Implementation Of Security Mechanisms Research Articles

Applications of blockchain technology in privacy preserving and data security for real time (data) applications

SummaryBlockchain (BC) technology has been incorporated into the infrastructure of different kinds of applications that require transparency, reliability, security, and traceability. However, the BC still has privacy issues because of the possibility of privacy leaks when using publicly accessible transaction information, even with the security features offered by BCs. Specifically, certain BCs are implementing security mechanisms to address data privacy to prevent privacy issues, facilitates attack‐resistant digital data sharing and storage platforms. Hence, this proposed review aims to give a comprehensive overview of BC technology, to shed light on security issues related to BC, and to emphasize the privacy requirements for existing applications. Many proposed BC applications in asset distribution, data security, the financial industry, the Internet of Things, the healthcare sector, and AI have been explored in this article. It presents necessary background knowledge about BC and privacy strategies for obtaining these security features as part of the evaluation. This survey is expected to assist readers in acquiring a complete understanding of BC security and privacy in terms of approaches, ideas, attributes, and systems. Subsequently, the review presents the findings of different BC works, illustrating several efforts that tackled privacy and security issues. Further, the review offers a positive strategy for the previously described integration of BC for security applications, emphasizing its possible significant gaps and potential future development to promote BC research in the future.

A High-Performance, Secure Custom Electronics Circuit for Biopotential Measurement and Processing

Purpose: In this paper, we propose a secure wearable and portable device aiming to (i) monitor physical activity in medical and clinical rehabilitation, (ii) evaluate the subject's movements in sports environments, and (iii) monitor wellness indicators. Materials and Methods: The innovative low-power custom circuit can acquire, pre-process, digitalize, and transmit EMG signals to a Raspberry PI4 device via a low-energy Bluetooth module. The Raspberry PI4 is a hub that sends data to a cloud-based system for remote monitoring and processing. The best cybersecurity practices have been implemented: firewall, anti-DDoS and SELinux. Results: We have assessed the system's vulnerability before and after the system's hardening. SELinux makes the system safer and prevents unauthorized access to patients' data health by tampering with the devices. Conclusion: Adopting IoT systems in telemedicine requires greater attention to cybersecurity. It is necessary to implement security mechanisms to guarantee the privacy of patient's health data.

Securing the future of IoT-healthcare systems: A meta-synthesis of mandatory security requirements

IntroductionHealthcare-based Internet of Things (Healthcare-IoT) is a turning point in the development of health information systems. This emerging trend significantly contributes to enhancing users' awareness of their health, ultimately leading to an extension in life expectancy. Security and privacy are among the greatest challenges for H-IoT systems. To establish complete safety and security in these systems, the implementation of mandatory security requirements is imperative. For this reason, this study identifies the necessary security requirements for H-IoT systems using a Meta-Synthesis approach. MethodsInitially, following the Seven-Stage Sandelowski & Barroso approach, the existing literature was searched in the Scopus and Web of Science databases. Among the 844 extracted articles from the period of 2010 to 2020, 78 final articles were reviewed and analyzed, leading to the identification of 51 security requirements. Subsequently, to assess the quality of the identified requirements and their overlap, interviews were conducted with two experts. ResultsFinally, 14 security requirements, predominantly with technical and quantitative aspects, were identified for designing a Healthcare-IoT system and implementing security mechanisms. ConclusionThe findings of this study emphasize that addressing the identified 14 security requirements is crucial for safeguarding Healthcare-IoT systems and ensuring their robustness in the evolving health information landscape.

Integration of the Internet of Things and Cloud

The integration of IoT and cloud poses increased security challenges. Implementing security mechanisms in IoT systems is challenging due to the availability of limited resources, large number of devices, heterogeneity of devices, generation of bulk data, etc. Likewise, cloud resources are also vulnerable to security issues due to virtualization, insider threats, data loss, data breaches, insecure APIs, etc. Security is of major concern with the integration of IoT and cloud. The primary objective of this review is to highlight the security issues associated with an IoT system and cloud system and with the integration of the two, as well as to highlight solutions in each case. The secondary objective is to describe popular IoT-cloud platforms and also to highlight how such platforms facilitate secure integration. Ultimately a highlight on a shared responsibility model of implementing security is emphasized as both IoT users and cloud service providers have to cooperatively share the responsibility to deploy secure cloud-based IoT applications.

