Hybrid Security Research Articles

African experiences and alternativity in International Relations theorizing about security

Abstract Deconstructing International Relations (IR) episteme acknowledges its generation of power imbalances in security knowledge that relegate African experiences to the margins of global politics. Central to this process of relegation is a pervasive ‘methodological whiteness’, which, while eliding coloniality and racism, projects white experience as a universal perspective. Accompanying this Eurocentric bias has been the intrusive projection of the Weberian state as the most effective site for security governance and conflict prevention on a continent with states that are characterized by a hybridity of political orders, which deviate substantially from the ideal-type state that they seek to mimic. Not only has this resulted in disastrous policies in many parts of Africa, but critical questions arise as to the relevance of conventional IR and security studies as neutral sites for dispassionate knowledge production and policy-making on African security, thereby necessitating alternative perspectives. This article reflects on the ways in which IR and security studies have been responsible, in part, for the production of a racialized mode of security knowledge generation that obfuscates the security policies and experiences of people in African locales. It draws on insights from post-colonial discourses and the episteme of alternativity to explore how the study of events and processes in Africa in a theoretically conscious manner could advance IR scholarship as a whole. It contends that incorporating African experiences as they manifest through hybrid security orders can broaden the empirical base for IR theorizing about security since they offer another perspective outside the conventional western assumptions and experiences.

Secure hybrid replacement policy: Mitigating conflict-based cache side channel attacks

Conflict-based attacks on the last-level cache (LLC) are the most threatening cache side channel attack scenarios, where attackers exploit cache set conflicts as a channel to obtain sensitive cache accesses of victims. In this paper, we observe that conflict-based attacks cause exploited cache sets to experience an abnormally large number of accesses. Protecting these sets with suspicious access patterns effectively interferes with the attacker’s observation and thus mitigates such attacks. Based on this insight, we propose Secure Hybrid Replacement Policy (SHRP). SHRP captures suspicious sets by counting the number of accesses and alters their replacement policy to introduce noise into the attacker’s probe. Specifically, When a request occurs an LLC hit, SHRP has a certain probability of sending an invalidation request to the suspicious set. If a request triggers an LLC replacement, SHRP has a certain probability of turning the request uncacheable. Because of these probabilistic obscuring actions, attackers are impossible to accurately infer the victim’s behaviors on the protected cache set. The evaluation demonstrates that SHRP efficiently mitigates conflict-based attacks and induces negligible performance impacts and acceptable storage overhead.

Protecting Data Mobility in Cloud Networks Using Metadata Security

At present, health care applications, government services, and banking applications use big data with cloud storage to process and implement data. Data mobility in cloud environments uses protection protocols and algorithms to secure sensitive user data. Sometimes, data may have highly sensitive information, leading users to consider using big data and cloud processing regardless of whether they are secured are not. Threats to sensitive data in cloud systems produce high risks, and existing security methods do not provide enough security to sensitive user data in cloud and big data environments. At present, several security solutions support cloud systems. Some of them include Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) baseline Kerberos security, socket layer-based HDFS security, and hybrid security systems, which have time complexity in providing security interactions. Thus, mobile data security algorithms are necessary in cloud environments to avoid time risks in providing security. In our study, we propose a data mobility and security (DMoS) algorithm to provide security of data mobility in cloud environments. By analyzing metadata, data are classified as secured and open data based on their importance. Secured data are sensitive user data, whereas open data are open to the public. On the basis of data classification, secured data are applied to the DMoS algorithm to achieve high security in HDFS. The proposed approach is compared with the time complexity of three existing algorithms, and results are evaluated.

A Hybrid Security Framework for Medical Image Communication

Authentication of the digital image has much attention for the digital revolution. Digital image authentication can be verified with image watermarking and image encryption schemes. These schemes are widely used to protect images against forgery attacks, and they are useful for protecting copyright and rightful ownership. Depending on the desirable applications, several image encryption and watermarking schemes have been proposed to moderate this attention. This framework presents a new scheme that combines a Walsh Hadamard Transform (WHT)-based image watermarking scheme with an image encryption scheme based on Double Random Phase Encoding (DRPE). First, on the sender side, the secret medical image is encrypted using DRPE. Then the encrypted image is watermarking based on WHT. The combination between watermarking and encryption increases the security and robustness of transmitting an image. The performance evaluation of the proposed scheme is obtained by testing Structural Similarity Index (SSIM), Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR), Normalized cross-correlation (NC), and Feature Similarity Index (FSIM).

