Information Security Commons^™

Stealthy Backdoor Attack For Code Models, Zhou Yang, Bowen Xu, Jie M. Zhang, Hong Jin Kang, Jieke Shi, Junda He, David Lo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Code models, such as CodeBERT and CodeT5, offer general-purpose representations of code and play a vital role in supporting downstream automated software engineering tasks. Most recently, code models were revealed to be vulnerable to backdoor attacks. A code model that is backdoor-attacked can behave normally on clean examples but will produce pre-defined malicious outputs on examples injected with that activate the backdoors. Existing backdoor attacks on code models use unstealthy and easy-to-detect triggers. This paper aims to investigate the vulnerability of code models with backdoor attacks. To this end, we propose A (dversarial eature as daptive Back). A achieves stealthiness …

Cybersecurity Education And Continuous Learning Towards Uae Ncsp Fulfilment, Saleh Hamad Aldaajeh

Dissertations

This dissertation delves into enhancing cybersecurity education by aligning academic curricula with national cybersecurity strategic plan (NCSP) objectives, emphasizing the crucial role of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in developing a skilled cybersecurity workforce. Analyzing ten NCSPs, it identifies strategic themes and gaps between national goals and HEI offerings. The study reviews NCSP guidelines, international cybersecurity indices, and literature, including the NICE-NIST framework, to develop a framework that bridges the educational gap, improving learning outcomes and arming students with vital skills, knowledge, and competencies. Furthermore, it introduces a platform for continuous cybersecurity learning, employing micro-credentials, blockchain technology, and AI-driven systems. Based …

Enhancing Cybersecurity Awareness In The United Arab Emirates: An Assessment Of Current Practices And The Development Of An Ai-Enhanced Mobile Application, Meera Humaid Alalawi

Theses

In today's interconnected world, individuals, private corporations, public institutions, and governments face increasingly sophisticated cyber threats and attacks, highlighting the critical need for individuals and organizations to understand cybersecurity comprehensively. Cyberattacks have affected many countries and infrastructures in different sectors worldwide, including the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which has become a main target for cybercrime due to its booming economy and tourism. The UAE considers cybersecurity an increasingly critical issue in our digital world, and increasing cybersecurity awareness among residents is essential to protect themselves and their organizations from cyberattacks. The primary objectives of this study are to identify key …

Intelligent Tutoring System Ontology, Wael Mohamed Hassan

Theses

The integration of pedagogical rules into Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) using semantic web technologies, particularly the Web Ontology Language (OWL), holds great promise for enhancing the capabilities of these systems. However, a significant challenge arises from the labor-intensive process of manually constructing ontologies, which can consume valuable time and resources. While ontologies offer numerous advantages, including robust knowledge inference and scalability, the limitations of manual ontology creation are evident in terms of time and flexibility. Therefore, the primary objective of this research is to develop an efficient and automated solution that harnesses the benefits of ontologies while reducing the time …

Enhancing Health Analytics: Secure And Private Federated Learning Solutions, Nisha Thorakkattu Madathil

Dissertations

Federated Learning (FL) is a collaborative method allowing individuals to train a model jointly without sharing their local datasets. It utilizes decentralized data sources to protect privacy, making it particularly promising in medical contexts where data confidentiality is paramount. FL facilitates the use of diverse datasets from various healthcare organizations while upholding patient confidentiality. It also plays a crucial role in advancing medical research and healthcare services while adhering to data distribution and compliance requirements. The primary challenges within federated healthcare encompass privacy preservation among sensitive distributed data, ensuring efficient communication, addressing data heterogeneity, and ultimately guaranteeing model accuracy. To …

A Trustworthy Self-Sovereign Data And Identity Management Framework, Efat Fathalla

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Data is a fundamental building block in the digital world, providing a basis for decision making and growth across numerous applications. In our modern world, we have become accustomed to collecting data on everything, including devices, machines, and people. The increased value of such data has led to aggressive harvesting mechanisms that prioritize data collection, storage, and pervasiveness while often disregarding security, privacy concerns, and compliance with regulations and standards. Such a pervasive attitude towards data has resulted in a loss of control, prompting concerns among individuals and mobilizing the scientific community towards advocating for data self-sovereignty.

Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) …

Improving Educational Delivery And Content In Juvenile Detention Centers, Yomna Elmousalami

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Students in juvenile detention centers have the greatest need to receive improvements in educational delivery and content; however, they are one of the “truly disadvantaged” populations in terms of receiving those improvements. This work presents a qualitative data analysis based on a focus group meeting with stakeholders at a local Juvenile Detention Center. The current educational system in juvenile detention centers is based on paper worksheets, single-room style teaching methods, outdated technology, and a shortage of textbooks and teachers. In addition, detained students typically have behavioral challenges that are deemed "undesired" in society. As a result, many students miss classes …

An Analysis And Ontology Of Teaching Methods In Cybersecurity Education, Sarah Buckley

LSU Master's Theses

The growing cybersecurity workforce gap underscores the urgent need to address deficiencies in cybersecurity education: the current education system is not producing competent cybersecurity professionals, and current efforts are not informing the non-technical general public of basic cybersecurity practices. We argue that this gap is compounded by a fundamental disconnect between cybersecurity education literature and established education theory. Our research addresses this issue by examining the alignment of cybersecurity education literature concerning educational methods and tools with education literature.

In our research, we endeavor to bridge this gap by critically analyzing the alignment of cybersecurity education literature with education theory. …

Artificial Intelligence Usage And Data Privacy Discoveries Within Mhealth, Jennifer Schulte

Research & Publications

Advancements in artificial intelligence continue to impact nearly every aspect of human life by providing integration options that aim to supplement or improve current processes. One industry that continues to benefit from artificial intelligence integration is healthcare. For years now, elements of artificial intelligence have been used to assist in clinical decision making, helping to identify potential health risks at earlier stages, and supplementing precision medicine. An area of healthcare that specifically looks at wearable devices, sensors, phone applications, and other such devices is mobile health (mHealth). These devices are used to aid in health data collection and delivery. This …

Challenges On Public Security System In Ai Era—Preface For Special Column “Artificial Intelligence And Public Security”, Juan Cao, Qiang Sheng, Guojie Li

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

The rapid development of artificial intelligence generated content (AIGC) technology has triggered new public security risks, posing a serious threat to national security and social stability. This study exhibits the recent advances of artificial intelligence (AI) content generation and detection techniques, points out the challenges of detection techniques in real-world scenarios, and advocates that it is necessary to develop AIGC detection technology for public security needs and build a whole-process detection technology system from generative models to online platforms, which supports AIGC to be labeled at the generation phase, identifiable during dissemination and source-traceable after the incident occurs.

Research On Artificial Intelligence Crime And China’S Countermeasures, Jianxin Gao, Jinping Sun, Yukun Cai, Chongpeng Wang, Yanyan Yang, Kaiyue Wang

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

The rapid development of artificial intelligence technology has constantly given rise to new scenarios, models, and markets, changing the way information and knowledge are generated. Nevertheless, the security risks exposed by technology, such as algorithm bias, data leakage, false content generation, and improper use, are also prone to trigger various new types of crimes. There are still loopholes in legal regulation and technological prevention under the current situation, which poses severe challenges to crime crackdown. In order to effectively meet the new challenges of China’s artificial intelligence (AI) crime, we should supplement and improve the existing legal norms, improve the …

Intelligent Algorithm Safety: Concepts, Scientific Problems And Prospects, Xueqi Cheng, Wei Chen, Huawei Shen, Shiguang Shan, Xilin Chen, Guojie Li

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

Intelligent algorithms refer to the methods embodied in the computational processes that realize intelligence. These methods are often characterized by being data-driven, involving uncertain computations, and with unexplainable model inferences. These characteristics simultaneously introduce potential safety risks to the application of intelligent algorithms and AI. This study firstly explores the concepts of intelligent algorithm safety. Specifically, intelligent algorithm safety, based on the degree of human-machine integration, extends from the univariate safety of the algorithm itself to the bivariate applicational safety when the algorithm serves humans, and finally evolves into the multivariate systemic safety arises within complex socio-technical systems of human-machine …

Embodied Artificial Intelligence Security And Governance, Wenyuan Xu, Xiaoyu Ji, Chen Yan, Yushi Cheng

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

Embodied artificial intelligence (EAI) is progressively integrated into the fabric of our daily lives, enhancing various sectors such as industrial production, healthcare, and national defense. Nevertheless, the diverse range of hardware devices, software algorithms, and data communications that constitute these complex systems may contain vulnerabilities that could be exploited by attackers, posing a serious threat to personal, social, and national security. Thus, this study examines the security implications and proposes a security framework of EAI, from the perspectives of the information domain, physical domain, and social domain, focusing on its ontological security, interaction security, and application security. To mitigate these …

On Global Security Governance’S New Trends And China’S Responses From Perspective Of Scientific And Technological Revolution, Haoguang Liang, Linman Wu, Zhujun Liu, Yaojun Zhang

