Attack Database Research Articles

Analysis of Criminal and Terrorist Related Episodes in Railway Infrastructure Scenarios

Prevention and preparedness of risks in railway transportation systems is crucial for homeland security and require, among other things, a proper analysis of the vulnerabilities of the assets, a clear awareness of criticalities, possible countermeasures and adequate methods to design, scale and optimize the protection. To this end, in this paper we present an analysis of various security incidents and terrorist attacks that took place from 1972 to 2011; all involving railway infrastructures. All of the collected information has been stored in a database, aptly named RISTAD (Railway Infrastructure Systems Terrorist Attacks Database). Specifically, this research focuses on railway assets in order to identify those environmental, architectonic and infrastructural aspects that make such targets more “attractive” from a criminal point of view. We analyzed about 540 criminal-related episodes utilizing open source documents in an effort to correlate the acts with the peculiar characteristics of the asset. The last section is specifically focused on stations, attempting to emphasize both interesting and, for some aspects, non-intuitive correlation among collected data (e.g., lethality and number of attacks as a function of the number of tracks, the number of daily passengers, station extension, presence and type of security systems, etc.).

A novel blind reversible method for watermarking relational databases

Digital watermarking technology has been introduced in the past few years, not only to ensure the ownership of digital media, but also to ensure the integrity of those digital media. Reversible watermarking (which is also called invertible watermarking, or erasable watermarking) enables one to recover the original data after the contents have been authenticated. Such reversibility is highly desired in some sensitive database applications, e.g., in military and medical data. Permanent distortion is one of the main drawbacks of the entire irreversible relational database (RDB) watermarking schemes. In this article, we introduce a novel blind reversible watermarking method that ensures ownership protection in the field of RDB watermarking, whereas previous techniques have been mainly concerned with introducing permanent errors into the actual data, our approach ensures 100% recovery of the original database relation after the watermark has been detected and authenticated. In the proposed method, we utilize a reversible data embedding technique called prediction-error expansion on integers to achieve reversibility. The watermark detection can be completed successfully even when 70% of watermarked relation tuples are deleted. The experimental result shows that the blindness and robustness of this approach can withstand several kinds of database attacks.

Congressional Attacks on the Supreme Court: Court-Curbing and Factional Interest

This paper examines Congressional attacks upon the Supreme Court in the latter half of the 20th Century. In examining these attacks, we find that not all legislation attacking the Court is the same. Instead, we use regime theory to show how different kinds of attacks occur based upon the composition of the attackers and the status of the present governing coalition. We do so utilizing a newly created database of attacks in the 20th century, opening space for more detailed research.

Relational Database Watermarking for Ownership Protection

With the widespread popularity of Internet, the use of databases has increased tremendously and theft of the database is a main concern for the database owners. Therefore, it is essential to protect the ownership of the database. In this paper, a new technique of database watermarking is proposed which based on inserting the bits of a binary image in relational database. The proposed technique also minimizes the variation in watermarked database. Experimental results justify the feasibility of the proposed technique and its robustness against common database attacks.

A blind reversible method for watermarking relational databases based on a time-stamping protocol

Digital watermarking technology has been adopted lately as an effective solution to protecting the copyright of digital assets from illicit copying. Reversible watermark, which is also called invertible watermark, or erasable watermark, helps to recover back the original data after the content has been authenticated. Such reversibility is highly desired in some sensitive database applications, e.g. in military and medical data. Permanent distortion is one of the main drawbacks of the entire irreversible relational database watermarking schemes. In this paper, we design an authentication protocol based on an efficient time-stamp protocol, and we propose a blind reversible watermarking method that ensures ownership protection in the field of relational database watermarking. Whereas previous techniques have been mainly concerned with introducing permanent errors into the original data, our approach ensures one hundred percent recovery of the original database relation after the owner-specific watermark has been detected and authenticated. In the proposed watermarking method, we utilize a reversible data-embedding technique called prediction-error expansion on integers to achieve reversibility. The detection of the watermark can be completed successfully even when 95% of a watermarked relation tuples are deleted. Our extensive analysis shows that the proposed scheme is robust against various forms of database attacks, including adding, deleting, shuffling or modifying tuples or attributes.

