21 research outputs found

    Analysing the behaviour of a smart card based model for secure communication with remote computers over the internet

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    This dissertation presents the findings of a generic model aimed at providing secure communication with remote computers via the Internet, based on smart cards. The results and findings are analysed and presented in great detail, in particular the behaviour and performance of smart cards when used to provide the cryptographic functionality. Two implemented models are presented. The first model uses SSL to secure the communication channel over the Internet while using smart cards for user authentication and storage of cryptographic keys. The second model presents the SSH for channel security and smart cards for user authentication, key storage and actual encryption and decryption of data. The model presented is modular and generic by nature, meaning that it can easily be modified to accept the newer protocol by simply including the protocols in a library and with a minor or no modification to both server and client application software. For example, any new algorithm for encryption, key exchange, signature, or message digest, can be easily accommodated into the system, which proves that the model is generic and can easily be integrated into newer technologies. Similarly, smart cards are used for cryptography. Two options are presented: first the smart cards only store the algorithm keys and user authentication, and secondly, smart cards are used for storing the algorithm keys, user authentication, and actual data encryption or decryption, as the requirement may dictate. This is very useful, for example, if data to be transferred is limited to a few bytes, then actual data encryption and decryption is performed using smart cards. On the other hand, if a great deal of data is to be transferred, then only authentication and key storage are performed with smart cards. The model currently uses 3DES with smart card encryption and decryption, because this is faster and consumes fewer resources when compared to RSA. Once again, the model design is flexible to accommodate new algorithms such as AES or IDEA. Important aspects of the dissertation are the study and analysis of the security attacks on smart card use. Several smart card attack scenarios are presented in CHAPTER 3, and their possible prevention is also discussed in detail. AFRIKAANS : Hierdie verhandeling bied die bevindinge van 'n generiese model wat daarop gemik is om veilige kommunikasie te voorsien met 'n afstandsrekenaar via die Internet en op slimkaarte gebaseer. Die resultate en bevindings word ontleed en breedvoerig aangebied, veral die gedrag en werkverrigting van slimkaarte wanneer hulle gebruik word om die kriptografiese funksionaliteit te voorsien. Daar word twee geïmplementeerde modelle aangebied. Die eerste model gebruik SSL om die kommunikasiekanaal oor die Internet te beveilig terwyl slimkaarte vir gebruikerbekragtiging en stoor van kriptografiese sleutels gebruik word. Die tweede model bied die SSH vir kanaalsekuriteit en slimkaarte vir gebruikergeldigheidvasstelling, sleutelstoor en werklike kodering en dekodering van data. Die model wat aangebied word, is modulêr en generies van aard, wat beteken dat dit maklik gewysig kan word om die jongste protokolle te aanvaar deur bloot die protokolle by 'n programbiblioteek met geringe of geen wysiging van beide die bediener- en kliënttoepassingsagteware in te sluit. Byvoorbeeld, enige nuwe algoritme vir kodering, sleuteluitruiling, handtekening of boodskapbondeling kan maklik in die stelsel gehuisves word, wat bewys dat die model generies is en maklik in jonger tegnologieë geïntegreer kan word. Slimkaarte word op soortgelyke wyse vir kriptografie gebruik. Daar word twee keuses aangebied: eerstens stoor die slimkaarte slegs die algoritmesleutels en gebruikergeldigheidvasstelling en tweedens word slimkaarte gebruik om die algoritmesleutels, gebruikergeldigheidvasstelling en werklike datakodering en –dekodering te stoor na gelang van wat vereis word. Dit is baie nuttig, byvoorbeeld, wanneer data wat oorgedra moet word, tot 'n paar grepe beperk is, word die eintlike datakodering en – dekodering uitgevoer deur slimkaarte te gebruik. Andersyds, indien 'n groot hoeveelheid data oorgedra moet word, word slegs geldigheidvasstelling en stoor met slimkaarte uitgevoer. Die model gebruik tans 3DES met slimkaartkodering en –dekodering omdat dit vinniger is en minder hulpbronne gebruik vergeleke met RSA. Die modelontwerp is weer eens buigsaam om nuwe algoritmes soos AES of IDEA te huisves. Nog 'n belangrike aspek van die verhandeling is om die sekuriteitaanvalle op slimkaartgebruik te ondersoek en te ontleed. Verskeie slimkaartaanvalscenario's word in Hoofstuk 3 aangebied en die moontlike voorkoming daarvan word ook breedvoerig bespreek.Dissertation (MEng)--University of Pretoria, 2011.Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineeringunrestricte

    Last-Mile TLS Interception: Analysis and Observation of the Non-Public HTTPS Ecosystem