APPLICATIONS OF MULTIMODAL BIOMETRICS AUTHENTICATION FOR ENHANCING THE IOT SECURITY USING DEEP LEARNING

The Internet of Things (IoT) integrates billions of electronic devices into computer networks to provide advanced and intelligent services that enable devices to communicate with each other by exchanging information with minimal human interaction. The security issue is at higher risk in IoT systems than in other computing systems. Maintaining the security requirement when attacking the physical surface of the IoT system device is a challenging task. Implementing security mechanisms like authentication and access control for the IoT ecosystem is necessarily needed to ensure the security of IoT devices. The key used for security may be stolen, forgotten, or forged. Also, the key may be generated by intruders or men in the middle of traditional security mechanisms. Biometric security is becoming more advanced and sophisticated with technological advancements and is mostly used in authentication systems. In unimodal biometrics, only one biometrics character can be applied which does not apply to ensure the security of IoT systems. In this paper, Multimodal biometrics authentication was used for securing edge devices in the IoT ecosystems. Face image and fingerprint image were used as multimodal biometrics systems for authenticating users to secured IoT devices. A pi-camera module and fingerprint sensor were used to capture biometric data. Image processing techniques were then applied to the images. Then CNN algorithms were used for feature extraction and model creation. During model creation, the RELU function was used as an activation function, soft-max for image classification, and Max-pooling for image dimensional reduction which helped the model speed up the training process. Experimental results show that the accuracy of the face image and fingerprint image is 92% and 89% respectively, which is a promising result that achieves the objective of the study.
 Keywords: Internet of Things, Multimodal Biometrics, Authentication, CNN, Deep Learning

KDC Placement Problem in Secure VPLS Networks

Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) is a VPN technology that connects remote client sites with provider networks in a transparent manner. Session key-based HIPLS (S-HIPLS) is a VPLS architecture based on the Host Identity Protocol (HIP) that provides a secure VPLS architecture using a Key Distribution Center (KDC) to implement security mechanisms such as authentication, encryption etc. It exhibits limited scalability though. Using multiple distributed KDCs would offer numerous advantages including reduced workload per KDC, distributed key storage, and improved scalability, while simultaneously eliminating the single point of failure of S-HIPLS. It would also come with the need for optimally placing KDCs in the provider network. In this work, we formulate the KDC placement (KDCP) problem for a secure VPLS network as an Integer Linear Programming (ILP) problem. The latter is NP-hard, thereby suggesting a high computational cost for obtaining exact solutions especially for large deployments. Therefore, we motivate the use of a primal-dual algorithm to efficiently produce near-optimal solutions. Extensive evaluations on large-scale network topologies, such as the random Internet graph, demonstrate our method’s time-efficiency as well as its improved scalability and usefulness compared to both HIPLS and S-HIPLS.

Classification and analysis of vulnerabilities of modern information systems from classical and quantum attacks

Recent advances in quantum technology and the potential that practical quantum computers may become a reality in the future have led to renewed interest in developing cryptographic technologies that are secure against conventional and quantum attacks. Currently, virtually all asymmetric cryptographic schemes in use are threatened by the potential development of powerful quantum computers. Post-quantum cryptography is one of main the ways to combat this threat. Its security is based on the complexity of mathematical problems that are currently considered unsolvable efficiently, even with the help of quantum computers. The security of information systems is ensured through protection against various threats that use system vulnerabilities. Security protocols are the building blocks of secure communication. They implement security mechanisms to provide security services. Security protocols are considered abstract when analyzed, but may have additional vulnerabilities in implementation. This work contains a holistic study of security protocols. Basics of security protocols, taxonomy of attacks on security protocols and their implementation are considered, as well as various methods and models of protocol security analysis. In particular, the differences between information-theoretic and computational security, computational and symbolic models are specified. In addition, an overview of the computational security models for Authenticated Key Exchange (AKE) and Password Authentication Key Exchange (PAKE) protocols is provided. The most important security models for the AKE and PAKE protocols were also described. With the emergence of new technologies that may have different security requirements, as well as with increased opportunities for competition, there is always a need to develop new protocols. Thus, the purpose of this article is to review, classify, analyze, and research the vulnerabilities of information systems from classical, quantum, and special attacks, performed taking into account the forecast regarding the possibilities of attacks on post-quantum cryptographic transformations; studying security assessment models for existing cryptographic protocols, as well as reviewing and benchmarking security models and providing suggestions for protection against existing potential attacks.

