Reputation-Based Internet Protocol Security: A Multilayer Security Framework for Mobil Ad Hoc Networks

This research effort examines the theory, application, and results for a Reputation-based Internet Protocol Security (RIPSec) framework that provides security for an ad-hoc network operating in a hostile environment. In RIPSec, protection from external threats is provided in the form of encrypted communication links and encryption-wrapped nodes while internal threats are mitigated by behavior grading that assigns reputations to nodes based on their demonstrated participation in the routing process. Network availability is provided by behavior grading and round-robin multipath routing. If a node behaves faithfully, it earns a positive reputation over time. If a node misbehaves (for any number of reasons, not necessarily intentional), it earns a negative reputation. Each member of the MANET has its own unique and subjective set of Reputation Indexes (RI) that enumerates the perceived reputation of the other MANET nodes. Nodes that desire to send data will eliminate relay nodes they perceive to have a negative reputation during the formulation of a route. A 50-node MANET is simulated with streaming multimedia and varying levels of misbehavior to determine the impact of the framework on network performance. Results of this research were very favorable. Analysis of the simulation data shows the number of routing errors sent in a MANET is reduced by an average of 52% when using RIPSec. The network load is also reduced, decreasing the overall traffic introduced into the MANET and permitting individual nodes to perform more work without overtaxing their limited resources. Finally, throughput is decreased due to larger packet sizes and longer round trips for packets to traverse the MANET, but is still sufficient to pass traffic with high bandwidth requirements (i.e., video and imagery) that is of interest in military networks

Gaming LAN setup with Local and Remote Access and Downloads

The Gaming LAN Setup project aims to design and implement a basic functioning, hardened network that could be utilized locally and remotely to allow users access to respective servers for the option to host a session or join. Users will have the ability to securely log into the internal network to download files via a web interface. The network allows the designated user to take a management position in order to perform basic penetration testing and discover vulnerabilities through various scans to maintain the networ

Design Aspects of a Testbed for an IPv6-Based Future Network for Aeronautical Safety and Non-Safety Communication

Mineralogy & gem

Ein mehrschichtiges sicheres Framework für Fahrzeugsysteme

In recent years, significant developments were introduced within the vehicular domain, evolving the vehicles to become a network of many embedded systems distributed throughout the car, known as Electronic Control Units (ECUs). Each one of these ECUs runs a number of software components that collaborate with each other to perform various vehicle functions. Modern vehicles are also equipped with wireless communication technologies, such as WiFi, Bluetooth, and so on, giving them the capability to interact with other vehicles and roadside infrastructure. While these improvements have increased the safety of the automotive system, they have vastly expanded the attack surface of the vehicle and opened the door for new potential security risks. The situation is made worse by a lack of security mechanisms in the vehicular system which allows the escalation of a compromise in one of the non-critical sub-systems to threaten the safety of the entire vehicle and its passengers. This dissertation focuses on providing a comprehensive framework that ensures the security of the vehicular system during its whole life-cycle. This framework aims to prevent the cyber-attacks against different components by ensuring secure communications among them. Furthermore, it aims to detect attacks which were not prevented successfully, and finally, to respond to these attacks properly to ensure a high degree of safety and stability of the system.In den letzten Jahren wurden bedeutende Entwicklungen im Bereich der Fahrzeuge vorgestellt, die die Fahrzeuge zu einem Netzwerk mit vielen im gesamten Fahrzeug verteile integrierte Systeme weiterentwickelten, den sogenannten Steuergeräten (ECU, englisch = Electronic Control Units). Jedes dieser Steuergeräte betreibt eine Reihe von Softwarekomponenten, die bei der Ausführung verschiedener Fahrzeugfunktionen zusammenarbeiten. Moderne Fahrzeuge sind auch mit drahtlosen Kommunikationstechnologien wie WiFi, Bluetooth usw. ausgestattet, die ihnen die Möglichkeit geben, mit anderen Fahrzeugen und der straßenseitigen Infrastruktur zu interagieren. Während diese Verbesserungen die Sicherheit des Fahrzeugsystems erhöht haben, haben sie die Angriffsfläche des Fahrzeugs erheblich vergrößert und die Tür für neue potenzielle Sicherheitsrisiken geöffnet. Die Situation wird durch einen Mangel an Sicherheitsmechanismen im Fahrzeugsystem verschärft, die es ermöglichen, dass ein Kompromiss in einem der unkritischen Subsysteme die Sicherheit des gesamten Fahrzeugs und seiner Insassen gefährdet kann. Diese Dissertation konzentriert sich auf die Entwicklung eines umfassenden Rahmens, der die Sicherheit des Fahrzeugsystems während seines gesamten Lebenszyklus gewährleistet. Dieser Rahmen zielt darauf ab, die Cyber-Angriffe gegen verschiedene Komponenten zu verhindern, indem eine sichere Kommunikation zwischen ihnen gewährleistet wird. Darüber hinaus zielt es darauf ab, Angriffe zu erkennen, die nicht erfolgreich verhindert wurden, und schließlich auf diese Angriffe angemessen zu reagieren, um ein hohes Maß an Sicherheit und Stabilität des Systems zu gewährleisten

Context transfer support for mobility management in all-IP networks.

