Unauthorized Alteration Research Articles

SMDS: Secure Model for Cloud Data Storage

Cloud computing is a computing technique, where a large group of systems are connected to private or public networks, where data owner can store his data on remote systems and frees himself from storage burden and uses the data ondemand, anytime, everywhere. As, a Cloud data user does not possess direct control of his data, security is one of the few challenging issues which needs to be addressed. Security in Cloud computing can be addressed in many directions viz. authentication, integrity, confidentiality and many more. Data integrity or correctness is an issue where there may be some unauthorized alteration in the data without consent of the data owner. In this paper we address the issue of storage correctness in Cloud computing and propose operational algorithms which may be used to build a complete solution.

Biomedical Image Watermarking in Wavelet Domain for Data Integrity Using Bit Majority Algorithm and Multiple Copies of Hidden Information

The current paper presents a novel and unique scheme for biomedical image watermarking in wavelet domain by hiding multiple copies of the same data in the cover image using bit replacement in the horizontal (HL) and vertical (LH) resolution approximation image components. The proposed scheme uses an approach for recovering the hidden information from the damaged copies due to unauthorized alteration of the data by applying an algorithm to find the closest twin of the embedded information by bit majority algorithm. Experimental results of the proposed watermarking technique show much enhancement in the visual and statistical invisibility of hidden information after data recovery that supports the improvement in performance.

Ethical hacking: protecting connected vehicles

Like all networked devices, the digital systems on board vehicles must be protected from cyber criminals. If not, hackers might gain access to the basic functions (steering, brakes and accelerator) and other features of vehicles and control them. The authors’ vehicles have in fact become computers on wheels. One way of beating hackers at their own game is through penetration testing, or rather, ethical hacking. The ultimate objective is to identify vulnerabilities that would allow unauthorised alteration of configuration settings to take control of the vehicle or that would introduce malware into the vehicle. This study provides an introduction to the security concerns around the connected vehicle, how ethical hackers test the exposure of connected vehicles to cyber threats and how they can prevent hacker attacks whether they are via wireless, OBD, USB, Bluetooth, radio or through social engineering.

A Lightweight Data Integrity Scheme for Sensor Networks

Limited energy is the most critical constraint that limits the capabilities of wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Most sensors operate on batteries with limited power. Battery recharging or replacement may be impossible. Security mechanisms that are based on public key cryptographic algorithms such as RSA and digital signatures are prohibitively expensive in terms of energy consumption and storage requirements, and thus unsuitable for WSN applications. This paper proposes a new fragile watermarking technique to detect unauthorized alterations in WSN data streams. We propose the FWC-D scheme, which uses group delimiters to keep the sender and receivers synchronized and help them to avoid ambiguity in the event of data insertion or deletion. The watermark, which is computed using a hash function, is stored in the previous group in a linked-list fashion to ensure data freshness and mitigate replay attacks, FWC-D generates a serial number SN that is attached to each group to help the receiver determines how many group insertions or deletions occurred. Detailed security analysis that compares the proposed FWC-D scheme with SGW, one of the latest integrity schemes for WSNs, shows that FWC-D is more robust than SGW. Simulation results further show that the proposed scheme is much faster than SGW.

A schema for protecting the integrity of databases

Unauthorized changes to databases can result in significant losses for organizations as well as individuals. Watermarking can be used to protect the integrity of databases against unauthorized alterations. Prior work focused on watermarking database tables or relations. Malicious alteration cannot be detected in all cases. In this paper we argue that watermarking database indexes in addition to the database tables would improve the detection of unauthorized alterations. Usually, each database table in commercial applications has more than one index attached to it. Thus, watermarking the database table and all its indexes improve the likelihood of detecting malicious attacks. In general, watermarking different indexes like R-trees, B-trees, Hashes, require different watermarking techniques and exploit different redundancies in the underlying data structure. This diversity in watermarking techniques contributes to the overall integrity of the databases. Traditional relational watermarks introduce some error to the watermarked values and thus cannot be applied to all attributes. This paper proposes a novel watermarking scheme for R-tree data structures that does not change the values of the attributes. Moreover, the watermark does not change the size of the R-tree. The proposed technique takes advantage of the fact that R-trees do not put conditions on the order of entries inside the node. In the proposed scheme, entries inside R-tree nodes are rearranged, relative to a “secret” initial order (a secret key), in a way that corresponds to the value of the watermark. To achieve that, we propose a one-to-one mapping between all possible permutations of entries in the R-tree node and all possible values of the watermark. Without loss of generality, watermarks are assumed to be numeric values. The proposed mapping employs a numbering system that uses variable base with factorial value. The detection rate of the malicious attacks depends on the nature of the attack, distribution of the data, and the size of the R-tree node. Our extensive analysis and experimental results showed that the proposed technique detects data alteration with high probability (that reaches up to 99%) on real datasets using reasonable node sizes and attack model. The watermark insertion and extraction are mainly main memory operations, and thus, have minimal effect on the cost of R-tree operations.