A Scalable Framework to Detect, Analyze, and Prevent Security Vulner abilities in Enterprise Software-Defined Networks

Software Defined Networking (SDN) is a rapidly growing technology that is enabling innovation on how network systems are designed and managed. Like any other technology, SDN is susceptible to numerous security threats. The separation of planes and centralized control topology of SDN makes it vulnerable to myriad of attacks. There has been rapid implementation of SDN in variety of networks and this is only growing with time. There are only handful of resources for enterprise networks that are actively transitioning their networks to SDN and require security specification.This paper proposes a security framework that integrates basic security requirements for SDN. First, the security vulnerabilities are identified by assessing the SDN topology. This provides understanding of the issue which is utilized to implement security mechanisms that help mitigate the vulnerabilities. The framework utilizes open-source tools and techniques and integrates well-known security mechanisms. Throughout the paper, the proposed framework is implemented and tested for its success in satisfying some of the basic and crucial security requirements. In doing so, this research offers viable security mechanisms for enterprise networks that are looking for performance and cost-effective security solutions.

Addressing the cybersecurity vulnerabilities of advanced nanogrids: A practical framework

The rapid deployment of advanced nanogrids which has enabled utility customers to become energy suppliers, the so-called prosumers with power generation capabilities based on distributed energy resources, has raised issues concerning cybersecurity. The use of the internet of things (IoT) as an enabling technology, along with the bidirectional power flow which demands a bidirectional flow of information between the prosumers and the utility, have paved the way to smarter and more efficient nanogrids, hence the name “advanced nanogrid”. Despite the many advantages of this approach, it makes nanogrids subject to cyber-attacks, providing cybercriminals with the possibility of exploiting nanogrid vulnerabilities as never before. This clearly has an economic and physical impact on the nanogrid operation. In this context, this paper aims to develop a framework to identify assets, assess threats, quantify risks and implement protection mechanisms in future nanogrid developments. The effectiveness of the framework is demonstrated through a cybersecurity analysis of an experimental testbed of an advanced nanogrid based on a photovoltaic (PV) system and controllable loads. The nanogrid includes a blockchain-based energy purchase/sale system, as well as a weather station that sends climatic measurements through a particular communication protocol. This data is used to provide forecasts for making generation/consumption offers. Finally, a cost-benefit analysis has been carried out in which a systematic assessment of the protection mechanisms is proposed, so that a trade-off between the costs of implementing security mechanisms and the losses resulting from unwanted intrusions, can be achieved.

Towards Optimized Security Attributes for IoT Devices in Smart Agriculture Based on the IEC 62443 Security Standard

Implementing applicable security measures into system engineering applications is still one of the most challenging processes in building secure infrastructure. This process needs to consider a variety of security attributes to support securing system components against numerous cyberattacks that could exploit vulnerable points in the system. The redundancy in these attributes is also another challenge that could degrade system functionality and impact the availability of the system’s services. Therefore, it is crucial to choose appropriate security properties by considering their ability to address cyber threats with minimal negative impacts on the system’s functionality. This process is still subjected to inconsistencies due to ad- oc determinations by a specialist. In this work, we propose a novel algorithm for optimizing the implementation of security mechanisms in IoT applications for the agricultural domain to ensure the effectiveness of the applied mechanisms against the propagation of potential threats. We demonstrate our proposed algorithm on an IoT application in the farming domain to see how the algorithm helps with optimizing the applied security mechanisms. In addition, we used THREATGET to analyze cyber risks and validate the optimized security attributes against the propagation of cyber threats.

Checking security compliance between models and code

It is challenging to verify that the planned security mechanisms are actually implemented in the software. In the context of model-based development, the implemented security mechanisms must capture all intended security properties that were considered in the design models. Assuring this compliance manually is labor intensive and can be error-prone. This work introduces the first semi-automatic technique for secure data flow compliance checks between design models and code. We develop heuristic-based automated mappings between a design-level model (SecDFD, provided by humans) and a code-level representation (Program Model, automatically extracted from the implementation) in order to guide users in discovering compliance violations, and hence, potential security flaws in the code. These mappings enable an automated, and project-specific static analysis of the implementation with respect to the desired security properties of the design model. We developed two types of security compliance checks and evaluated the entire approach on open source Java projects.