This thesis is a description of the research undertaken in the course of the PhD and evolves around a context transfer protocol which aims to complement and support mobility management in next generation mobile networks. Based on the literature review, it was identified that there is more to mobility management than handover management and the successful change of routing paths. Supportive mechanisms like fast handover, candidate access router discovery and context transfer can significantly contribute towards achieving seamless handover which is especially important in the case of real time services. The work focused on context transfer motivated by the fact that it could offer great benefits to session re-establishment during the handover operation of a mobile user and preliminary testbed observations illustrated the need for achieving this. Context transfer aims to minimize the impact of certain transport, routing, security-related services on the handover performance. When a mobile node (MN) moves to a new subnet it needs to continue such services that have already been established at the previous subnet. Examples of such services include AAA profile, IPsec state, header compression, QoS policy etc. Re-establishing these services at the new subnet will require a considerable amount of time for the protocol exchanges and as a result time- sensitive real-time traffic will suffer during this time. By transferring state to the new domain candidate services will be quickly re-established. This would also contribute to the seamless operation of application streams and could reduce susceptibility to errors. Furthermore, re-initiation to and from the mobile node will be avoided hence wireless bandwidth efficiency will be conserved. In this research an extension to mobility protocols was proposed for supporting state forwarding capabilities. The idea of forwarding states was also explored for remotely reconfiguring middleboxes to avoid any interruption of a mobile users' sessions or services. Finally a context transfer module was proposed to facilitate the integration of such a mechanism in next generation architectures. The proposals were evaluated analytically, via simulations or via testbed implementation depending on the scenario investigated. The results demonstrated that the proposed solutions can minimize the impact of security services like authentication, authorization and firewalls on a mobile user's multimedia sessions and thus improving the overall handover performance

Security Issues in Hybrid Satellite Networks

Satellites are expected to play an increasingly important role in providing broadband Internet services over long distances in an efficient manner. Future networks will be hybrid in nature - having terrestrial nodes interconnected by satellite links. Security is an important concern in such networks, since the satellite segment is susceptible to a host of attacks including eavesdropping, session hijacking and data corruption. In this paper we address the issue of securing communication in satellite networks. We describe the different kinds of hybrid network topologies considered for deployment. We discuss various security attacks that are possible in these networks, and survey the different solutions proposed to secure communications in the hybrid networks. We point out important drawbacks in the various proposed solutions, and suggest a hierarchical approach to add security to the hybrid networks

The Dark Side(-Channel) of Mobile Devices: A Survey on Network Traffic Analysis

In recent years, mobile devices (e.g., smartphones and tablets) have met an increasing commercial success and have become a fundamental element of the everyday life for billions of people all around the world. Mobile devices are used not only for traditional communication activities (e.g., voice calls and messages) but also for more advanced tasks made possible by an enormous amount of multi-purpose applications (e.g., finance, gaming, and shopping). As a result, those devices generate a significant network traffic (a consistent part of the overall Internet traffic). For this reason, the research community has been investigating security and privacy issues that are related to the network traffic generated by mobile devices, which could be analyzed to obtain information useful for a variety of goals (ranging from device security and network optimization, to fine-grained user profiling). In this paper, we review the works that contributed to the state of the art of network traffic analysis targeting mobile devices. In particular, we present a systematic classification of the works in the literature according to three criteria: (i) the goal of the analysis; (ii) the point where the network traffic is captured; and (iii) the targeted mobile platforms. In this survey, we consider points of capturing such as Wi-Fi Access Points, software simulation, and inside real mobile devices or emulators. For the surveyed works, we review and compare analysis techniques, validation methods, and achieved results. We also discuss possible countermeasures, challenges and possible directions for future research on mobile traffic analysis and other emerging domains (e.g., Internet of Things). We believe our survey will be a reference work for researchers and practitioners in this research field.Comment: 55 page

Traffic engineering multi-layer optimization for wireless mesh network transmission a campus network routing protocol transmission performance inhancement

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel UniversityThe wireless mesh network is a potential network for the future due to its excellent inherent characteristic for dynamic self-healing, self-configuration and self-organization. It also has the advantage of easy interoperability networking and the ability to form multi-linked ad-hoc networks. It has a decentralized topology, is cheap and highly scalable. Furthermore, its ease in deployment and easy maintenance are other inherent networking qualities. These aforementioned qualities of the wireless mesh network bring advantages to transmission capability of heterogeneous networks. However, transmissions in wireless mesh network create comparative performance based challenges such as congestion, load-balancing, scalability over increasing networks and coverage capacity. Consequently, these challenges and problems in the routing and switching of packets in the wireless mesh network routing protocols led to a proposal on the resolution of these failures with a combination algorithm and a management based security for the network and its transmitted packets. There are equally contentious services like reliability of the network and quality of service for real-time multimedia traffic flows with other challenges such as path computation and selection in the wireless mesh network. This thesis is therefore a cumulative proposal to the resolution of the outlined challenges and open research areas posed by using wireless mesh network routing protocol. It advances the resolution of these challenges in the mesh environment using a hybrid optimization – traffic engineering, to increase the effectiveness and the reliability of the network. It also proffers a cumulative resolution of the diverse contributions on wireless mesh network routing protocol and transmission. Adaptation and optimization are carried out on the wireless mesh network designed network using traffic engineering mechanism and technique. The research examines the patterns of mesh packet transmission and evaluates the challenges and failures in the mesh network packet transmission. It develops a solution based algorithm for resolutions and proposes the traffic engineering based solution.. These resultant performances and analysis are usually tested and compared over wireless mesh IEEE802.11n or other older proposed documented solution. This thesis used a carefully designed campus mesh network to show a comparative evaluation of an optimal performance of the mesh nodes and routers over a normal IEE802.11n based wireless domain network to show differentiation by optimization using the created algorithms. Furthermore, the indexes of performance being the metric are used to measure the utility and the reliability, including capacity and throughput at the destination during traffic engineered transmission. In addition, the security of these transmitted data and packets are optimized under a traffic engineered technique. Finally, this thesis offers an understanding to the security contribution using traffic engineering resolution to create a management algorithm for processing and computation of the wireless mesh networks security needs. The results of this thesis confirmed, completed and extended the existing predictions with real measurement