation Grants team, along with the aims and lessons learned from project teams during the implementation process.

Documents are in .pdf format, with a separate .docx (Word) version available for download. Each collection contains the following materials:

• Linked Syllabus
• Initial Proposal
• Final Report

Wireless Security, Lei Li, Zhigang Li, Hossain Shahriar, Rebecca Rutherfoord, Svetana Peltsverger, Dawn Tatum

Computer Science and Information Technology Grants Collections

This Grants Collection for Wireless Security was created under a Round Eight ALG Textbook Transformation Grant.

Affordable Learning Georgia Grants Collections are intended to provide faculty with the frameworks to quickly implement or revise the same materials as a Textbook Transformation Grants team, along with the aims and lessons learned from project teams during the implementation process.

Documents are in .pdf format, with a separate .docx (Word) version available for download. Each collection contains the following materials:

• Linked Syllabus
• Initial Proposal
• Final Report

Ethical Hacking For Effective Defense, Lei Li, Zhigang Li, Hossain Shahriar, Rebecca H. Rutherfoord, Svetana Peltsverger, Dawn Tatum

Computer Science and Information Technology Grants Collections

This Grants Collection for Ethical Hacking for Effective Defense was created under a Round Eight ALG Textbook Transformation Grant.

Affordable Learning Georgia Grants Collections are intended to provide faculty with the frameworks to quickly implement or revise the same materials as a Textbook Transformation Grants team, along with the aims and lessons learned from project teams during the implementation process.

Documents are in .pdf format, with a separate .docx (Word) version available for download. Each collection contains the following materials:

• Linked Syllabus
• Initial Proposal
• Final Report

A Resource View Of Information Security Incident Response, Mark-David J. Mclaughlin

2018

This dissertation investigates managerial and strategic aspects of InfoSec incident preparation and response. This dissertation is presented in four chapters:

Chapter 1: an introduction

Chapter 2: a systematic literature review

Chapter 3: two field-based case studies of InfoSec incident response processes

Chapter 4: a repertory grid study identifying characteristics of effective individual incident responders.

Together these chapters demonstrate that the lenses of the Resource Based View, Theory of Complementary Resources, and Accounting Control Theory, can be combined to classify and analyze the resources organizations use during incident response. I find that incident response is maturing as a discipline and organizations …

Understanding Natural Keyboard Typing Using Convolutional Neural Networks On Mobile Sensor Data, Travis Siems

Computer Science and Engineering Theses and Dissertations

Mobile phones and other devices with embedded sensors are becoming increasingly ubiquitous. Audio and motion sensor data may be able to detect information that we did not think possible. Some researchers have created models that can predict computer keyboard typing from a nearby mobile device; however, certain limitations to their experiment setup and methods compelled us to be skeptical of the models’ realistic prediction capability. We investigate the possibility of understanding natural keyboard typing from mobile phones by performing a well-designed data collection experiment that encourages natural typing and interactions. This data collection helps capture realistic vulnerabilities of the security …

Deeprefiner: Multi-Layer Android Malware Detection System Applying Deep Neural Networks, Xu Ke, Yingjiu Li, Robert H. Deng, Kai Chen

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

As malicious behaviors vary significantly across mobile malware, it is challenging to detect malware both efficiently and effectively. Also due to the continuous evolution of malicious behaviors, it is difficult to extract features by laborious human feature engineering and keep up with the speed of malware evolution. To solve these challenges, we propose DeepRefiner to identify malware both efficiently and effectively. The novel technique enabling effectiveness is the semantic-based deep learning. We use Long Short Term Memory on the semantic structure of Android bytecode, avoiding missing the details of method-level bytecode semantics. To achieve efficiency, we apply Multilayer Perceptron on …

Enhancing Firewall Filtering Performance Using Neural Networks, Heba Saleous

Information Security Theses

The internet has grown to a point where people all over the world have become dependent on this convenient communication medium. However, with this dependency, malicious traffic has become a major concern. Consequently, firewalls have become a mandatory part of any network, due to their ability to filter the traffic based on rules that state which packets should be accepted or denied. However, a network administrator must manually configure filter rules, and packets that do not fit any rule may be subject to wrong judgement by the firewall. Neural networks can learn the filter rules in order to decide if …