SFTSDH: Applying Spring Security Framework With TSD-Based OAuth2 to Protect Microservice Architecture APIs

The Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) combines medical devices and applications that use network technologies to connect healthcare information systems (HIS). IoMT is reforming the medical industry by adopting information and communication technologies (ICTs). Identity verification, secure collection, and exchange of medical data are essential in health applications. In this study, we implemented a hybrid security solution to secure the collection and management of personal health data using Spring Framework (SF), Services for Sensitive Data (TSD) as a service platform, and Hyper-Text-Transfer-Protocol (HTTP (H)) security methods. The adopted solution (SFTSDH = SF + TSD + H) instigated the following security features: identity brokering, OAuth2, multifactor authentication, and access control to protect the Microservices Architecture Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), following the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Moreover, we extended the adopted security solution to develop a digital infrastructure to facilitate the research and innovation work in the electronic health (eHealth) section, focusing on solution validation with theoretical evaluation and experimental testing. We used a web engineering security methodology to achieve and explain the adopted security solution. As a case study, we designed and implemented electronic coaching (eCoaching) prototype system and deployed the same in the developed infrastructure to securely record and share personal health data. Furthermore, we compared the test results with related studies qualitatively for the efficient evaluation of the implemented security solution. The SFTSDH implementation and configuration in the prototype system have effectively secured the eCoach APIs from an attack in all the considered scenarios. The eCoach prototype with the SFTSDH solution effectively sustained a load of (≈) 1000 concurrent users in the developed digital health infrastructure. In addition, we performed a qualitative comparison among the following security solutions: SF security, third-party security, and SFTSDH, where SFTSDH showed a promising outcome.

Block-Hsdn-Edge: Deep Learning Based Hybrid Intrusion Detection and Prevention System for Secure Hybrid Sdn Environment

Block-Hsdn-Edge: Deep Learning Based Hybrid Intrusion Detection and Prevention System for Secure Hybrid Sdn Environment

Efficient Security Architecture for Physical Layer in mmWave Communication Systems

Employing mmWave is a good way to achieve the data demands for the new and future generations of communication systems. In order to decrease power consumption and complexity of hardware, hybrid precoding is implemented for mmWave systems with large scale antenna. Lack of secure communication paths in mmWave multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems leads to attack and degrade the system efficiency. For secure communications, this paper proposes a deep and secure hybrid precoder and decoder design for mmWave MIMO systems to maximize the secrecy rate. Lack of secure communication paths being eavesdropped by Eves is illustrated and the scatterer sharing channel model is assumed. The proposed algorithm consists of two convolutional neural networks for calculating the secure RF analog precoder, and then obtains the digital precoder that can further improve the security. In addition, singular value decomposition technique based physical layer security is implemented to determine digital precoders. Results showed that the secrecy performance improvement of the proposed algorithm in comparison to the benchmark algorithms and algorithms based on optimization methods.

Going beyond Security Community and Balance of Power: South America's Hybrid Regional Security Governance

