Advanced Detection Tool for PDF Threats

In this paper we introduce an efficient application for malicious PDF detection: ADEPT. With targeted attacks rising over the recent past, exploring a new detection and mitigation paradigm becomes mandatory. The use of malicious PDF files that exploit vulnerabilities in well-known PDF readers has become a popular vector for targeted at- tacks, for which few efficient approaches exist. Although simple in theory, parsing followed by analysis of such files is resource-intensive and may even be impossible due to several obfuscation and reader-specific artifacts. Our paper describes a new approach for detecting such malicious payloads that leverages machine learning techniques and an efficient feature selection mechanism for rapidly detecting anomalies. We assess our approach on a large selection of malicious files and report the experimental performance results for the developed prototype

Ransomware in High-Risk Environments

In today’s modern world, cybercrime is skyrocketing globally, which impacts a variety of organizations and endpoint users. Hackers are using a multitude of approaches and tools, including ransomware threats, to take over targeted systems. These acts of cybercrime lead to huge damages in areas of business, healthcare systems, industry sectors, and other fields. Ransomware is considered as a high risk threat, which is designed to hijack the data. This paper is demonstrating the ransomware types, and how they are evolved from the malware and trojan codes, which is used to attack previous incidents, and explains the most common encryption algorithms such as AES, and RSA, ransomware uses them during infection process in order to produce complex threats. The practical approach for data encryption uses python programming language to show the efficiency of those algorithms in real attacks by executing this section on Ubuntu virtual machine. Furthermore, this paper analyzes programming languages, which is used to build ransomware. An example of ransomware code is being demonstrated in this paper, which is written specifically in C sharp language, and it has been tested out on windows operating system using MS visual studio. So, it is very important to recognize the system vulnerability, which can be very useful to prevent the ransomware. In contrast, this threat might sneak into the system easily, allowing for a ransom to be demanded. Therefore, understanding ransomware anatomy can help us to find a better solution in different situations. Consequently, this paper shows a number of outstanding removal techniques to get rid from ransomware attacks in the system

Ransomware in High-Risk Environments

In today’s modern world, cybercrime is skyrocketing globally, which impacts a variety of organizations and endpoint users. Hackers are using a multitude of approaches and tools, including ransomware threats, to take over targeted systems. These acts of cybercrime lead to huge damages in areas of business, healthcare systems, industry sectors, and other fields. Ransomware is considered as a high risk threat, which is designed to hijack the data. This paper is demonstrating the ransomware types, and how they are evolved from the malware and trojan codes, which is used to attack previous incidents, and explains the most common encryption algorithms such as AES, and RSA, ransomware uses them during infection process in order to produce complex threats. The practical approach for data encryption uses python programming language to show the efficiency of those algorithms in real attacks by executing this section on Ubuntu virtual machine. Furthermore, this paper analyzes programming languages, which is used to build ransomware. An example of ransomware code is being demonstrated in this paper, which is written specifically in C sharp language, and it has been tested out on windows operating system using MS visual studio. So, it is very important to recognize the system vulnerability, which can be very useful to prevent the ransomware. In contrast, this threat might sneak into the system easily, allowing for a ransom to be demanded. Therefore, understanding ransomware anatomy can help us to find a better solution in different situations. Consequently, this paper shows a number of outstanding removal techniques to get rid from ransomware attacks in the system

Game Theory Meets Network Security: A Tutorial at ACM CCS

The increasingly pervasive connectivity of today's information systems brings up new challenges to security. Traditional security has accomplished a long way toward protecting well-defined goals such as confidentiality, integrity, availability, and authenticity. However, with the growing sophistication of the attacks and the complexity of the system, the protection using traditional methods could be cost-prohibitive. A new perspective and a new theoretical foundation are needed to understand security from a strategic and decision-making perspective. Game theory provides a natural framework to capture the adversarial and defensive interactions between an attacker and a defender. It provides a quantitative assessment of security, prediction of security outcomes, and a mechanism design tool that can enable security-by-design and reverse the attacker's advantage. This tutorial provides an overview of diverse methodologies from game theory that includes games of incomplete information, dynamic games, mechanism design theory to offer a modern theoretic underpinning of a science of cybersecurity. The tutorial will also discuss open problems and research challenges that the CCS community can address and contribute with an objective to build a multidisciplinary bridge between cybersecurity, economics, game and decision theory

Multi-Layer Cyber-Physical Security and Resilience for Smart Grid

The smart grid is a large-scale complex system that integrates communication technologies with the physical layer operation of the energy systems. Security and resilience mechanisms by design are important to provide guarantee operations for the system. This chapter provides a layered perspective of the smart grid security and discusses game and decision theory as a tool to model the interactions among system components and the interaction between attackers and the system. We discuss game-theoretic applications and challenges in the design of cross-layer robust and resilient controller, secure network routing protocol at the data communication and networking layers, and the challenges of the information security at the management layer of the grid. The chapter will discuss the future directions of using game-theoretic tools in addressing multi-layer security issues in the smart grid.Comment: 16 page

An Assessment of PIER Electric Grid Research 2003-2014 White Paper

This white paper describes the circumstances in California around the turn of the 21st century that led the California Energy Commission (CEC) to direct additional Public Interest Energy Research funds to address critical electric grid issues, especially those arising from integrating high penetrations of variable renewable generation with the electric grid. It contains an assessment of the beneficial science and technology advances of the resultant portfolio of electric grid research projects administered under the direction of the CEC by a competitively selected contractor, the University of California’s California Institute for Energy and the Environment, from 2003-2014