Information Security Commons^™

Unsupervised Learning Trojan, Arturo Geigel

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

This work presents a proof of concept of an Unsupervised Learning Trojan. The Unsupervised Learning Trojan presents new challenges over previous work on the Neural network Trojan, since the attacker does not control most of the environment. The current work will presented an analysis of how the attack can be successful by proposing new assumptions under which the attack can become a viable one. A general analysis of how the compromise can be theoretically supported is presented, providing enough background for practical implementation development. The analysis was carried out using 3 selected algorithms that can cover a wide variety of …

Ironfox: Securing The Web, Stephen Mcmurtry, William Johnson, Khadija Stewart (Advisor)

Annual Student Research Poster Session

No abstract provided.

Semantics-Aware Android Malware Classification Using Weighted Contextual Api Dependency Graphs, Mu Zhang, Yue Duan, Heng Yin, Zhiruo Zhao

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The drastic increase of Android malware has led to a strong interest in developing methods to automate the malware analysis process. Existing automated Android malware detection and classification methods fall into two general categories: 1) signature-based and 2) machine learning-based. Signature-based approaches can be easily evaded by bytecode-level transformation attacks. Prior learning-based works extract features from application syntax, rather than program semantics, and are also subject to evasion. In this paper, we propose a novel semantic-based approach that classifies Android malware via dependency graphs. To battle transformation attacks, we extract a weighted contextual API dependency graph as program semantics to …

Web Application Vulnerability Prediction Using Hybrid Program Analysis And Machine Learning, Lwin Khin Shar, Lionel Briand, Hee Beng Kuan Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Due to limited time and resources, web software engineers need support in identifying vulnerable code. A practical approach to predicting vulnerable code would enable them to prioritize security auditing efforts. In this paper, we propose using a set of hybrid (staticþdynamic) code attributes that characterize input validation and input sanitization code patterns and are expected to be significant indicators of web application vulnerabilities. Because static and dynamic program analyses complement each other, both techniques are used to extract the proposed attributes in an accurate and scalable way. Current vulnerability prediction techniques rely on the availability of data labeled with vulnerability …

Stopwatch: A Cloud Architecture For Timing Channel Mitigation, Peng Li, Debin Gao, Michael K Reiter

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This article presents StopWatch, a system that defends against timing-based side-channel attacks that arise from coresidency of victims and attackers in infrastructure-as-a-service clouds. StopWatch triplicates each cloud-resident guest virtual machine (VM) and places replicas so that the three replicas of a guest VM are coresident with nonoverlapping sets of (replicas of) other VMs. StopWatch uses the timing of I/O events at a VM’s replicas collectively to determine the timings observed by each one or by an external observer, so that observable timing behaviors are similarly likely in the absence of any other individual, coresident VMs. We detail the design and …

Workplace Surveillance, Tamara Kneese

Media Studies

Employers have long devised techniques and used new technologies to surveil employees in order to increase efficiency, decrease theft, and otherwise assert power and control over subordinates. New and cheaper networked technologies make surveillance easier to implement, but what are the ramifications of widespread workplace surveillance?

Security Policies That Make Sense For Complex Systems: Comprehensible Formalism For The System Consumer, Rhonda R. Henning

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Information Systems today rarely are contained within a single user workstation, server, or networked environment. Data can be transparently accessed from any location, and maintained across various network infrastructures. Cloud computing paradigms commoditize the hardware and software environments and allow an enterprise to lease computing resources by the hour, minute, or number of instances required to complete a processing task. An access control policy mediates access requests between authorized users of an information system and the system's resources. Access control policies are defined at any given level of abstraction, such as the file, directory, system, or network, and can be …

Ios Device Forensics, Lauren Drish

All Capstone Projects

Many people today have an iPhone, iPad or iPod. Not many would realize that valuable information is stored on these devices. When a crime occurs, an iOS Device could hold key information to help solve said crime that criminals are not aware are present on the device. This can include GPS information as well as application history on the device itself.

The project I wish to do and complete is to create a class where students can learn the about iOS Forensics. Student will be able to learn the basics of an iDevice, as well as how to work with …

Analyzing The Dangers Posed By Chrome Extensions, Lujo Bauer, Shaoying Cai, Limin Jia, Timothy Passaro, Yuan Tian

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

A common characteristic of modern web browsers is that their functionality can be extended via third-party addons. In this paper we focus on Chrome extensions, to which the Chrome browser exports a rich API: extensions can potentially make network requests, access the local file system, get low-level information about running processes, etc. To guard against misuse, Chrome uses a permission system to curtail an extension's privileges. We demonstrate a series of attacks by which extensions can steal data, track user behavior, and collude to elevate their privileges. Although some attacks have previously been reported, we show that subtler versions can …