AbstractRegional security in South America cannot be explained simply by considering balance of power or security-community governance mechanisms. In this article, we present and discuss a hybrid security-governance approach for talking about governance security in the Americas, particularly, South America. We hypothesize that there exists a new security-governance configuration in which the traditional governance mechanisms—balance of power and security community—are not mutually exclusive, but overlap and coexist, leading to the emergence of a regional hybrid security architecture. Beyond explaining the reasons and causes for the overlap between security community and balance of power, we show the hybrid nature of regional security governance and point out how taking the hybridity conceptual approach fills the gaps within current research. We first offer a critique of two leading approaches to thinking about security in the Americas (balancing and security communities). Next, we show how the overlapping configurations in South America's regional security governance happen, testing Adler and Greve's (2009, “When Security Community Meets Balance of Power: Overlapping Regional Mechanisms of Security Governance.” Review of International Studies 35[S1]: 59–84) framework against historical evidence. Last, we provide evidence of a hybrid security governance in the region. We complement our analysis with qualitative data from interviews with scholars, political, diplomatic, and military actors conducted in various countries across the region. Our contribution is a significant step toward understanding how security-governance formations come about in non-Western regions of the world, privileging its specificities. More importantly, we offer a novel angle to escape straitjacket hypotheses to security governance grounded in Western hegemonic ideal types, which have focus either on balance of power or on security-community models.

Energy-efficient and secure mobile fog-based cloud for the Internet of Things

The mobile fog-based cloud (MFBC) plays a major role for the Internet of Things (IoT) and is highly suitable for obtaining virtualized data without additional waiting time. However, the limited battery power of mobile devices limits access to abundant data. To address this problem, an energy-efficient and secure algorithm should be introduced to reduce energy consumption for the MFBC. In this paper, an energy-efficient and secure hybrid (EESH) algorithm is introduced for the MFBC to support the IoT. The EESH algorithm uses the voltage scaling factor to reduce energy consumption. The performance of the EESH algorithm is substantially better than the state-of-the-art contending algorithms when the number of IoT-tasks increases, and EESH consumes minimal energy. Furthermore, the identity of mobile cloud users is of paramount significance; therefore, the EESH is further secured by applying a malicious data detection (MDD) algorithm using blockchain technology. The capability of the processors on the server side of the MFBC is analyzed and improved for the IoT. The proposed EESH, MDD and underlying algorithms are programmed on the Java platform. Finally, the performance of the proposed algorithms on the MFBC is compared with that of known algorithms in terms of security, energy efficiency, throughput and latency.

Hybrid Secure Proof of Stake

In conventional Proof of Stake (PoS), the nodes with higher stake would have a higher probability of being selected for the block rewards. Block rewards are constant regardless of the node reputation. In Secure Proof of Stake (SPoS), the nodes with higher reputation have a higher probability of being selected for the rewards. The main concept in Hybrid Secure Proof of Stake (HSPoS) is to separate the block consensus from the block rewards. HSPoS proposes that the rewards become a function in the reputation of the node. Thus, while the node probability of being selected is based on the fungible stake, the rewards for the block is adjusted by the non-fungible reputation multiplier which is a function of the node’s reputation. HSPoS enables a transitioning process in which traditional PoS consensus algorithms, can be used and maintained while being supplemented with SPoS characteristics and node reputation. This enables enhanced experimentation and allows a slow transitioning from PoS to SPoS.

Who you gonna call? Theorising everyday security practices in urban spaces with multiple security actors – The case of Beirut's Southern Suburbs

Who do urban residents turn to in everyday security incidents? Why do some go to the police in certain locations, others to armed nonstate actors or kinship networks? We explore the ways in which residents and security actors – state and nonstate – negotiate everyday (in)security in contested urban spaces with multiple security actors. We consider how hybrid security assemblages are shaped by physical and social space and how everyday security practices shape space. We use Beirut's Southern Suburbs (Dahiyeh) as a site of theorisation, bringing local vernacular experiences into dialogue with Bourdieu's concepts of capital, habitus, doxa and field to develop a spatially dynamic analytical framework. Using this framework, we map security actors' different types and sizes of capital and how this capital is affected by residents' habitus and doxa within the everyday security field. We introduce the notion of ‘translocal habitus’ to capture the impact of families' origins outside Dahiyeh on everyday security dynamics. The framework we develop contributes to the spatialisation, vernacularisation and pluralisation of everyday security studies, furthers the spatialisation of Bourdieu and adds to the literature on hybrid forms of governance. Our analysis is based on extensive fieldwork, including over 150 interviews and ‘street chats’ with residents and security actors in and around Dahiyeh.

