Intrusion Detection Systems for Community Wireless Mesh Networks

Wireless mesh networks are being increasingly used to provide affordable network connectivity to communities where wired deployment strategies are either not possible or are prohibitively expensive. Unfortunately, computer networks (including mesh networks) are frequently being exploited by increasingly profit-driven and insidious attackers, which can affect their utility for legitimate use. In response to this, a number of countermeasures have been developed, including intrusion detection systems that aim to detect anomalous behaviour caused by attacks. We present a set of socio-technical challenges associated with developing an intrusion detection system for a community wireless mesh network. The attack space on a mesh network is particularly large; we motivate the need for and describe the challenges of adopting an asset-driven approach to managing this space. Finally, we present an initial design of a modular architecture for intrusion detection, highlighting how it addresses the identified challenges

Optimizing Anti-Phishing Solutions Based on User Awareness, Education and the Use of the Latest Web Security Solutions

Phishing has grown significantly in volume over the time, becoming the most usual web threat today. The present economic crisis is an added argument for the great increase in number of attempts to cheat internet users, both businesses and private ones. The present research is aimed at helping the IT environment get a more precise view over the phishing attacks in Romania; in order to achieve this goal we have designed an application able to retrieve and interpret phishing related data from five other trusted web sources and compile them into a meaningful and more targeted report. As a conclusion, besides making available regular reports, we underline the need for a higher degree of awareness related to this issue.Security, Phishing, Ev-SSL, Security Solutions

Network Access Control: Disruptive Technology?

Network Access Control (NAC) implements policy-based access control to the trusted network. It regulates entry to the network by the use of health verifiers and policy control points to mitigate the introduction of malicious software. However the current versions of NAC may not be the universal remedy to endpoint security that many vendors tout. Many organizations that are evaluating the technology, but that have not yet deployed a solution, believe that NAC presents an opportunity for severe disruption of their networks. A cursory examination of the technologies used and how they are deployed in the network appears to support this argument. The addition of NAC components can make the network architecture even more complex and subject to failure. However, one recent survey of organizations that have deployed a NAC solution indicates that the \u27common wisdom\u27 about NAC may not be correct

Strategies for successful field deployment in a resource-poor region: Arsenic remediation technology for drinking water

Strong long-term international partnership in science, technology, finance and policy is critical for sustainable field experiments leading to successful commercial deployment of novel technology at community-scale. Although technologies already exist that can remediate arsenic in groundwater, most are too expensive or too complicated to operate on a sustained basis in resource-poor communities with the low technical skill common in rural South Asia. To address this specific problem, researchers at University of California-Berkeley (UCB) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) invented a technology in 2006 called electrochemical arsenic remediation (ECAR). Since 2010, researchers at UCB and LBNL have collaborated with Global Change Program of Jadavpur University (GCP-JU) in West Bengal, India for its social embedding alongside a local private industry group, and with financial support from the Indo-US Technology Forum (IUSSTF) over 2012–2017. During the first 10 months of pilot plant operation (April 2016 to January 2017) a total of 540 m3 (540,000 L) of arsenic-safe water was produced, consistently and reliably reducing arsenic concentrations from initial 252 ± 29 to final 2.9 ± 1 parts per billion (ppb). This paper presents the critical strategies in taking a technology from a lab in the USA to the field in India for commercialization to address the technical, socio-economic, and political aspects of the arsenic public health crisis while targeting several sustainable development goals (SDGs). The lessons learned highlight the significance of designing a technology contextually, bridging the knowledge divide, supporting local livelihoods, and complying with local regulations within a defined Critical Effort Zone period with financial support from an insightful funding source focused on maturing inventions and turning them into novel technologies for commercial scale-up. Along the way, building trust with the community through repetitive direct interactions, and communication by the scientists, proved vital for bridging the technology-society gap at a critical stage of technology deployment. The information presented here fills a knowledge gap regarding successful case studies in which the arsenic remediation technology obtains social acceptance and sustains technical performance over time, while operating with financial viability

PALANTIR: Zero-trust architecture for Managed Security Service Provider

The H2020 PALANTIR project aims at delivering a Security-as-a-Service solution to SMEs and microenterprises via the exploitation of containerised Network Functions. However, these functions are conceived by third-party developers and can also be deployed in untrustworthy virtualisation layers, depending on the subscribed delivery model. Therefore, they cannot be trusted and require a stringent monitoring to ensure their harmlessness, as well as adequate measures to remediate any nefarious activities. This paper justifies, details and evaluates a Zero-Trust architecture supporting PALANTIR’s solution. Specifically, PALANTIR periodically attests the service and infrastructure’s components for signs of compromise by implementing the Trusted Computing paradigm. Verification addresses the firmware, OS and software using UEFI measured boot and Linux Integrity Measurement Architecture, extended to support containerised application attestation. Mitigation actions are supervised by the Recovery Service and the Security Orchestrator based on OSM to, respectively, determine the adequate remediation actions from a recovery policy and enforce them down to the lower layers of the infrastructure through local authenticated enablers. We detail an implementation prototype serving a baseline for quantitative evaluation of our work

A Framework for Establishing Restoration Goals for Contaminated Ecosystems

This article represents 1 of 6 articles in the special series “Restoration of Impaired Ecosystems: An Ounce of Prevention or a Pound of Cure?” The articles result from a Technical Workshop organized by SETAC and the Society for Ecological Restoration, held June 2014 in Jackson, Wyoming, that focused on advancing the practice of restoring ecosystems that have been contaminated or impaired from industrial activities.As natural resources become increasingly limited, the value of restoring contaminated sites, both terrestrial and aquatic, becomes increasingly apparent. Traditionally, goals for remediation have been set before any consideration of goals for ecological restoration. The goals for remediation have focused on removing or limiting contamination whereas restoration goals have targeted the ultimate end use. Here, we present a framework for developing a comprehensive set of achievable goals for ecological restoration of contaminated sites to be used in concert with determining goals for remediation. This framework was developed during a Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) and Society of Ecological Restoration (SER) cosponsored workshop that brought together experts from multiple countries. Although most members were from North America, this framework is designed for use internationally. We discuss the integration of establishing goals for both contaminant remediation and overall restoration, and the need to include both the restoration of ecological and socio-cultural-economic value in the context of contaminated sites. Although recognizing that in some countries there may be regulatory issues associated with contaminants and clean up, landscape setting and social drivers can inform the restoration goals. We provide a decision tree support tool to guide the establishment of restoration goals for contaminated ecosystems. The overall intent of this decision tree is to provide a framework for goal setting and to identify outcomes achievable given the contamination present at a site. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2016;12:264–272. 2015 The Authors. Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Society of Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry (SETAC