An Intelligent Hierarchical Security Framework for VANETs

Vehicular Ad hoc Networks (VANETs) are an emerging type of network that increasingly encompass a larger number of vehicles. They are the basic support for Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) and for establishing frameworks which enable communication among road entities and foster the development of new applications and services aimed at enhancing driving experience and increasing road safety. However, VANETs’ demanding characteristics make it difficult to implement security mechanisms, creating vulnerabilities easily explored by attackers. The main goal of this work is to propose an Intelligent Hierarchical Security Framework for VANET making use of Machine Learning (ML) algorithms to enhance attack detection, and to define methods for secure communications among entities, assuring strong authentication, privacy, and anonymity. The ML algorithms used in this framework have been trained and tested using vehicle communications datasets, which have been made publicly available, thus providing easily reproducible and verifiable results. The obtained results show that the proposed Intrusion Detection System (IDS) framework is able to detect attacks accurately, with a low False Positive Rate (FPR). Furthermore, results show that the framework can benefit from using different types of algorithms at different hierarchical levels, selecting light and fast processing algorithms in the lower levels, at the cost of accuracy, and using more precise, accurate, and complex algorithms in nodes higher in the hierarchy.

Opinions of healthcare leaders on the barriers and challenges of using social media in Saudi Arabian healthcare settings

Abstract Background Several authors have studied the benefits and risks of using social media in healthcare settings. However, there are few studies on the opinion of healthcare leaders to face the challenges of using social media networks. Purpose The objective of this study was to investigate the opinions of healthcare leaders on the barriers and challenges of using social media in Saudi Arabian healthcare settings. Method ology: A cross-sectional study was conducted to collect information related to the research objective. A questionnaire distributed through Telegram, Twitter, and WhatsApp was used for this purpose. Initially, the questionnaire was sent to 226 healthcare leaders and 70 participants completed and returned the questionnaire. The data were analyzed using basic statistics. Results More than half of the respondents (84.3%) used social media and WhatsApp was the most used platform (78.6%). Most of the participants (90%) believed that social media must be used in healthcare settings and 78.6% of them thought that there were barriers to use social media in healthcare scenery. Some of the detected barriers were the absence of clear policies, ethical reasons, security issues, dissemination of inaccurate information, and so forth. The main suggestions to face the challenges generated by these barriers were to implement security mechanisms to guarantee the privacy and confidentiality of patient data, establish websites and social networks managed by certified specialists, and monitor the information posted on social media to ensure that it is reliable. Also, the participants considered that it was necessary to implement clear guidelines and policies on how to use social media adequately. They also thought that the Ministry of Health Education should observe the information published on social networks. Conclusion The majority of respondents agreed on the importance of using social media in healthcare settings in Saudi Arabia. However, the participating healthcare leaders considered that there were barriers and challenges related to the use of these platforms. In this sense, they suggested a set of solutions to use social networks efficiently and safely to improve the healthcare system in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

EAP-SH: An EAP Authentication Protocol to Integrate Captive Portals in the 802.1X Security Architecture

In a scenario where hotspot wireless networks are increasingly being used, and given the amount of sensitive information exchanged on Internet interactions, there is the need to implement security mechanisms that guarantee data confidentiality and integrity in such networks, as well as the authenticity of the hotspot providers. However, many hotspots today use Captive Portals, which rely on authentication through Web pages (thus, an application-level authentication approach) instead of a link-layer approach. The consequence of this is that there is no security in the wireless link to the hotspot (it has to be provided at upper protocol layers), and is cumbersome to manage wireless access profiles (we need special applications or browsers' add-ons to do that). This work exposes the weaknesses of the Captive Portals' paradigm, which does not follow a unique nor standard approach, and describes a solution that intends to suppress them, based on the 802.1X architecture. This solution uses a new EAP-compliant protocol that is able to integrate an HTTP-based registration or authentication with a Captive Portal within the 802.1X authentication framework.

Risk based approach in scope of cybersecurity threats and requirements

Paper is focused on theoretical and practical considerations related to risk management and cyber security based on the cyber kill chain concept introduced by Lockheed Martin. Proposed approach of cyber risk management embedded on the cyber kill chain is new and not reflected in the available literature. Proposed risk management process of identifying, analyzing, evaluating, assessing and ultimately responding to cyber threats and monitoring risks in each stage of the cyber kill chain is the heart of proposed approach. The approach may be used in organizations which are going to implement security mechanisms to align with the in-force requirements or to reduce cyber risks to accepted level. The process of the risk assessment introduced by the authors follows with the description of the example risk evaluation method based on a continuous-time Markov chain as a model of the cyber kill chain.

