Environmental Authentication in Malware

Malware needs to execute on a target machine while simultaneously keeping its payload confidential from a malware analyst. Standard encryption can be used to ensure the confidentiality, but it does not address the problem of hiding the key. Any analyst can find the decryption key if it is stored in the malware or derived in plain view. One approach is to derive the key from a part of the environment which changes when the analyst is present. Such malware derives a key from the environment and encrypts its true functionality under this key. In this paper, we present a formal framework for environmental authentication. We formalize the interaction between malware and analyst in three settings: 1) blind: in which the analyst does not have access to the target environment, 2) basic: where the analyst can load a single analysis toolkit on an effected target, and 3) resettable: where the analyst can create multiple copies of an infected environment. We show necessary and sufficient conditions for malware security in the blind and basic games and show that even under mild conditions, the analyst can always win in the resettable scenario

Preparing millennials as digital citizens and socially and environmentally responsible business professionals in a socially irresponsible climate

As of 2015, a millennial born in the 1990's became the largest population in the workplace and are still growing. Studies indicate that a millennial is tech savvy but lag in the exercise of digital responsibility. In addition, they are passive towards environmental sustainability and fail to grasp the importance of social responsibility. This paper provides a review of such findings relating to business communications educators in their classrooms. The literature should enable the development of a millennial as an excellent global citizen through business communications curricula that emphasizes digital citizenship, environmental sustainability and social responsibility. The impetus for this work is to provide guidance in the development of courses and teaching strategies customized to the development of each millennial as a digital, environmental and socially responsible global citizen

SPARC 2018 Internationalisation and collaboration : Salford postgraduate annual research conference book of abstracts

Welcome to the Book of Abstracts for the 2018 SPARC conference. This year we not only celebrate the work of our PGRs but also the launch of our Doctoral School, which makes this year’s conference extra special. Once again we have received a tremendous contribution from our postgraduate research community; with over 100 presenters, the conference truly showcases a vibrant PGR community at Salford. These abstracts provide a taster of the research strengths of their works, and provide delegates with a reference point for networking and initiating critical debate. With such wide-ranging topics being showcased, we encourage you to take up this great opportunity to engage with researchers working in different subject areas from your own. To meet global challenges, high impact research inevitably requires interdisciplinary collaboration. This is recognised by all major research funders. Therefore engaging with the work of others and forging collaborations across subject areas is an essential skill for the next generation of researchers

Nurturing a Digital Learning Environment for Adults 55+

Being digitally competent means having competences in all areas of DigComp: Information and data literacy, Communication and collaboration, Digital content creation, Safety and Problem-solving. More than other demographic categories, adults 55+ have a wide range of levels of digitalization. Depending on their level of competences, individuals may join self-administered online courses to improve their skills, or they may need guidance from adult educators. Taking into consideration the above situation and willing to address adult learners regardless of their initial skill levels, the proposed educational programme is carefully designed for both: self-administrated and educator-led training. It comprises five totally innovative courses that can be separately taught or can be integrated into a complex programme delivered by adult education organizations. These courses are the result of an ERASMUS+ project “Digital Facilitator for Adults 55+”. Chapter 1 introduces the methodology for designing attractive and engaging educational materials for adults’ digital skills improvement. The methodology clarifies the inputs, the development process and the expected results. An ample explanation of the five phases of the 5E instructional strategy is presented to help adult educators build a sequence of coherent and engaging learning stages. With this approach, learners are supported to think, work, gather ideas, identify their own skill levels and needs, analyse their progress, and communicate with others under the guidance of educators. Following up on the proposed methodology, in Chapter 2 researchers from Formative Footprint (Spain), TEAM4Excellence (Romania), Voluntariat Pentru Viata (Romania) and Saricam Halk Egitimi Merkezi (Turkey) developed five course modules in line with the DIGCOMP - Digital Competence Framework for Citizens. These modules address the competence areas of information and data literacy, communication and collaboration, digital content creation, safety, and problem-solving. Each course module comprises digital textbooks, videos, interactive activities and means for evaluation developed using the 5E instructional model strategy. Understanding that accessibility is one of the main components of lifelong learning education, Chapter 3 of the manual provides an overview of the integration of educational materials, tools, instruments, video tutorials as well as DIFA55+ web app in the digital educational ecosystem. Finally, the authors formulate recommendations for usability and transferability that go beyond individuals, ensuring that educational materials are user-friendly and effective while making it easier to apply successful pedagogical approaches in other complementary educational contexts or projects.Grant Agreement—2021-1-RO01-KA220-ADU-000035297, Digital Facilitator for Adults 55

