7,892 research outputs found
Secure Distributed Dynamic State Estimation in Wide-Area Smart Grids
Smart grid is a large complex network with a myriad of vulnerabilities,
usually operated in adversarial settings and regulated based on estimated
system states. In this study, we propose a novel highly secure distributed
dynamic state estimation mechanism for wide-area (multi-area) smart grids,
composed of geographically separated subregions, each supervised by a local
control center. We firstly propose a distributed state estimator assuming
regular system operation, that achieves near-optimal performance based on the
local Kalman filters and with the exchange of necessary information between
local centers. To enhance the security, we further propose to (i) protect the
network database and the network communication channels against attacks and
data manipulations via a blockchain (BC)-based system design, where the BC
operates on the peer-to-peer network of local centers, (ii) locally detect the
measurement anomalies in real-time to eliminate their effects on the state
estimation process, and (iii) detect misbehaving (hacked/faulty) local centers
in real-time via a distributed trust management scheme over the network. We
provide theoretical guarantees regarding the false alarm rates of the proposed
detection schemes, where the false alarms can be easily controlled. Numerical
studies illustrate that the proposed mechanism offers reliable state estimation
under regular system operation, timely and accurate detection of anomalies, and
good state recovery performance in case of anomalies
Towards Secure and Safe Appified Automated Vehicles
The advancement in Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) has created an enormous market
for the development of self-driving functionalities,raising the question of how
it will transform the traditional vehicle development process. One adventurous
proposal is to open the AV platform to third-party developers, so that AV
functionalities can be developed in a crowd-sourcing way, which could provide
tangible benefits to both automakers and end users. Some pioneering companies
in the automotive industry have made the move to open the platform so that
developers are allowed to test their code on the road. Such openness, however,
brings serious security and safety issues by allowing untrusted code to run on
the vehicle. In this paper, we introduce the concept of an Appified AV platform
that opens the development framework to third-party developers. To further
address the safety challenges, we propose an enhanced appified AV design schema
called AVGuard, which focuses primarily on mitigating the threats brought about
by untrusted code, leveraging theory in the vehicle evaluation field, and
conducting program analysis techniques in the cybersecurity area. Our study
provides guidelines and suggested practice for the future design of open AV
platforms
Efficient intrusion detection scheme based on SVM
The network intrusion detection problem is the focus of current academic research. In this paper, we propose to use Support Vector Machine (SVM) model to identify and detect the network intrusion problem, and simultaneously introduce a new optimization search method, referred to as Improved Harmony Search (IHS) algorithm, to determine the parameters of the SVM model for better classification accuracy. Taking the general mechanism network system of a growing city in China between 2006 and 2012 as the sample, this study divides the mechanism into normal network system and crisis network system according to the harm extent of network intrusion. We consider a crisis network system coupled with two to three normal network systems as paired samples. Experimental results show that SVMs based on IHS have a high prediction accuracy which can perform prediction and classification of network intrusion detection and assist in guarding against network intrusion
Hyp3rArmor: reducing web application exposure to automated attacks
Web applications (webapps) are subjected constantly to automated, opportunistic attacks from autonomous robots (bots) engaged in reconnaissance to discover victims that may be vulnerable to specific exploits. This is a typical behavior found in botnet recruitment, worm propagation, largescale fingerprinting and vulnerability scanners. Most anti-bot techniques are deployed at the application layer, thus leaving the network stack of the webapp’s server exposed. In this paper we present a mechanism called Hyp3rArmor, that addresses this vulnerability by minimizing the webapp’s attack surface exposed to automated opportunistic attackers, for JavaScriptenabled web browser clients. Our solution uses port knocking to eliminate the webapp’s visible network footprint. Clients of the webapp are directed to a visible static web server to obtain JavaScript that authenticates the client to the webapp server (using port knocking) before making any requests to the webapp. Our implementation of Hyp3rArmor, which is compatible with all webapp architectures, has been deployed and used to defend single and multi-page websites on the Internet for 114 days. During this time period the static web server observed 964 attempted attacks that were deflected from the webapp, which was only accessed by authenticated clients. Our evaluation shows that in most cases client-side overheads were negligible and that server-side overheads were minimal. Hyp3rArmor is ideal for critical systems and legacy applications that must be accessible on the Internet. Additionally Hyp3rArmor is composable with other security tools, adding an additional layer to a defense in depth approach.This work has been supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) awards #1430145, #1414119, and #1012798
Causality, Information and Biological Computation: An algorithmic software approach to life, disease and the immune system
Biology has taken strong steps towards becoming a computer science aiming at
reprogramming nature after the realisation that nature herself has reprogrammed
organisms by harnessing the power of natural selection and the digital
prescriptive nature of replicating DNA. Here we further unpack ideas related to
computability, algorithmic information theory and software engineering, in the
context of the extent to which biology can be (re)programmed, and with how we
may go about doing so in a more systematic way with all the tools and concepts
offered by theoretical computer science in a translation exercise from
computing to molecular biology and back. These concepts provide a means to a
hierarchical organization thereby blurring previously clear-cut lines between
concepts like matter and life, or between tumour types that are otherwise taken
as different and may not have however a different cause. This does not diminish
the properties of life or make its components and functions less interesting.
On the contrary, this approach makes for a more encompassing and integrated
view of nature, one that subsumes observer and observed within the same system,
and can generate new perspectives and tools with which to view complex diseases
like cancer, approaching them afresh from a software-engineering viewpoint that
casts evolution in the role of programmer, cells as computing machines, DNA and
genes as instructions and computer programs, viruses as hacking devices, the
immune system as a software debugging tool, and diseases as an
information-theoretic battlefield where all these forces deploy. We show how
information theory and algorithmic programming may explain fundamental
mechanisms of life and death.Comment: 30 pages, 8 figures. Invited chapter contribution to Information and
Causality: From Matter to Life. Sara I. Walker, Paul C.W. Davies and George
Ellis (eds.), Cambridge University Pres
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