Incorporating Security Features Research Articles

Low-Cost Solution for Adding Safety Functions to Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs)

Increasing requirements in automation and production make control systems more complex and vulnerable to failure. Breakdowns can cause delays in production, material damage, and above all, work-related accidents. For this reason, directives and legislation have been created at the country, European Union, and global levels that define the essential safety and requirements of industrial equipment. Guidelines must be observed by those involved in the design, supply, purchase, or use of industrial equipment in the European Union and several countries outside the European Union. Some guidelines (CAT, SIL) are created to ensure their safe operation in case of failure of both the hardware and the software. For a reliable operation of a fail safety system together with a system operating at SIL2 or SIL3, it must have Safety hardware and software. Industrial equipment manufacturers are incorporating security features into a variety of devices. Depending on the Safety Integrity Level (SIL) requirements, these features can be used during the design phase to increase safety in the event of failures or malfunctions. With proper design, the process as well as its environment (including people) can be protected by entering a controlled safe state. Manufacturers have approached this problem in a number of ways, including adding redundant Central Processing Units (CPUs), using special hardware to interface input and output signals, and developing secure network protocols for communication. Unfortunately, these features cannot be added to existing machines, at least without upgrading some hardware. As the associated costs lead to slower adoption, manufacturers rely on previous work to support certain security features, notably CPU debugging. This is implemented in the form of software libraries that operate at a low level (logic gate), designed to run on older hardware (PLC) so that they can offer an increased level of security. This study analyzes the required guidelines and legislation that must be followed for the safe operation of a production unit. It describes the mechanisms that basic and specialized PLC systems utilize to ensure the safety of an automation system. The authors have developed algorithms to record behavior measurements of electronic equipment. By further analyzing the results, it is concluded that basic equipment can be reused in these systems to provide safety functions, at the same time conserving both cost and time.

Design and Implementation of Baggao North Central School Computer-Based Record Management System

This study aims to design and develop a computer-based student record management system for Baggao North Central School. The system is expected to streamline the administrative tasks of the school, from keeping track of student records to generating reports. Its user-friendly interface makes it easy for staff to navigate through the system, reducing the chance of human error during record-keeping. Additionally, the quick access feature enables staff to locate student records within seconds, making it an invaluable tool for effective academic management. The system incorporates security features to maintain the privacy of sensitive student information, ensuring that only authorized individuals have access to the data. Moreover, the system ensures that data is always up-to-date and accurate, minimizing the risk of issues arising from inconsistencies in recordkeeping. The system allows selected staff members to input, edit, and view student-related information, promoting seamless information flow within Baggao North Central School (BNCS). This promotes efficiency in managing student records and enables timely decision-making when necessary.

Hesitant Fuzzy-Sets Based Decision-Making Model for Security Risk Assessment

Security is an important component in the process of developing healthcare web applications. We need to ensure security maintenance; therefore the analysis of healthcare web application's security risk is of utmost importance. Properties must be considered to minimise the security risk. Additionally, security risk management activities are revised, prepared, implemented, tracked, and regularly set up efficiently to design the security of healthcare web applications. Managing the security risk of a healthcare web application must be considered as the key component. Security is, in specific, seen as an add-on during the development process of healthcare web applications, but not as the key problem. Researchers must ensure that security is taken into account right from the earlier developmental stages of the healthcare web application. In this row, the authors of this study have used the hesitant fuzzy-based AHP-TOPSIS technique to estimate the risks of various healthcare web applications for improving security-durability. This approach would help to design and incorporate security features in healthcare web applications that would be able to battle threats on their own, and not depend solely on the external security of healthcare web applications. Furthermore, in terms of healthcare web application's security-durability, the security risk variable is measured, and vice versa. Hence, the findings of our study will also be useful in improving the durability of several web applications in healthcare.

Rainbow Signature Scheme to Secure GOOSE Communications From Quantum Computer Attacks

The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 62351-6 standard prescribes provisions to secure IEC 61850-8-1 generic object-oriented substation events (GOOSE) communications from cyber threats. The GOOSE authentication schemes recommended by IEC 62351-6 have shortcomings, such as long authentication-value computation times, large signature lengths, the usage of symmetric keys, and susceptibility to quantum computer attacks. To overcome these, this paper proposes the usage of the rainbow signature scheme (RSS), a quantum cryptographic method to secure GOOSE messages. The RSS offers fast signature generation and verification using asymmetric keys, making it very attractive to meet the time-latency and security requirements of the GOOSE protocol. The adaptation of the RSS cryptography method for its application to the GOOSE protocol is presented in this paper. The algorithms for key generation, signature computation and message verification are discussed in detail. A first-of-its-kind C library that incorporates security features within the GOOSE protocol in compliance with the IEC 62351-6-stipulated format, is developed. The superior features of the RSS in comparison with the other IEC 62351-6 security schemes are demonstrated.