A Weight-based Semi-Fragile Watermarking Scheme for Integrity Verification of Relational Data

In recent years, digital watermarking has been proposed as an efficient method for protecting database integrity. However, prior authentication watermarking schemes are all totally fragile, i.e., they do not allow any legitimate data modification. Moreover, with most of these schemes, innocent distortions such as tuple and/or attribute sorting may be considered as tampering. In this paper, we propose a novel semi-fragile watermarking technique for tamper detection of relational databases. First, the proposed scheme associates a weight to each database attribute that reflects its sensitivity to benign updates. Then, the tuples are securely distributed into groups in which a watermark is embedded independently. As a result, our semi-fragile scheme can detect and localize malicious modifications at group level, while allowing authorized updates. Theoretical analysis and experimental results demonstrate that common database attacks can be detected with high rate.

Hospital Prenotification of Stroke Patients by Emergency Medical Services Improves Stroke Time Targets

Prenotification to hospitals by emergency medical services of patients with suspected stroke is recommended to reduce delays in time-dependent therapies. We hypothesized that hospital prenotification would reduce recommended stroke time targets. We used the Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital (RWJUH) Brain Attack Database, which includes demographic and clinical data on all emergency department (ED) patients alerted as a Brain Attack between January 1, 2009 and June 30, 2010. Outcome variables included the time from door to stroke team arrival, computed tomographic (CT) scan completion, CT scan interpretation, electrocardiogram, laboratory results, treatment decision, and intravenous (IV) tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) administration. The primary independent variable was brain attack activation before arrival to the emergency department (ED; prenotification) versus on or after ED arrival (no prenotification). Analysis of covariance was used with patient predictors as covariates in addition to the one of interest (prenotification vs no prenotification). P ≤ .05 was considered statistically significant. There were 229 patients (114 prenotification and 115 no prenotification) alerted as having a brain attack within the study period. Patients with prehospital notification were older (69.5 years vs 61.5 years; P = .0002), had more severe strokes (National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale score of 11.1 vs 6.9; P < .0001), and received IV tPA twice as often (27% vs 15%; P = .024). Prenotification resulted in a significant reduction in all stroke time targets except door to treatment decision and tPA administration. Prehospital notification of suspected stroke patients reduces time to stroke team arrival, CT scan completion, and CT scan interpretation. IV thrombolysis occurred twice as often in the prenotification group.

Robust and Blind Watermarking of Relational Database Systems

Problem statement: Digital multimedia watermarking technology was suggested in the last decade to embed copyright information in digital objects such images, audio and video. However, the increasing use of relational database systems in many real-life applications created an ever increasing need for watermarking database systems. As a result, watermarking relational database systems is now merging as a research area that deals with the legal issue of copyright protection of database systems. Approach: In this study, we proposed an efficient database watermarking algorithm based on inserting binary image watermarks in non-numeric mutli-word attributes of selected database tuples. Results: The algorithm is robust as it resists attempts to remove or degrade the embedded watermark and it is blind as it does not require the original database in order to extract the embedded watermark. Conclusion: Experimental results demonstrated blindness and the robustness of the algorithm against common database attacks.

Three measures for secure palmprint identification

Most previous research in the area of personal authentication using the palmprint as a biometric trait has concentrated on enhancing accuracy yet resistance to attacks is also a centrally important feature of any biometric security system. In this paper, we address three relevant security issues: template re-issuances, also called cancellable biometrics, 1 1 In this paper, we use the definition of cancellable biometrics proposed by Ratha and his co-workers, who are the first inventors of cancellable biometrics based on our best knowledge [N.K. Ratha, J.H. Connell, R.M. Bolle, Enhancing security and privacy in biometrics-based authentication systems, IBM Syst. J. 40(3) (2001) 614–634]. replay attacks, and database attacks. We propose to use a random orientation filter bank (ROFB) as a feature extractor to generate noise-like feature codes, called Competitive Codes for templates re-issuances. Secret messages are hidden in templates to prevent replay and database attacks. This technique can be regarded as template watermarking. A series of analyses is provided to evaluate the security levels of the measures.