Conceptual Framework of A New Secure Storage System for Medical Data Archiving

The storage, retrieval, and manipulation of digital data, such as digital medical images, signals, and even documents (medical reports), and the analysis of the information held in these data are important requirements for the current and the next-generation medical archiving systems. The medical information is the most sensitive data, which requires strong security measures. In the medical archiving systems, the most of the security depends on the mandatory access controls, and the encryption of the vital data. The problems with these techniques arise when an unauthorized client has the knowledge regarding the existence of the secured data in the system; this can make the system vulnerable to alterations, extraction or destroying of the secured data.This paper presents a new conceptual framework of secure storage system for medical data (digital medical images, documents, and signals, etc.) archiving through the use of steganographic and cryptographic techniques. The main objectives are: 1) To present a new conceptual framework of a multilayer database system for medical data archiving, 2) To provide highest level of security and privacy of the vital information in the database against unauthorized alteration or destruction by any personnel; and 3) To combine steganography and cryptography in the infrastructure of the database system to further increase the security of the crucial data.

SPUTERS: An Integrated Traffic Surveillance and Emergency Response Architecture

Secure Progressively Updatable Traffic Emergency Response System (SPUTERS) is a framework for collecting traffic-surveillance data in crash-prone areas of roadways. SPUTERS receives as input video, audio, and text-based data from an integrated collection of distributed cameras and sensors, both vehicle-borne and those embedded in the roadway infrastructure. Under nominal roadway operating conditions, the multimedia data are used to develop incident countermeasures. During degraded modes of roadway operation, SPUTERS generates progressive updates to create a shared situational awareness among the people who orchestrate responses to traffic incidents and emergencies. In addition to addressing performance-oriented quality-of-service requirements for interactive display of data on handheld devices, SPUTERS relies on role-based access control to safeguard the privacy of roadway users under surveillance, preventing privileged information collected and managed by the system from being leaked to unauthorized persons. In order to enhance security, SPUTERS uses symmetric key encryption to guard against the unauthorized alteration of the surveillance data.

:Artemisia Gentileschi around 1622: The Shaping and Reshaping of an Artistic Identity

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Preface Introduction: Connoisseurship in a New Key Gender and the Social Construction of Artistic Identity Gender and the Personal Formation of Artistic Identity PART ONE: A New Magdalen A Tale of Two Pictures Artemisia and Mary Magdalene The Example of Caravaggio The Example of Michelangelo Artemisia as the Allegory of Painting The Magdalen as Melancholy The Reappropriation of Gendered Melancholy PART TWO: The Burghley House Susanna A Problem Picture Susanna in the Garden of Love Susanna as Social Scapegoat The Picture: Technical Analysis and Documentation Collaboration or Unauthorized Alteration? Artemisia and Susanna, Public and Audience Conclusion: The Shaping of a Complex Identity Notes Works Cited Index

A Mechanism for Database Protection in Cellular-Logic Devices

Protection of data in a database against unauthorized disclosure, alteration, or destruction is an important aspect of a multiuser database system. In a system which uses a celiular-logic device as a means for data management applications, protection can be achieved in part by associating security windows with queries. This paper describes a mechanism for dynamically creating these windows for cellular-logic devices. The mechanism mainly benefits from the associative techniques such as content and context searches, tagging and marking data, etc. These techniques allow the windows to be created physically by simultaneously activating related access control decision procedures, which implement access control decisions employed by the system, to mask out those data to which the user does not have the right of access. Furthermore, they enable the content-dependent security decisions to be efficiently implemented, eliminating the drawbacks found in conventional systems. Thus, a query accessing to a protected database system is identical to a query accessing to its companion window. An implementation of this mechanism on the cellular-logic device CASSM is also presented.

Sealing electronic money in Sweden

Until today, there is no simple way to discover criminal changes of valuable information during transportation, transmission or storage. The Electronic Seal is constructed to meet this threat. The Seal-product is a software algorithm with cryptological qualities. The algorithm calculates an extremely qualified hash total, Seal, from the information to be protected and a unique secret key. The protected information remains in plaintext. Unauthorized alterations of it are always revealed by the Seal-method, provided that the Seal-key has been kept secret. In Sweden, the Seal method is now mainly used to protect electronic payments, clearing of check transactions between banks and salary-depositing from companies. The Swedish Bankers Association has approved the Seal-method as a Swedish bank standard for EDP protection. Banks in Norway, Finland and Denmark are also using or planning to use the method. The Seal program can be installed on all types of computers to protect data exchange or in-house files and production programs. This article describes this new method, the need for it and various applications.

Unauthorized alterations

Unauthorized alterations