An Edge Driven Security Framework For Intelligent Internet Of Things

The use of IoT technologies has increased from 13 percent in 2014 to about 25 percent today. And around the world number of IoT-connected devices is expected to increase to 43 billion by 2023, a threefold increase from 2018. IoT will continue to grow in device numbers and use cases, but organizations must reckon with the security and interoperability challenges that have plagued the market since the beginning. Building robust IOT applications by incorporating security features has become a necessity. Thus, in this article, an edge-driven security framework architecture is described for intelligent IoT systems. A security framework contains all standard security features required by an application such as authentication, authorization, secure connection etc. We introduce the architecture of edge-driven intelligent IoT, and present typical edge-driven intelligent IoT applications. Second, we point out the security threats in edge-driven intelligent IoT in terms of attack behaviour of adversaries. Third, we develop a case study of edge-driven intelligent IoT from the security perspective. Our focus is to develop a middleware or framework between the Users and IoT Environment to ensure users are connected to IoT environment upon authentication for a contract session and create secure communication via cloud between the users and IoT environment

Intrusion detection techniques in network environment: a systematic review

The entire world relates to some network capabilities in some way or the other. The data transmission on the network is getting more straightforward and quicker. An intrusion detection system helps distinguish unauthorized activities or intrusions that may settle the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of a resource. Nowadays, almost all institutions are using network-related facilities like schools, banks, offices, etc. Social media has become so popular that nearly every individual belongs to a new nation called ‘Netizen.’ Several approaches have been implemented to incorporate security features in network-related issues. However, vulnerable attacks are continuous, so intrusion detection systems have been proposed to secure computer systems and networks. Network security is a piece of the most fundamental issues in Computer Network Management. Moreover, an intrusion is considered to be the most revealed dangers to security. With the evolution of the networks, intrusion detection has emerged as a crucial field in networks’ security. The main aim of this article is to deliver a systematic review of intrusion detection approaches and systems that are used in various network environments.

IoT security vulnerabilities and predictive signal jamming attack analysis in LoRaWAN

Internet of Things (IoT) gains popularity in recent times due to its flexibility, usability, diverse applicability and ease of deployment. However, the issues related to security is less explored. The IoT devices are light weight in nature and have low computation power, low battery life and low memory. As incorporating security features are resource expensive, IoT devices are often found to be less protected and in recent times, more IoT devices have been routinely attacked due to high profile security flaws. This paper aims to explore the security vulnerabilities of IoT devices particularly that use Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWANs). In this work, LoRaWAN based IoT security vulnerabilities are scrutinised and loopholes are identified. An attack was designed and simulated with the use of a predictive model of the device data generation. The paper demonstrated that by predicting the data generation model, jamming attack can be carried out to block devices from sending data successfully. This research will aid in the continual development of any necessary countermeasures and mitigations for LoRaWAN and LPWAN functionality of IoT networks in general.

Using a systematic framework to critically analyze proposed smart card based two factor authentication schemes

The importance of smart card based two factor authentication can be gauged by the fact that many schemes have been proposed so far yet none of them used a systematic framework to critically analyze themselves to prove them practical and use worthy. This research however accomplishes exactly this by showing how using a criteria set can aid in highlighting the underlying hidden weaknesses in the design of the proposed schemes and what can be done to improve them by incorporating security features from the initial development stages of the protocols. This would also ensure only meaningful contribution in developing stronger schemes. Our research also lays the foundation stone by assessing the latest scheme proposed by Xie et al. and suggesting improvements in it. And finally, a novel scheme rating mechanism has been introduced to rate schemes thus helping in determining the actual goodness of the schemes and facilitating top managements of corporate sectors to make informed decisions.