RETRACTED ARTICLE: An hybrid security framework using internet of things for healthcare system

RETRACTED ARTICLE: An hybrid security framework using internet of things for healthcare system

Police Legitimacy and Hybrid Security Orders in Central America

AbstractThis article examines the relationship between hybrid security orders and police legitimacy. Hybrid orders are operationalized through the presence of non-state armed groups who participate in local governance. In some developing countries, police forces are not the only enforcers of laws and local norms. The prominence of non-state armed groups in security tasks at the local level questions police authority. The article uses cross-sectional, national-based survey data from Central America. These countries have been struggling to contain criminal violence while reforming their police forces after years of military control and corruption. The findings indicate that although the police presence in the community helps to build police legitimacy, in some cases, the latter is also associated with the presence of other non-state groups. The article discusses how police forces relate to other non-state groups to retain legitimacy.

Cryptanalysis of hybrid secure image encryption based on Julia set fractals and three-dimensional Lorenz chaotic map

Recently a hybrid secure image encryption scheme based on Julia set and three-dimensional Lorenz chaotic system was suggested. The offered scheme was based on the multiplicative operation carried out by Julia set fractals and bitwise XOR which was implemented by the trajectories obtained from the Lorenz chaotic system. This paper presents the cryptanalysis of the scheme through a chosen-plaintext attack by taking three different chosen images. In this work, a practical chosen-plaintext attack is performed which reveals that the cryptosystem depending on only multiplication and bitwise XOR operation can be effortlessly attacked. The results of the analysis performed on the retrieved image reflect the effectiveness of the chosen-plaintext attack which fruitfully produces the original image.

Itinerant Bubbles: hybrid carnival security and privatisation of public spaces

ABSTRACT Several authors have stated that the performance of private security firms in public spaces fosters privatisation and the exclusion from these spaces of users who are considered inopportune or undesirable. This study examines the hypothesis that these negative impacts are maximised by the intermingling or hybridism between such companies and the police forces. It analyzes the influence of this hybridism on the security model and the tactics adopted by the organised groups of revellers or roped-off blocos that parade during Carnival. It argues that this hybrid security make use of coercive and confrontational tactics to ensure the wellbeing and safety of member revellers, while barring non-paying revellers’ access to the blocos’ internal perimeters. At the same time, they make it difficult for the latter to remain in public spaces in the immediate surroundings of blocos, even preventing them from moving about in those spaces.

SM‐Detector: A security model based on BERT to detect SMiShing messages in mobile environments

SummaryThe growing use of SMS by businesses to communicate with their customers has made attackers more interested in smishing attacks. Smishing is a security attack that involves sending a fake SMS message in order to steal the personal credentials of mobile users. This kind of attack has become a serious cyber‐security issue and has caused great financial losses for both people and businesses. In this article we propose a hybrid security model called “SM‐Detector” aiming to detect smishing messages in mobile environments. To increase the efficiency of “SM‐Detector,” we have combined three different detection methods: (i) identification of malicious URLs, (ii) identification of suspected words, phone numbers and emails with regular expression analysis, and (iii) classification of messages using BERT‐based algorithms to distinguish spam messages. “SM‐Detector” also includes a mobile application allowing the user to check their SMS and report smishing messages. Its strength is that it can deal with mixed text messages written in Arabic or English. The experimental evaluation conducted on English and Arabic datasets showed a remarkable accuracy of 99.63%.

An Efficient and Secure Session Key Management Scheme in Wireless Sensor Network

Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is a particular network built from small sensor nodes. These sensor nodes have unique features. That is, it can sense and process data in WSN. WSN has tremendous applications in many fields. Despite the significance of WSN, this kind of network faced several issues. The biggest problems rising in WSN are energy consumption and security. Robust security development is needed to cope with WSN applications. For security purposes in WSN, cryptography techniques are very favorable. However, WSN has resource limitations, which is the main problem in applying any security scheme. Hence, if we are using the cryptography scheme in WSN, we must first guarantee that it must be energy-efficient. Thus, we proposed a secure hybrid session key management scheme for WSN. In this scheme, the major steps of public key cryptography are minimized, and much of the operations are based on symmetric key cryptography. This strategy extensively reduces the energy consumption of WSN and ensures optimum security. The proposed scheme is implemented, and their analysis is performed using different parameters with benchmark schemes. We concluded that the proposed scheme is energy-efficient and outperforms the available benchmark schemes. Furthermore, it provides an effective platform for secure key agreements and management in the WSN environment.