Data authentication, integrity and confidentiality mechanisms for federated satellite systems

This work addresses a critical topic in federated satellites development: the lack of trust between stakeholders that would prevent any stakeholder joining a satellite federation owned and operated by multiple parties. A characterisation of security needs for federated satellite systems is proposed, showing that in order for a federation to offer an environment for a beneficial cooperation, a notion of identity, both user identity and data authentication, has to be introduced, and stakeholders' security requirements have to be satisfied. This paper presents a public key infrastructure (PKI) based protocol for addressing stakeholders' security requirements and ensuring data authentication, integrity and confidentiality in data transfer operations within satellite federations. The performance and cost overheads of the proposed security protocol are first characterised with an experimental implementation on a Raspberry Pi 2 platform, used as a representative proxy testbed of commercial off-the-shelf avionics for small satellites, and then with a benchmark on a range of CPUs to analyse which platforms achieve set performance goals with radio-based and laser-based communications. Recommendations for implementing security mechanisms in federated satellite systems are thus derived.

Electrically conductive adhesives, thermally conductive adhesives and UV adhesives in data extraction forensics

Recent publications underline the interest of using polymers in microelectronics (Li and Wong, 2006a; Cui et al., 2014). Polymers are the ideal interconnect alternative to solder materials containing lead. Electrically Conductive Adhesives [ECAs] (Li and Wong, 2006b), Thermally Conductive Adhesives (TCAs) (Felba et al., 2011) and UV Adhesives (UVAs) (Asif et al., 2005) mainly consist of a polymeric resin (epoxy, silicon, polyurethane or polyimide) that provides physical and mechanical properties such as adhesion, mechanical strength while containing metal fillers (silver, gold, nickel or copper) that conduct electricity (Luo et al., 2016). Currently it is possible to find really cheap polymeric resin. Using these resins for digital forensic purposes is the focus of this paper, that we demonstrate in a hardware reverse engineering prototype case study.When considering new mobile devices, such as secure phones, it is often necessary to spy communication and perform numerous tests on the memory (e.g. by changing some bytes) to understand or modify the implemented security mechanisms (manipulate system time, locate password hashes, observe artefacts of implemented security algorithms, etc.). Traditional techniques use either laser attacks/probing (chip on) or soldering/read/re-soldering (chip off/on) (Heckmann et al., 2016, Jongh, 2014). These two techniques are unsuitable for repeated operations requiring many readings/changes/injections. This paper describes a concrete case study using adhesive properties complementary to chip on and chip off methods.We present the steps using different properties of adhesives (ECA, TCA, UVA) that we will lead to the realisation of a prototype particularly suitable for the repeating of the read phases/changes/injections necessary for reverse engineering secure mobile devices.

Intrusion Detection in Software Dened Networks with Self-organized Maps

The Software Defined Network (SDN) architecture provides new opportunities to implement security mechanisms in terms of unauthorized activities detection. At the same time, there are certain risks associated with this technology. The presented approach covers a conception of the measurement method, virtual testbed and classification mechanism for SDNs. The paper presents a measurement method which allows collecting network traffic flow parameters, generated by a virtual SDN environment. The collected dataset can be used in machine learning methods to detect unauthorized activities.

Using Botnets to provide security for safety critical embedded systems - a case study focused on UAVs

The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV s) has been growing not only in military applications, but also in civilian. UAVs have enormous potential for use, which mostly still are unexplored. For the use of UAV s in the airspace, not only Brazilian new studies on methods of analysis and technologies should be incorporated into navigation systems, control among others, promoting security mechanisms for these aircraft. Implement security mechanisms using a platform with operating systems and botnet to simulate such attack Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) in UAVs is an important task when it is aimed at containment and mitigation of attacks on this type of platform.

SensoTrust: Trustworthy Domains in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) based on wearable devices are being used in a growing variety of applications, many of them with strict privacy requirements: medical, surveillance, e-Health, and so forth. Since private data is being shared (physiological measures, medical records, etc.), implementing security mechanisms in these networks has become a major challenge. The objective of deploying a trustworthy domain is achieving a nonspecific security mechanism that can be used in a plethora of network topologies and with heterogeneous application requirements. Another very important challenge is resilience. In fact, if a stand-alone and self-configuring WSN is required, an autosetup mechanism is necessary in order to maintain an acceptable level of service in the face of security issues or faulty hardware. This paper presents SensoTrust, a novel security model for WSN based on the definition of trustworthy domains, which is adaptable to a wide range of applications and scenarios where services are published as a way to distribute the acquired data. Security domains can be deployed as an add-on service to merge with any service already deployed, obtaining a new secured service.