TRADEOFF ANALYSIS OF BACKUP POWER GENERATION SOLUTIONS FOR MILITARY BASES

Energy security is becoming increasingly important as the DOD relies on energy to build and project combat power from military installations. Installation energy managers currently ensure uninterrupted power to mission-critical facilities through emergency stand-alone diesel generators. Research has recently indicated that networks of smaller diesel generators offer greater energy security benefits than a network of a few large diesel generators. However, existing research has not compared or analyzed the cost and resilience between the two strategies. This capstone examines the cost and resilience of centralized and decentralized power architectures by developing a general methodology to capture comprehensive life-cycle costs and metrics. It examines resilience for various configurations of networked diesel generators. Installation power managers can apply this method to quantitatively compare life-cycle cost and resilience of emergency diesel generator solutions to improve energy security within the unique constraints of an installation. The capstone then applied this methodology to the aging diesel generator power plant at Naval Station, Rota, Spain, which demonstrated that decentralized architecture was the most cost-effective strategy for resilience. Finally, the capstone presents these findings and general methodology for future application.Navy Shore Energy Technology Transition and Integration (NSETTI), Naval Facilities (NAVFAC) Engineering and Expeditionary Warfare Center (EXWC), Port Hueneme, CA, 93043Captain, United States ArmyMajor, United States ArmyMajor, United States ArmyCaptain, United States ArmyCaptain, United States ArmyApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

Attack vectors against social networking systems : the Facebook example

Social networking systems (SNS&rsquo;s) such as Facebook are an ever evolving and developing means of social interaction, which is not only being used to disseminate information to family, friends and colleagues but as a way of meeting and interacting with &quot;strangers&quot; through the advent of a large number of social applications. The attractiveness of such software has meant a dramatic increase in the number of frequent users of SNS&rsquo;s and the threats which were once common to the Internet have now been magnified, intensified and altered as the potential for criminal behaviour on SNS&rsquo;s increases. Social networking sites including Facebook contain a vast amount of personal information, that if obtained could be used for other purposes or to carry out other crimes such as identity theft. This paper will focus on the security threats posed to social networking sites and gain an understanding of these risks by using a security approach known as &ldquo;attack trees&rdquo;. This will allow for a greater understanding of the complexity associated with protecting Social Networking systems with a particular focus on Facebook.<br /

A strategic framework for e-government security: the case in Nigeria

A thesis submitted to the University of Bedfordshire in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of PhilosophyCountries across the globe are striving towards full-scale implementation of e-government. One of the issues arising with the efforts to this realization is the assurance of secure transactions while upholding high privacy standards. In order to engage citizens in the process, there must be transparency and confidence that the e-government systems they are using are reliable and will deliver the services with integrity, confidentiality and accountability. Different systems require different levels of security according to the services they provide to their users. This research presents an investigation into reasons why e-government security frameworks developed by researchers with the claim that it is one-size-fits-all issue may not hold true, particularly in the case of Nigeria, based on certain identified realities. The claim of a generalized framework appears very challenging because there seem to be much diversity across different governments. Countries differ in one or more of the following characteristics: political systems, legal systems, economic situation, available technological infrastructure, Internet and PC penetration, availability of skills and human resources, literacy levels, computer literacy levels, level of poverty, leadership, and ethnic diversities in terms of norms, languages, and expertise. Security measures implemented in e-government projects in some developed countries, beginning with more established e-government systems around the world, were evaluated and a strategic framework for e-government security proposed which considers both technical and non-technical factors that involve people, processes and technologies. The framework is proposed to advance the rapid adoption of practices that will guarantee e-government security. It seeks to provide a flexible, repeatable and cost-effective approach to implementing e-government security. This research examines the issues of enclosure in the implementation of e-government from the perspective of security and ultimately survivability

Nature-inspired survivability: Prey-inspired survivability countermeasures for cloud computing security challenges

As cloud computing environments become complex, adversaries have become highly sophisticated and unpredictable. Moreover, they can easily increase attack power and persist longer before detection. Uncertain malicious actions, latent risks, Unobserved or Unobservable risks (UUURs) characterise this new threat domain. This thesis proposes prey-inspired survivability to address unpredictable security challenges borne out of UUURs. While survivability is a well-addressed phenomenon in non-extinct prey animals, applying prey survivability to cloud computing directly is challenging due to contradicting end goals. How to manage evolving survivability goals and requirements under contradicting environmental conditions adds to the challenges. To address these challenges, this thesis proposes a holistic taxonomy which integrate multiple and disparate perspectives of cloud security challenges. In addition, it proposes the TRIZ (Teorija Rezbenija Izobretatelskib Zadach) to derive prey-inspired solutions through resolving contradiction. First, it develops a 3-step process to facilitate interdomain transfer of concepts from nature to cloud. Moreover, TRIZ’s generic approach suggests specific solutions for cloud computing survivability. Then, the thesis presents the conceptual prey-inspired cloud computing survivability framework (Pi-CCSF), built upon TRIZ derived solutions. The framework run-time is pushed to the user-space to support evolving survivability design goals. Furthermore, a target-based decision-making technique (TBDM) is proposed to manage survivability decisions. To evaluate the prey-inspired survivability concept, Pi-CCSF simulator is developed and implemented. Evaluation results shows that escalating survivability actions improve the vitality of vulnerable and compromised virtual machines (VMs) by 5% and dramatically improve their overall survivability. Hypothesis testing conclusively supports the hypothesis that the escalation mechanisms can be applied to enhance the survivability of cloud computing systems. Numeric analysis of TBDM shows that by considering survivability preferences and attitudes (these directly impacts survivability actions), the TBDM method brings unpredictable survivability information closer to decision processes. This enables efficient execution of variable escalating survivability actions, which enables the Pi-CCSF’s decision system (DS) to focus upon decisions that achieve survivability outcomes under unpredictability imposed by UUUR

A Holistic Approach to Service Survivability

We present SABER (Survivability Architecture: Block, Evade, React), a proposed survivability architecture that blocks, evades and reacts to a variety of attacks by using several security and survivability mechanisms in an automated and coordinated fashion. Contrary to the ad hoc manner in which contemporary survivable systems are built--using isolated, independent security mechanisms such as firewalls, intrusion detection systems and software sandboxes--SABER integrates several different technologies in an attempt to provide a unified framework for responding to the wide range of attacks malicious insiders and outsiders can launch. This coordinated multi-layer approach will be capable of defending against attacks targeted at various levels of the network stack, such as congestion-based DoS attacks, software-based DoS or code-injection attacks, and others. Our fundamental insight is that while multiple lines of defense are useful, most conventional, uncoordinated approaches fail to exploit the full range of available responses to incidents. By coordinating the response, the ability to survive even in the face of successful security breaches increases substantially. We discuss the key components of SABER, how they will be integrated together, and how we can leverage on the promising results of the individual components to improve survivability in a variety of coordinated attack scenarios. SABER is currently in the prototyping stages, with several interesting open research topics