Attribute-Based Signing Right Delegation, Weiwei Liu, Yi Mu, Guomin Yang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Attribute-based signature and proxy signature are both very useful in many real-world applications. In this paper, we combine the special features of both signatures and propose an attribute-based proxy signature scheme, where the original signer, who possesses a set of attributes, can delegate his/her signing right to a designated proxy signer. By verifying the signature, a verifier can be convinced that the signature is generated by the proxy signer who has obtained the delegation from a legitimate signer whose attributes satisfy a predicate. However, the verifier cannot tell from the signature who is the original signer. We provide the formal …

Lossy Trapdoor Relation And Its Applications To Lossy Encryption And Adaptive Trapdoor Relation, Haiyang Xue, Xianhui Lu, Bao Li, Yamin Liu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Peikert and Waters proposed the notion of lossy trapdoor function in STOC 2008. In this paper, we propose a relaxation of lossy trapdoor function, called lossy trapdoor relation. Unlike the lossy trapdoor function, lossy trapdoor relation does not require completely recovering the input but a public computable injective map of it. Interestingly, the lossy trapdoor relation maintains the application of lossy trapdoor function on the lossy encryption. Moreover, motivated by the construction of adaptive trapdoor relation proposed by Wee (Crypto 2010), we introduce all-but-one verifiable lossy trapdoor relation which is in fact a relaxation of all-but-one lossy trapdoor function. – …

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.

Understanding Usability-Related Information Security Failures In A Healthcare Context, Edward D. Boyer

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

This research study explores how the nature and type of usability failures impact task performance in a healthcare organization. Healthcare organizations are composed of heterogeneous and disparate information systems intertwined with complex business processes that create many challenges for the users of the system. The manner in which Information Technology systems and products are implemented along with the overlapping intricate tasks the users have pose problems in the area of usability. Usability research primarily focuses on the user interface; therefore, designing a better interface often leaves security in question. When usability failures arise from the incongruence between healthcare task and …

Investigating The Determinants Of Disaster Recovery Technology Investment Choice In Small And Medium-Sized Enterprises, Faranak Afshar

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Due to the importance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as drivers of economic growth, it is essential to explore the security issues impacting SMEs' success and failure. One of the main security risks that could significantly impair the operability of the organizations is the permanent loss of data due to man-made and/or natural disasters and interruptions. Research has shown that SMEs are not taking disaster preparedness for their computer and networking systems as seriously as they should. This dissertation is an attempt to explain the process of a risky choice, specifically the decision maker's choice of not investing in …

Employee And Organization Security Value Alignment Through Value Sensitive Security Policy Design, Dianne Blitstein Solomon

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Every member of the organization must be involved in proactively and consistently preventing data loss. Implementing a culture of security has proven to be a reliable method of enfranchising employees to embrace security behavior. However, it takes more than education and awareness of policies and directives to effect a culture of security. Research into organizational culture has shown that programs to promote organizational culture - and thus security behavior - are most successful when the organization's values are congruent with employee values. What has not been clear is how to integrate the security values of the organization and its employees …

Trust, Betrayal, And Whistle-Blowing: Reflections On The Edward Snowden Case, Herman T. Tavani, Frances Grodzinsky

School of Computer Science & Engineering Faculty Publications

Is every act of whistle blowing, by definition, a betrayal of trust on the part of the whistle-blower? If so, are employees who blow the whistle, by implication, untrustworthy employees? Assuming that they are, would employees who blow the whistle (presumably on the grounds of moral obligation) also be willing to concede that they are not trustworthy employees, by virtue of carrying out their whistle-blowing act(s)? In answering these questions, we first propose some working definitions of whistle-blowing, trust, and trustworthiness. We then ask whether some instances of whistle-blowing are morally permissible (and perhaps also morally required), even if it …

Potential Biases In Bug Localization: Do They Matter?, Pavneet Singh Kochhar, Yuan Tian, David Lo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Issue tracking systems are valuable resources during software maintenance activities and contain information about the issues faced during the development of a project as well as after its release. Many projects receive many reports of bugs and it is challenging for developers to manually debug and fix them. To mitigate this problem, past studies have proposed information retrieval (IR)-based bug localization techniques, which takes as input a textual description of a bug stored in an issue tracking system, and returns a list of potentially buggy source code files. These studies often evaluate their effectiveness on issue reports marked as bugs …

Dupfinder: Integrated Tool Support For Duplicate Bug Report Detection, Ferdian Thung, Pavneet Singh Kochhar, David Lo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

To track bugs that appear in a software, developers often make use of a bug tracking system. Users can report bugs that they encounter in such a system. Bug reporting is inherently an uncoordinated distributed process though and thus when a user submits a new bug report, there might be cases when another bug report describing exactly the same problem is already present in the system. Such bug reports are duplicate of each other and these duplicate bug reports need to be identified. A number of past studies have proposed a number of automated approaches to detect duplicate bug reports. …