Cyber-Crime and its Effects on E-Commerce Technologies

Adoption and use of e-commerce technologies continue to rise because they provide access to global markets, offer a competitive advantage and increase the effectiveness of businesses. Safety and trust are important factors that affect users' intentions and use of e-commerce technologies. Considering the upsurge of cyber-crime activities and the paucity of research in this domain particularly in developing countries, this paper investigated how cyber-crime perceptions affect users' intention to conduct business via e-commerce technologies. Using a survey approach, an online questionnaire was distributed and data from 476 participants was rigorously analyzed using Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modelling. The paper extends the theory of reasoned action with relevant constructs; trust and cyber-crime perceptions. The relationships between the constructs were based on deductive reasoning from prior studies. The hypothesized model explained 33.1% of the variance in Attitude Towards Behavior and 41.5% of Consumers Intention to Purchase. The results indicate that trust in internet medium, attitude towards behavior, subjective norm and cyber-crime perceptions are significant predictors of intention to purchase using e-commerce. There was, however, no significant relationships between Trust of Ecommerce Sellers and Cyber Crime Perceptions as well as Trust of Ecommerce Sellers and Consumers Purchase Intention. The findings elucidate businesses and stakeholders on the impacts of trust and cyber-crime perceptions on users' purchase intentions. It also inspires e-commerce technology developers to incorporate security features that reduce the vulnerability of these systems. Finally, the findings for this study are limited to respondents from Ghana hence future analysis could explore other countries.

ASE: A comprehensive pattern-driven security methodology for distributed systems

Incorporating security features is one of the most important and challenging tasks in designing distributed systems. Over the last decade, researchers and practitioners have come to recognize that the incorporation of security features should proceed by means of a structured, systematic approach, combining principles from both software and security engineering. Such systematic approaches, particularly those implying some sort of process aligned with the development life-cycle, are termed security methodologies. There are a number of security methodologies in the literature, of which the most flexible and, according to a recent survey, most satisfactory from an industry-adoption viewpoint are methodologies that encapsulate their security solutions in some fashion, especially via the use of security patterns. While the literature does present several mature pattern-driven security methodologies with either a general or a highly specific system applicability, there are currently no (pattern-driven) security methodologies specifically designed for general distributed systems. Going further, there are also currently no methodologies with mixed specific applicability, e.g. for both general and peer-to-peer distributed systems. In this paper we aim to fill these gaps by presenting a comprehensive pattern-driven security methodology – arrived at by applying a previously devised approach to engineering security methodologies – specifically designed for general distributed systems, which is also capable of taking into account the specifics of peer-to-peer systems as needed. Our methodology takes the principle of encapsulation several steps further, by employing patterns not only for the incorporation of security features (via security solution frames), but also for the modeling of threats, and even as part of its process. We illustrate and evaluate the presented methodology in detail via a realistic example – the development of a distributed system for file sharing and collaborative editing. In both the presentation of the methodology and example our focus is on the early life-cycle phases (analysis and design).

Incorporating Security Features in Service-Oriented Architecture using Security Patterns

Service-Oriented Architecture is an architectural style where different heterogeneous components share information with each other by using special types of messages based on the protocol known as Simple Object Access Protocol. Various technologies, such as Common Object Request Broker Architecture, Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition, Java Message Service etc. are applied to realize Service-Oriented Architecture for different applications. Besides these approaches, two other techniques, REpresentational State Transfer, and web services are applied for the realization of Service-Oriented Architecture. Web services provide a platform independent communication scheme between applications. The security preservation among the composition of services is an important task for Service-Oriented Architecture. In this study, an attempt is made to incorporate security features in Service- Oriented Architecture with the help of software security patterns. This scheme is described by developing an architectural model integrated with security goals and security patterns. The structural and behavioral aspects of composition of web services incorporated with security features are presented using a Unified Modeling Language class diagram and a sequence diagram respectively. At the end of this study, an evaluation is performed between identified security patterns and critical security properties along with Service-Oriented Architecture design principles. A case study of an online banking system is considered to explain the use of security patterns.

Authorization Estimation Model: An Object Oriented Design Complexity Perspective

Software security is one of the most considerable domains of software development. It provides a strong mechanism to manage and incorporate security features for precious estimation at design phase. The structural and behavioral design properties of classes, objects and their relationships are evaluated to develop metric for authorization. The assessment of security using the model is more appropriate and its validation signifies the valid impact of structural and functional information of object oriented design software. The authorization quantification model is developed using multiple linear regression technique on object oriented design constructs. The applied statistical analysis on this study concludes its statistical significance remarked that calculated data is highly acceptable. A strong theoretical basis has been developed for designing the metrics required for complexity factors as well as security attributes.