Continuous Protection of Enterprise Data - A Comprehensive Approach

Many consider the insider threat to represent the greatest vulnerability and exposure to enterprise resources. Database attacks are on the rise even as the risks of data breaches are increasing. Several industries must deal with legislation and regulation on data privacy. This paper will review how to protect sensitive data wherever the data resides: at application-level; within databases, files and operating systems; and in storage. We will address the management of associated encryption keys, access control and reporting - helping organizations mitigate risk and reduce costs, while protecting consumer, employee and partner information. The approach safeguards information by cryptographic protection from point-of-creation to point-of-deletion, to keep sensitive data locked down across applications, databases, and files - including ETL data loading tools, FTP processes and EDI data transfers. This design principle optimizes placement of functions for encryption and security enforcement among the modules of a distributed computer system. The guiding concept, continuous protection of data, suggests that encryption functions placed at low levels, and typically implemented with native platform-based toolkits, may be redundant and of little value when compared with the cost of supporting them at that low level. The principle suggests that Enterprise levels of Data Protection and Key Management may be cost effective in many configurations. We also include a set of best practices that ensure not only a successful PCI audit, but a sustained improvement in the security and protection of sensitive data, and the limiting of theft and its costly aftermath. We introduce a system-solution example that complies with these requirements and provides a cost-effective implementation.

Informal justice in the city

The use of violence by paramilitaries to punish and to discipline members of their own respective communities is an established practice developed throughout the course of the ‘Troubles’ and continues in the post-conflict period. Paramilitary ‘punishments’ are primarily an urban phenomenon with the bulk of recorded ‘punishments’ occurring within the greater Belfast area. This paper, drawing upon the authors' own database of such attacks, examines the on-going nature of paramilitary ‘punishments’ including the ‘punishment’ process, their frequency and location. Using GIS, it also explores the geographical distribution of ‘punishments’ in the greater Belfast area.

An FPGA-based network intrusion detection system with on-chip network interfaces

Network intrusion detection systems (NIDS) are critical network security tools that help protect computer installations from malicious users. Traditional software-based NIDS architectures are becoming strained as network data rates increase and attacks intensify in volume and complexity. In recent years, researchers have proposed using FPGAs to perform the computationally-intensive components of intrusion detection analysis. In this work, we present a new NIDS architecture that integrates the network interface hardware and packet analysis hardware into a single FPGA chip. This integration enables a higher performance and more flexible NIDS platform. To demonstrate the benefits of this technique, we have implemented a complete and functional NIDS in a Xilinx Virtex II Pro FPGA that performs in-line packet analysis and filtering on multiple Gigabit Ethernet links using rules from the open-source Snort attack database.

Response to intra-arterial and combined intravenous and intra-arterial thrombolytic therapy in patients with distal internal carotid artery occlusion.

The objective of this study was to determine the clinical features, angiographic findings, and response to treatment with thrombolytic therapy in patients with ischemic stroke caused by acute occlusion of the distal internal carotid artery. This is a retrospective case series from a prospectively collected stroke database for patients with acute internal carotid occlusion presenting within 6 hours of stroke onset to evaluate safety, feasibility, and response to thrombolytic therapy. The University Hospital-based brain attack database was reviewed over a 5-year period. Demographics, clinical features, stroke mechanisms, severity, imaging findings, type of thrombolysis, treatment responses, mortality, and long-term outcome using modified Rankin Scale and Barthel Index were determined. The short-term outcome was assessed using the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS). Acute thrombolytic therapy was administered using recombinant tissue plasminogen activator or urokinase given intra-arterially or in combination with intravenous (IV) routes. Two hundred seven patients treated with thrombolysis between 1995 and 2000 were reviewed, and of these, 101 were studied with cerebral angiography. Eighteen patients were identified with acute ischemic stroke and ipsilateral occlusion of the distal internal carotid artery. Time to treatment was the most powerful predictor of response to thrombolytic therapy (P<0.001). The response to therapy also correlated well with the severity of the initial clinical deficit as judged by the NIHSS (P<0.001). There was no difference in recanalization rate, symptomatic hemorrhage, and NIHSS for IV/intra-arterial (IA) versus IA alone (P=NS). Complete angiographic recanalization was accomplished in 80% of those who received combined IV/IA thrombolysis and in 62% of those who received IA therapy (P=NS). Those with distal occlusions extending to the middle and anterior cerebral arteries were the least likely to respond to thrombolysis. Symptomatic intracerebral hemorrhage occurred in 20% of the patients receiving IV/IA therapy, and in 15% of the IA only (P=NS). At 24 hours, the NIHSS dropped by 3 points in the IA group and 4 points in the IV/IA group (P=NS). Mild disability with independence was found in 77% of the survivors at 3-month follow-up. The mortality rate was 50% in this group despite thrombolysis. Thrombolytic therapy using a combination of IV and IA routes and using the IA-only route may be effective in improving outcome for the patients suffering from occlusion of the distal internal carotid artery. Shorter intervals between onset and treatment seem to be correlated with higher rate of recanalization and improved outcome.