Improving Attack Trees Analysis using Petri Net modeling of Cyber-Attacks

Publisher Copyright: © 2019 IEEE.Cyber security is one general concern to all network-based organizations. In recent years, by significant increasing cyber-attacks in critical infrastructures (CIs) the need of smart prediction, awareness and protection systems is not deniable. The first step for security assessment is on recognizing and analyzing attacks. In this paper, one of the graphical security assessments named Attack Tree (AT) is used to illustrate one kind of cyber-attacks scenario in Industry 4.0 and the system's behavior is analyzed by Petri Nets.authorsversionpublishe

Assessing database and network threats in traditional and cloud computing

Cloud Computing is currently one of the most widely-spoken terms in IT. While it offers a range of technological and financial benefits, its wide acceptance by organizations is not yet wide spread. Security concerns are a main reason for this and this paper studies the data and network threats posed in both traditional and cloud paradigms in an effort to assert in which areas cloud computing addresses security issues and where it does introduce new ones. This evaluation is based on Microsoft’s STRIDE threat model and discusses the stakeholders, the impact and recommendations for tackling each threat

Data Exfiltration:A Review of External Attack Vectors and Countermeasures

AbstractContext One of the main targets of cyber-attacks is data exfiltration, which is the leakage of sensitive or private data to an unauthorized entity. Data exfiltration can be perpetrated by an outsider or an insider of an organization. Given the increasing number of data exfiltration incidents, a large number of data exfiltration countermeasures have been developed. These countermeasures aim to detect, prevent, or investigate exfiltration of sensitive or private data. With the growing interest in data exfiltration, it is important to review data exfiltration attack vectors and countermeasures to support future research in this field. Objective This paper is aimed at identifying and critically analysing data exfiltration attack vectors and countermeasures for reporting the status of the art and determining gaps for future research. Method We have followed a structured process for selecting 108 papers from seven publication databases. Thematic analysis method has been applied to analyse the extracted data from the reviewed papers. Results We have developed a classification of (1) data exfiltration attack vectors used by external attackers and (2) the countermeasures in the face of external attacks. We have mapped the countermeasures to attack vectors. Furthermore, we have explored the applicability of various countermeasures for different states of data (i.e., in use, in transit, or at rest). Conclusion This review has revealed that (a) most of the state of the art is focussed on preventive and detective countermeasures and significant research is required on developing investigative countermeasures that are equally important; (b) Several data exfiltration countermeasures are not able to respond in real-time, which specifies that research efforts need to be invested to enable them to respond in real-time (c) A number of data exfiltration countermeasures do not take privacy and ethical concerns into consideration, which may become an obstacle in their full adoption (d) Existing research is primarily focussed on protecting data in ‘in use’ state, therefore, future research needs to be directed towards securing data in ‘in rest’ and ‘in transit’ states (e) There is no standard or framework for evaluation of data exfiltration countermeasures. We assert the need for developing such an evaluation framework

Security-aware selection of Web Services for Reliable Composition

Dependability is an important characteristic that a trustworthy computer system should have. It is a measure of Availability, Reliability, Maintainability, Safety and Security. The focus of our research is on security of web services. Web services enable the composition of independent services with complementary functionalities to produce value-added services, which allows organizations to implement their core business only and outsource other service components over the Internet, either pre-selected or on-the-fly. The selected third party web services may have security vulnerabilities. Vulnerable web services are of limited practical use. We propose to use an intrusion-tolerant composite web service for each functionality that should be fulfilled by a third party web service. The third party services employed in this approach should be selected based on their security vulnerabilities in addition to their performance. The security vulnerabilities of the third party services are assessed using a penetration testing tool. In this paper we present our preliminary research work

Analyzing and Estimating Cyberattack Trends by Performing Data Mining on a Cybersecurity Data Set

More than five billion personal information has been compromised over the past eight years through data breaches from notable companies, and the damage related to cybercrime is expected to reach six trillion USD annually by the year of 2021. Interestingly, recent cyberattacks were aimed specifically at credit agencies and companies that hold credit information of their customers and employees. The question is: “Why is it difficult to protect against or evade cyberattacks even for these prestigious companies?”. The purpose of this research is to bring the notion of notorious, rapidly-multiplying cyberthreats. Hence, the research focuses on analyzing cyberattack techniques and finding effectiveness of surveillance methods that companies utilize to protect themselves from cyberattacks. In order to achieve this, we selected cyberattacks information and analyzed the data set through data mining, and the research findings suggest a future trend of cyberattacks efficient countermeasures. From the information gathered through data mining, the research findings suggest a future trend of cyberattacks and efficient countermeasures

From Intrusion Detection to an Intrusion Response System: Fundamentals, Requirements, and Future Directions

In the past few decades, the rise in attacks on communication devices in networks has resulted in a reduction of network functionality, throughput, and performance. To detect and mitigate these network attacks, researchers, academicians, and practitioners developed Intrusion Detection Systems (IDSs) with automatic response systems. The response system is considered an important component of IDS, since without a timely response IDSs may not function properly in countering various attacks, especially on a real-time basis. To respond appropriately, IDSs should select the optimal response option according to the type of network attack. This research study provides a complete survey of IDSs and Intrusion Response Systems (IRSs) on the basis of our in-depth understanding of the response option for different types of network attacks. Knowledge of the path from IDS to IRS can assist network administrators and network staffs in understanding how to tackle different attacks with state-of-the-art technologies