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    Transport Layer Security (TLS) is one of the most widely deployed cryptographic protocols on the Internet that provides confidentiality, integrity, and a certain degree of authenticity of the communications between clients and servers. Following Snowden's revelations on US surveillance programs, the adoption of TLS has steadily increased. However, encrypted traffic prevents legitimate inspection. Therefore, security solutions such as personal antiviruses and enterprise firewalls may intercept encrypted connections in search for malicious or unauthorized content. Therefore, the end-to-end property of TLS is broken by these TLS proxies (a.k.a. middleboxes) for arguably laudable reasons; yet, may pose a security risk. While TLS clients and servers have been analyzed to some extent, such proxies have remained unexplored until recently. We propose a framework for analyzing client-end TLS proxies, and apply it to 14 consumer antivirus and parental control applications as they break end-to-end TLS connections. Overall, the security of TLS connections was systematically worsened compared to the guarantees provided by modern browsers. Next, we aim at exploring the non-public HTTPS ecosystem, composed of locally-trusted proxy-issued certificates, from the user's perspective and from several countries in residential and enterprise settings. We focus our analysis on the long tail of interception events. We characterize the customers of network appliances, ranging from small/medium businesses and institutes to hospitals, hotels, resorts, insurance companies, and government agencies. We also discover regional cases of traffic interception malware/adware that mostly rely on the same Software Development Kit (i.e., NetFilter). Our scanning and analysis techniques allow us to identify more middleboxes and intercepting apps than previously found from privileged server vantages looking at billions of connections. We further perform a longitudinal study over six years of the evolution of a prominent traffic-intercepting adware found in our dataset: Wajam. We expose the TLS interception techniques it has used and the weaknesses it has introduced on hundreds of millions of user devices. This study also (re)opens the neglected problem of privacy-invasive adware, by showing how adware evolves sometimes stronger than even advanced malware and poses significant detection and reverse-engineering challenges. Overall, whether beneficial or not, TLS interception often has detrimental impacts on security without the end-user being alerted

    Security Hazards when Law is Code.

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    As software continues to eat the world, there is an increasing pressure to automate every aspect of society, from self-driving cars, to algorithmic trading on the stock market. As this pressure manifests into software implementations of everything, there are security concerns to be addressed across many areas. But are there some domains and fields that are distinctly susceptible to attacks, making them difficult to secure? My dissertation argues that one domain in particular—public policy and law— is inherently difficult to automate securely using computers. This is in large part because law and policy are written in a manner that expects them to be flexibly interpreted to be fair or just. Traditionally, this interpreting is done by judges and regulators who are capable of understanding the intent of the laws they are enforcing. However, when these laws are instead written in code, and interpreted by a machine, this capability to understand goes away. Because they blindly fol- low written rules, computers can be tricked to perform actions counter to their intended behavior. This dissertation covers three case studies of law and policy being implemented in code and security vulnerabilities that they introduce in practice. The first study analyzes the security of a previously deployed Internet voting system, showing how attackers could change the outcome of elections carried out online. The second study looks at airport security, investigating how full-body scanners can be defeated in practice, allowing attackers to conceal contraband such as weapons or high explosives past airport checkpoints. Finally, this dissertation also studies how an Internet censorship system such as China’s Great Firewall can be circumvented by techniques that exploit the methods employed by the censors themselves. To address these concerns of securing software implementations of law, a hybrid human-computer approach can be used. In addition, systems should be designed to allow for attacks or mistakes to be retroactively undone or inspected by human auditors. By combining the strengths of computers (speed and cost) and humans (ability to interpret and understand), systems can be made more secure and more efficient than a method employing either alone.PhDComputer Science and EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/120795/1/ewust_1.pd

    End-to-end security for mobile devices

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    Thesis (Master)--Izmir Institute of Technology, Computer Engineering, Izmir, 2004Includes bibliographical references (leaves: 120)Text in English; Abstract: Turkish and Englishix, 133 leavesEnd-to-end security has been an emerging need for mobile devices with the widespread use of personal digital assistants and mobile phones. Transport Layer Security Protocol (TLS) is an end-to-end security protocol that is commonly used in Internet, together with its predecessor, SSL protocol. By using TLS protocol in mobile world, the advantage of the proven security model of this protocol can be taken.J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition) has been the de facto application platform used in mobile devices. This thesis aims to provide an end-to-end security protocol implementation based on TLS 1.0 specification and that can run on J2ME MIDP (Mobile Information Device Profile) environment. Because of the resource intensive public-key operations used in TLS, this protocol needs high resources and has low performance. Another motivation for the thesis is to adapt the protocol for mobile environment and to show that it is possible to use the protocol implementation in both client and server modes. An alternative serialization mechanism is used instead of the standard Java object serialization that is lacking in MIDP. In this architecture, XML is used to transmit object data.The mobile end-to-end security protocol has the main design issues of maintainability and extensibility. Cryptographic operations are performed with a free library, Bouncy Castle Cryptography Package. The object-oriented architecture of the protocol implementation makes the replacement of this library with another cryptography package easier.Mobile end-to-end security protocol is tested with a mobile hospital reservation system application. Test cases are prepared to measure the performance of the protocol implementation with different cipher suites and platforms. Measured values of all handshake operation and defined time spans are given in tables and compared with graphs