An extensible pattern-based library and taxonomy of security threats for distributed systems

Security is one of the most essential quality attributes of distributed systems, which often operate over untrusted networks such as the Internet. To incorporate security features during the development of a distributed system requires a sound analysis of potential attacks or threats in various contexts, a process that is often termed "threat modeling". To reduce the level of security expertise required, threat modeling can be supported by threat libraries (structured or unstructured lists of threats), which have been found particularly effective in industry scenarios; or attack taxonomies, which offer a classification scheme to help developers find relevant attacks more easily. In this paper we combine the values of threat libraries and taxonomies, and propose an extensible, two-level "pattern-based taxonomy" for (general) distributed systems. The taxonomy is based on the novel concept of a threat pattern, which can be customized and instantiated in different architectural contexts to define specific threats to a system. This allows developers to quickly consider a range of relevant threats in various architectural contexts as befits a threat library, increasing the efficacy of, and reducing the expertise required for, threat modeling. The taxonomy aims to classify a wide variety of more abstract, system- and technology-independent threats, which keeps the number of threats requiring consideration manageable, increases the taxonomy's applicability, and makes it both more practical and more useful for security novices and experts alike. After describing the taxonomy which applies to distributed systems generally, we propose a simple and effective method to construct pattern-based threat taxonomies for more specific system types and/or technology contexts by specializing one or more threat patterns. This allows for the creation of a single application-specific taxonomy. We demonstrate our approach to specialization by constructing a threat taxonomy for peer-to-peer systems.

A Secure and Power Efficient Routing Scheme for Ad Hoc Networks

A recent trend in Ad Hoc network routing is the reactive ondemand philosophy where routes are established only when required. Security and Power efficiency are the major concerns in this field. This paper is an effort to combine these factors of security and power to achieve more reliable routing. Most of the protocols in this category are either incorporating security features or considering power factor. In the study no existing protocol is merging the two factors to see results. The ad hoc environment is accessible to both legitimate network users and malicious attackers. The ad hoc environment has the constraint of power factor. The proposed scheme is intended to incorporate both factors on existing protocols. The study will help in making protocol more robust against attacks and implementing power factor to achieve stable routing in routing protocols

Use of Clear Toner in Electrophotography for Security Applications

Most electrophotographic printers consist of four development modules to generate images based on CYMK process colors. Often a printer hardware design can accommodate more than the standard four development modules. In such cases, extra modules can be used to provide additional features to the resulting image. When colors other than CYMK are used in such fifth or higher electrophotographic modules of a color printer, various enhanced improvements that are possible in the printed image include: spot or corporate colors, extended color gamut colors, and pentachrome or even hexachrome color processes.If a clear toner is used in one of these additional modules, a wide variety of image enrichments can be integrated into the final image. The most common application for the clear toners is to provide a protective barrier to physical abrasion to the image as well as to impart uniform image gloss.Because of increased emphasis on incorporating security features in a color print, clear toner can also be utilized to provide both overt and covert security features within the image. There are several types of security features that can be enabled with the use of these special clear toners. Clear toner can be judiciously placed in or around the image to provide either a positive or a negative watermark to the image. Another security feature that can be enabled with clear toner is raised letter printing to provide a tactile appearance similar to thermography. Not only are these features difficult to copy, but they also provide an easy detection capability. By proper selection of suitable toner additives, clear toner can also be used for alternate features such as traceless security printing and UV fluorescent detection. This work will summarize the novel image features that can be implemented in an electrophotographic system by using a special clear toner in addition to the four process colors.

Threshold-based intrusion detection in ad hoc networks and secure AODV

Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) play an important role in connecting devices in pervasive environments. MANETs provide inexpensive and versatile communication, yet several challenges remain in addressing their security. So far, numerous schemes have been proposed for secure routing and intrusion detection, with only simulations to validate them; little work exists, in implementing such schemes on small handheld devices. In this paper, we present our approach of securing a MANET using a threshold-based intrusion detection system and a secure routing protocol. We present a proof-of-concept implementation of our IDS deployed on handheld devices and in a MANET testbed connected by a secure version of AODV over IPv6 – SecAODV. While the IDS helps detect attacks on data traffic, SecAODV incorporates security features of non-repudiation and authentication, without relying on the availability of a Certificate Authority (CA) or a Key Distribution Center (KDC). We present the design and implementation details of our system, the practical considerations involved, and how these mechanisms can be used to detect and thwart malicious attacks.

Mobile IPv6 Security

Mobile IPv6 provides global mobility and location management support for the IPv6 network layer protocol. The design of Mobile IPv6 incorporates security features that differ significantly from its predecessor, Mobile IPv4. Some of the new security features are intended to counter new threats raised by route optimization, while others align Mobile IPv6 security more closely with basic IPv6 security mechanisms. In this paper, we outline the security threats to Mobile IPv6 and describe how the security features of the Mobile IPv6 protocol mitigate them.

The fundamentals of information security

Some quality models, such as IS0 9126, fail to include computer security. The author explains why security is an essential but difficult facet of quality. As a software professional, you can take several actions to improve the security of your code: (1) learn the techniques of security; (2) when incorporating security features into a system, think like the attacker, i.e. consider each point as a potential weakest link; and, finally, (3) consult an expert.