Keystroke Dynamics based Hybrid Nanogenerators for Biometric Authentication and Identification using Artificial Intelligence.

Cyberattack is one of the severe threats in the digital world as it encompasses everything related to personal information, health, finances, intellectual properties, and even national security. Password‐based authentication is the most practiced authentication system, however, is vulnerable to several attacks such as dictionary attack, shoulder surfing attack, and guessing attack. Here, a new keystroke dynamics‐based hybrid nanogenerator for biometric authentication and identification integrated with artificial intelligence (AI) is reported. Keystroke dynamics offer behavioral and contextual information that can distinguish and authorize the individuals based on their typing rhythms. The hybrid electromagnetic‐triboelectric nanogenerators/sensors efficiently convert the keystroke mechanical energy into electrical signals, which are fed into an artificial neural network based AI system. The self‐powered hybrid sensors‐based biometric authentication system integrated with a neural network achieves an accuracy of 99% and offers a promising hybrid security layer against password vulnerability.

Fast and Secure Location-Based Services in Smart Cities on Outsourced Data

With the advancement of mobile internet, cloud computing, and smart sensing devices, Location-Based Services (LBSs) have become more and more indispensable in the Internet of Things (IoT) based smart cities. Especially, spatial keyword queries have been widely deployed in real-life applications in recent years. Recently, several privacy-preserving spatial keyword queries schemes were proposed to guarantee data security and query privacy on outsourced data. However, these schemes support neither dynamic update nor diverse query types, which cannot meet the requirements in practical applications. This paper proposes two Secure Dynamic Spatial Keyword Queries (SDSKQ) constructions that support expressive query types and dynamic update. Firstly, we present a basic SDSKQ construction based on hidden-vector encryption and order-revealing encryption. Specifically, we propose a secure hybrid index structure for spatio-textual data, named Encrypted Textual Signature Quadtree (ETSQ-tree). Using ETSQ-tree, the server can prune the index tree according to search queries to reduce the search space. Besides, the ETSQ-tree can be updated dynamically. To resist the file-injection attack, which aims to infer query information according to newly inserted objects, we further improve the basic SDSKQ to achieve forward security. We implement our two constructions and evaluate them using real-world datasets. The experimental results show that they are efficient and feasible in practical applications, and the comparative evaluation confirms that the performance of our constructions outperforms that of the state-of-the-art schemes.

A Novel and Secure Hybrid iWD-MASK Algorithm for Enhanced Image Security

Background: Most of the work has been done using DES, AES, and MAES for key generation in the image encryption. These algorithms provide better results for text based encryption when compared with digital image encryption. These algorithms are less secure and efficient. A new hybrid approach has been introduced for digital image encryption i.e. Chaos-based approach. This approach is designed for image related data. Obtained results outperform the previous results of encryption. Objective: To get the original image after decryption at the receiver’s end. Methods: Matrix array symmetric key algorithm has been used for key generation in which same key is used for encryption and decryption process. Here, we have to fix the total number of iterations. There will be three choices of iterations 10, 12 and 14 for 128, 192 and 256 bits key lengths respectively. Once the key is generated, IWD algorithm is applied for encryption process and at the end of sender and same key has to be used for decryption purpose at receiver’s end. Otherwise, system will stop its functioning and will result into system error. Results & Conclusion: The proposed hybrid concept of MASK with iWD algorithm is implemented on different set of images. Obtained results are satisfactorily while comparing the proposed approach with other existing approaches for the various parameters like precision, recall and Fmeasure. In future work, the proposed algorithm can be applied for the other types of cryptography as well, like text, video sharing, etc.