    Improving web server efficiency on commodity hardware

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    El ràpid creixement de la Web requereix una gran quantitat de recursos computacionals que han de ser utilitzats eficientment. Avui en dia, els servidors basats en hardware estendard son les plataformes preferides per executar els servidors web, ja que són les plataformes amb millor relació rendiment/cost. El treball presentat en aquesta tesi esta dirigit a millorar la eficàcia en la gestió de recursos dels servidors web actuals. Per assolir els objectius d'aquesta tesis s'ha caracteritzat el funcionament dels servidors web en diverses entorns representatius, per tal de identificar el problemes i coll d'ampolla que limiten el rendiment del servidor web. Amb l'estudi dels servidors web s'ha identificat dos problemes principals que disminueixen l'eficiència dels servidors web en la utilització dels recursos hardware disponibles. El primer problema identificat és la evolució del protocol HTTP per incorporar connexions persistents i seguretat, que disminueix el rendiment e incrementa la complexitat de configuració dels servidors web. El segon problema és la naturalesa de algunes aplicacions web, les quals estan limitades per la memòria física o l'ample de banda amb el disc, que impedeix la correcta utilització dels recursos presents en les maquines multiprocessadors. Per solucionar aquests dos problemes dels servidors web hem proposat dues tècniques. En primer lloc, l'arquitectura hibrida, una evolució de l'arquitectura multi-threaded que es pot implementar fàcilment el els servidor web actuals i que millora notablement la gestió de les connexions i redueix la complexitat de configuració de tot el sistema. En segon lloc, hem implementat en el kernel del sistema operatiu Linux un comprensió de memòria principal per millorar el rendiment de les aplicacions que tenen la memòria com ha coll d'ampolla, millorant així la utilització dels recursos disponibles. Els resultats d'aquesta tesis estan avalats per una avaluació experimental exhaustiva que ha provat la efectivitat i viabilitat de les nostres propostes. Cal destacar que l'arquitectura de servidor web hybrida proposada en aquesta tesis ha estat implementada recentment per coneguts servidors web com és el cas de Apache, Tomcat i Glassfish.The unstoppable growth of the World Wide Web requires a huge amount of computational resources that must be used efficiently. Nowadays, commodity hardware is the preferred platform to run web server systems because it is the most cost-effective solution. The work presented in this thesis aims to improve the efficiency of current web server systems, allowing the web servers to make the most of hardware resources. To this end, we first characterize current web server system and identify the problems that hinder web servers from providing an efficient utilization of resources. From the study of web servers in a wide range of situations and environments, we have identified two main issues that prevents web servers systems from efficiently using current hardware resources. The first is the extension of the HTTP protocol to include connection persistence and security, which dramatically impacts the performance and configuration complexity of traditional multi-threaded web servers. The second is the memory-bounded or disk-bounded nature of some web workloads that prevents the full utilization of the abundant CPU resources available on current commodity hardware. We propose two novel techniques to overcome the main problems with current web server systems. Firstly, we propose a Hybrid web serverarchitecture which can be easily implemented in any multi-threaded web server to improve CPU utilization so as to provide better management of client connections. And secondly, we describe a main memory compression technique implemented in the Linux operating system that makes optimum use of current multiprocessor's hardware, in order to improve the performance of memory bound web applications. The thesis is supported by an exhaustive experimental evaluation that proves the effectiveness and feasibility of our proposals for current systems. It is worth noting that the main concepts behind the Hybrid architecture have recently been implemented in popular web servers like Apache, Tomcat and Glassfish

    An Identity-Free and On-Demand Routing Scheme against Anonymity Threats in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

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    Fast Internet-Wide Scanning: A New Security Perspective

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    Techniques like passive observation and random sampling let researchers understand many aspects of Internet day-to-day operation, yet these methodologies often focus on popular services or a small demographic of users, rather than providing a comprehensive view of the devices and services that constitute the Internet. As the diversity of devices and the role they play in critical infrastructure increases, so does understanding the dynamics of and securing these hosts. This dissertation shows how fast Internet-wide scanning provides a near-global perspective of edge hosts that enables researchers to uncover security weaknesses that only emerge at scale. First, I show that it is possible to efficiently scan the IPv4 address space. ZMap: a network scanner specifically architected for large-scale research studies can survey the entire IPv4 address space from a single machine in under an hour at 97% of the theoretical maximum speed of gigabit Ethernet with an estimated 98% coverage of publicly available hosts. Building on ZMap, I introduce Censys, a public service that maintains up-to-date and legacy snapshots of the hosts and services running across the public IPv4 address space. Censys enables researchers to efficiently ask a range of security questions. Next, I present four case studies that highlight how Internet-wide scanning can identify new classes of weaknesses that only emerge at scale, uncover unexpected attacks, shed light on previously opaque distributed systems on the Internet, and understand the impact of consequential vulnerabilities. Finally, I explore how in- creased contention over IPv4 addresses introduces new challenges for performing large-scale empirical studies. I conclude with suggested directions that the re- search community needs to consider to retain the degree of visibility that Internet-wide scanning currently provides.PHDComputer Science & EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138660/1/zakir_1.pd

    Web-Based Information Technology Solution For A Small Business

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