Bootbandit: A macOS Bootloader Attack

Full disk encryption (FDE) is used to protect a computer system against data theft by physical access. If a laptop or hard disk drive protected with FDE is stolen or lost, the data remains unreadable without the encryption key. To foil this defense, an intruder can gain physical access to a computer system in a so-called “evil maid” attack, install malware in the boot (pre-operating system) environment, and use the malware to intercept the victim’s password. Such an attack relies on the fact that the system is in a vulnerable state before booting into the operating system. In this paper, we discuss an evil maid type of attack, in which the victim’s password is stolen in the boot environment, passed to the macOS user environment, and then exfiltrated from the system to the attacker’s remote command and control server. On a macOS system, this attack has additional implications due to “password forwarding” technology, in which users’ account passwords also serve as FDE passwords

Monthly progress report

This report is the mid-year report intended for the design concepts for the communication network for the Advanced Solid Rocket Motor (ASRM) facility being built at Yellow Creek near Iuka, MS. The overall network is to include heterogeneous computers, to use various protocols, and to have different bandwidths. Performance consideration must be given to the potential network applications in the network environment. The performance evaluation of X window applications was given the major emphasis in this report. A simulation study using Bones will be included later. This mid-year report has three parts: Part 1 is an investigation of X window traffic using TCP/IP over Ethernet networks; part 2 is a survey study of performance concepts of X window applications with Macintosh computers; and the last part is a tutorial on DECnet protocols. The results of this report should be useful in the design and operation of the ASRM communication network

Data communication network at the ASRM facility

The main objective of the report is to present the overall communication network structure for the Advanced Solid Rocket Motor (ASRM) facility being built at Yellow Creek near Iuka, Mississippi. This report is compiled using information received from NASA/MSFC, LMSC, AAD, and RUST Inc. As per the information gathered, the overall network structure will have one logical FDDI ring acting as a backbone for the whole complex. The buildings will be grouped into two categories viz. manufacturing critical and manufacturing non-critical. The manufacturing critical buildings will be connected via FDDI to the Operational Information System (OIS) in the main computing center in B 1000. The manufacturing non-critical buildings will be connected by 10BASE-FL to the Business Information System (BIS) in the main computing center. The workcells will be connected to the Area Supervisory Computers (ASCs) through the nearest manufacturing critical hub and one of the OIS hubs. The network structure described in this report will be the basis for simulations to be carried out next year. The Comdisco's Block Oriented Network Simulator (BONeS) will be used for the network simulation. The main aim of the simulations will be to evaluate the loading of the OIS, the BIS, the ASCs, and the network links by the traffic generated by the workstations and workcells throughout the site

Designing and Implementing a Distributed Social Network Service for Mobile Devices

The paper presents a new paradigm for building social network services. The proposed plat-form is called eXtensible Social Network. As it uses the XMPP protocol for authentication and communication, it allows users from different service providers interact with each other, without having to change their accounts. Moreover, the platform provides means for users to authenticate and interact with each other while temporary disconnected from the Internet. Moreover, the platform is specially designed for mobile devices, running on their restrictive operating systems and taking advantage of the systems optimizations.Social Network, Mobile Devices, Service, XMPP, iOS, Android, Distributed, Plat-form

Intelligent Coordination and Automation for Smart Home Accessories

Smarthome accessories are rapidly becoming more popular. Although many companies are making devices to take advantage of this market, most of the created smart devices are actually unintelligent. Currently, these smart home devices require meticulous, tedious configuration to get any sort of enhanced usability over their analog counterparts. We propose building a general model using machine learning and data science to automatically learn a user\u27s smart accessory usage to predict their configuration. We have identified the requirements, collected data, recognized the risks, implemented the system, and have met the goals we set out to accomplish

TechNews digests: Jan - Nov 2006

TechNews is a technology, news and analysis service aimed at anyone in the education sector keen to stay informed about technology developments, trends and issues. TechNews focuses on emerging technologies and other technology news. TechNews service : digests september 2004 till May 2010 Analysis pieces and News combined publish every 2 to 3 month