Malware detection based on graph attention networks for intelligent transportation systems

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) aim to make transportation smarter, safer, reliable, and environmentally friendly without detrimentally affecting the service quality. ITS can face security issues due to their complex, dynamic, and non-linear properties. One of the most critical security problems is attacks that damage the infrastructure of the entire ITS. Attackers can inject malware code that triggers dangerous actions such as information theft and unwanted system moves. The main objective of this study is to improve the performance of malware detection models using Graph Attention Networks. To detect malware attacks addressing ITS, a Graph Attention Network (GAN)-based framework is proposed in this study. The inputs to this framework are the Application Programming Interface (API)-call graphs obtained from malware and benign Android apk files. During the graph creation, network metrics and the Node2Vec model are utilized to generate the node features. A GAN-based model is combined with different types of node features during the experiments and the performance is compared against Graph Convolutional Network (GCN). Experimental results demonstrated that the integration of the GAN and Node2Vec models provides the best performance in terms of F-measure and accuracy parameters and, also, the use of an attention mechanism in GAN improves the performance. Furthermore, node features generated with Node2Vec resulted in a 3% increase in classification accuracy compared to the features generated with network metrics. 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.Scopus2-s2.0-8511720183

Fog computing scheduling algorithm for smart city

With the advent of the number of smart devices across the globe, increasing the number of users using the Internet. The main aim of the fog computing (FC) paradigm is to connect huge number of smart objects (billions of object) that can make a bright future for smart cities. Due to the large deployments of smart devices, devices are expected to generate huge amounts of data and forward the data through the Internet. FC also refers to an edge computing framework that mitigates the issue by applying the process of knowledge discovery using a data analysis approach to the edges. Thus, the FC approaches can work together with the internet of things (IoT) world, which can build a sustainable infrastructure for smart cities. In this paper, we propose a scheduling algorithm namely the weighted round-robin (WRR) scheduling algorithm to execute the task from one fog node (FN) to another fog node to the cloud. Firstly, a fog simulator is used with the emergent concept of FC to design IoT infrastructure for smart cities. Then, spanning-tree routing (STP) protocol is used for data collection and routing. Further, 5G networks are proposed to establish fast transmission and communication between users. Finally, the performance of our proposed system is evaluated in terms of response time, latency, and amount of data used

Cyber Infrastructure Protection: Vol. III

Despite leaps in technological advancements made in computing system hardware and software areas, we still hear about massive cyberattacks that result in enormous data losses. Cyberattacks in 2015 included: sophisticated attacks that targeted Ashley Madison, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the White House, and Anthem; and in 2014, cyberattacks were directed at Sony Pictures Entertainment, Home Depot, J.P. Morgan Chase, a German steel factory, a South Korean nuclear plant, eBay, and others. These attacks and many others highlight the continued vulnerability of various cyber infrastructures and the critical need for strong cyber infrastructure protection (CIP). This book addresses critical issues in cybersecurity. Topics discussed include: a cooperative international deterrence capability as an essential tool in cybersecurity; an estimation of the costs of cybercrime; the impact of prosecuting spammers on fraud and malware contained in email spam; cybersecurity and privacy in smart cities; smart cities demand smart security; and, a smart grid vulnerability assessment using national testbed networks.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1412/thumbnail.jp