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

Due to the new round of sci-tech revolution and industrial transformation, the relation between scientific progress and national security has been upgraded to an unprecedented strategic height. Therefore, it is vitally important to explore the current situation and future trajectory of the relation between the two. This study discusses the new trends between global scientific progress and the security of sovereign countries. It believes that scientific progress has catalyzed the new geopolitical contests, development contradiction and hegemonic tools in global security governance, thereby enlightening China’s approach to national security. To maintain holistic national security, China should formulate an overall strategic …

Computing Power Security Governance From Perspective Of Overall National Security Concept, Hui Li, Na Wang, Long Wang

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

Currently, with the rapid development of computing technology and the continuous expansion of computing applications, various types of computing security incidents occur frequently. As an emerging security issue, computing security has become a key fact affecting national security. Strengthening the governance of computing power security has become an important part of the modernization of the national security governance system and governance capacity in China. To clarify the theoretical connotation, risk manifestations, and governance strategies of computing power security governance, this study takes the overall national security concept as guidance and the logical guidance of “issue identification-risk deconstruction-governance response” to analyze …

Breaking Through “Data Bottleneck” Of Ai Large Models—Reflections On Building A National Corpus Operation Platform, Xingteng Li, Feng Feng, Liqiang Huang

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

At present, the competition within the global artificial intelligence (AI) large model industry is intensifying, and corpus resources emerging as a critical determinant for enhancing the technical performance and practical efficacy of AI systems. Nevertheless, China’s corpus development faces dual challenges in both quantity and quality, struggling to meet the escalating training demands of the rapidly evolving AI large model sector. Internationally, nations are ramping up efforts to develop their corpus infrastructures, particularly prioritizing the creation and deployment of high-quality linguistic datasets. In this context, through comparative analysis of international benchmarks and domestic conditions, this study proposes a strategic framework …

A Study On Ethical Hacking In Cybersecurity Education Within The United States, Jordan Chew

Master's Theses

As the field of computer security continues to grow, it becomes increasingly important to educate the next generation of security professionals. However, much of the current education landscape primarily focuses on teaching defensive skills. Teaching offensive security, otherwise known as ethical hacking, is an important component in the education of all students who hope to contribute to the field of cybersecurity. Doing so requires a careful consideration of what ethical, legal, and practical issues arise from teaching students skills that can be used to cause harm. In this thesis, we first examine the current state of cybersecurity education in the …

Decentralized Multimedia Data Sharing In Iov: A Learning-Based Equilibrium Of Supply And Demand, Jiani Fan, Minrui Xu, Jiale Guo, Lwin Khin Shar, Jiawen Kang, Dusit Niyato, Kwok-Yan Lam

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The Internet of Vehicles (IoV) has great potential to transform transportation systems by enhancing road safety, reducing traffic congestion, and improving user experience through onboard infotainment applications. Decentralized data sharing can improve security, privacy, reliability, and facilitate infotainment data sharing in IoVs. However, decentralized data sharing may not achieve the expected efficiency if there are IoV users who only want to consume the shared data but are not willing to contribute their own data to the community, resulting in incomplete information observed by other vehicles and infrastructure, which can introduce additional transmission latency. Therefore, in this paper, by modeling the …

Ddos Family: A Novel Perspective For Massive Types Of Ddos Attacks, Ziming Zhao, Zhaoxuan Li, Zhihao Zhou, Jiongchi Yu, Zhuoxue Song, Xiaofei Xie, Fan Zhang, Rui Zhang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) defense is a profound research problem. In recent years, adversaries tend to complicate their attack strategies by crafting vast DDoS variants. On the one hand, this trend exacerbates both extremes of classification granularity (i.e., binary and attack level) in existing machine learning methods. On the other hand, massive attack categories make the filter rule table bulky, as well as cause problems of slow reaction presented in the recent state-of-the-art DDoS mitigation system. Therefore, we propose the concept of a DDoS family to reconcile/cope with these issues. The specific technical roadmap includes traffic pattern characterization, attack …

Sigmadiff: Semantics-Aware Deep Graph Matching For Pseudocode Diffing, Lian Gao, Yu Qu, Sheng Yu, Yue Duan, Heng Yin

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Pseudocode diffing precisely locates similar parts and captures differences between the decompiled pseudocode of two given binaries. It is particularly useful in many security scenarios such as code plagiarism detection, lineage analysis, patch, vulnerability analysis, etc. However, existing pseudocode diffing and binary diffing tools suffer from low accuracy and poor scalability, since they either rely on manually-designed heuristics (e.g., Diaphora) or heavy computations like matrix factorization (e.g., DeepBinDiff). To address the limitations, in this paper, we propose a semantics-aware, deep neural network-based model called SIGMADIFF. SIGMADIFF first constructs IR (Intermediate Representation) level interprocedural program dependency graphs (IPDGs). Then it uses …