Sok: Towards The Science Of Security And Privacy In Machine Learning, Nicolas Papernot, Patrick Mcdaniel, Arunesh Sinha, Michael Wellman

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Advances in machine learning (ML) in recent years have enabled a dizzying array of applications such as data analytics, autonomous systems, and security diagnostics. ML is now pervasive—new systems and models are being deployed in every domain imaginable, leading to rapid and widespread deployment of software based inference and decision making. There is growing recognition that ML exposes new vulnerabilities in software systems, yet the technical community’s understanding of the nature and extent of these vulnerabilities remains limited. We systematize recent findings on ML security and privacy, focusing on attacks identified on these systems and defenses crafted to date. We …

Modeling Security And Privacy Requirements: A Use Case-Driven Approach, Phu Xuan Mai, Arda Goknil, Lwin Khin Shar, Fabrizio Pastore, Lionel Briand, Shaban Shaame

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Context: Modern internet-based services, ranging from food-delivery to home-caring, leverage the availability of multiple programmable devices to provide handy services tailored to end-user needs. These services are delivered through an ecosystem of device-specific software components and interfaces (e.g., mobile and wearable device applications). Since they often handle private information (e.g., location and health status), their security and privacy requirements are of crucial importance. Defining and analyzing those requirements is a significant challenge due to the multiple types of software components and devices integrated into software ecosystems. Each software component presents peculiarities that often depend on the context and the devices …

Empirical Study Of Face Authentication Systems Under Osnfd Attacks, Yan Li, Yingjiu Li, Xu, Ke, Qiang Yan, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Face authentication has been widely available on smartphones, tablets, and laptops. As numerous personal images are published in online social networks (OSNs), OSN-based facial disclosure (OSNFD) creates significant threat against face authentication. We make the first attempt to quantitatively measure OSNFD threat to real-world face authentication systems on smartphones, tablets, and laptops. Our results show that the percentage of vulnerable users that are subject to spoofing attacks is high, which is about 64% for laptop users, and 93% smartphone/tablet users. We investigate liveness detection methods in the real-world face authentication systems against OSNFD threat. We discover that under protection of …

Regularly Lossy Functions And Applications, Yu Chen, Baodong Qin, Haiyang Xue

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In STOC 2008, Peikert and Waters introduced a powerful primitive called lossy trapdoor functions (LTFs). In a nutshell, LTFs are functions that behave in one of two modes. In the normal mode, functions are injective and invertible with a trapdoor. In the lossy mode, functions statistically lose information about their inputs. Moreover, the two modes are computationally indistinguishable. In this work, we put forward a relaxation of LTFs, namely, regularly lossy functions (RLFs). Compared to LTFs, the functions in the normal mode are not required to be efficiently invertible or even unnecessary to be injective. Instead, they could also be …

Criteria-Based Encryption, Tran Viet Xuan Phuong, Guomin Yang, Willy Susilo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We present a new type of public-key encryption called Criteria-based Encryption (or , for short). Different from Attribute-based Encryption, in , we consider the access policies as criteria carrying different weights. A user must hold some cases (or answers) satisfying the criteria and have sufficient weights in order to successfully decrypt a message. We then propose two Schemes under different settings: the first scheme requires a user to have at least one case for a criterion specified by the encryptor in the access structure, while the second scheme requires a user to have all the cases for each criterion. We …

Every Step You Take, I’Ll Be Watching You: Practical Stepauth-Entication Of Rfid Paths, Kai Bu, Yingjiu Li

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Path authentication thwarts counterfeits in RFID-based supply chains. Its motivation is that tagged products taking invalid paths are likely faked and injected by adversaries at certain supply chain partners/steps. Existing solutions are path-grained in that they simply regard a product as genuine if it takes any valid path. Furthermore, they enforce distributed authentication by offloading the sets of valid paths to some or all steps from a centralized issuer. This not only imposes network and storage overhead but also leaks transaction privacy. We present StepAuth, the first step-grained path authentication protocol that is practically efficient for authenticating products with strict …