Scalable discovery of networked data : Algorithms, Infrastructure, Applications

Harmelen, F.A.H. van [Promotor]Siebes, R.M. [Copromotor

Privacy trust access control infrastructure using XACML

The use of personal, sensitive information, such as privileges and attributes, to gain access to computer resources in distributed environments raises an interesting paradox. On one hand, in order to make the services and resources accessible to legitimate users, access control infrastructure requires valid and provable service clients' identities or attributes to make decisions. On the other hand, the service clients may not be prepared to disclose their identity information or attributes to a remote party without determining in advance whether the service provider can be trusted with such sensitive information. Moreover, when clients give out personal information, they still are unsure of the extent of propagation and use of the information. This thesis describes an investigation of privacy preserving options in access control infrastructures, and proposes a security model to support the management of those options, based on extensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) and Security Access Markup Language (SAML), both of which are OASIS security standards. Existing access control systems are typically unilateral in that the enterprise service provider assigns the access rights and makes the access control decisions, and there is no negotiation between the client and the service provider. As access control management systems lean towards being user-centric or federated, unilateral approaches can no longer adequately preserve the client's privacy, particularly where communicating parties have no pre-existing trust relationship. As a result, a unified approach that significantly improves privacy and confidentiality protection in distributed environments was considered. This resulted in the development of XACML Trust Management Authorization Infrastructure (XTMAI) designed to handle privacy and confidentiality mutually and simultaneously using the concept of Obligation of Trust (OoT) protocol. The OoT enables two or more transaction parties to exchange Notice of Obligations (NoB) (obligating constraints) as well as Signed Acceptance of Obligation (SAO), a proof of acceptance, as security assurances before exchange of sensitive resources.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Privacy trust access control infrastructure using XACML

The use of personal, sensitive information, such as privileges and attributes, to gain access to computer resources in distributed environments raises an interesting paradox. On one hand, in order to make the services and resources accessible to legitimate users, access control infrastructure requires valid and provable service clients' identities or attributes to make decisions. On the other hand, the service clients may not be prepared to disclose their identity information or attributes to a remote party without determining in advance whether the service provider can be trusted with such sensitive information. Moreover, when clients give out personal information, they still are unsure of the extent of propagation and use of the information. This thesis describes an investigation of privacy preserving options in access control infrastructures, and proposes a security model to support the management of those options, based on extensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) and Security Access Markup Language (SAML), both of which are OASIS security standards. Existing access control systems are typically unilateral in that the enterprise service provider assigns the access rights and makes the access control decisions, and there is no negotiation between the client and the service provider. As access control management systems lean towards being user-centric or federated, unilateral approaches can no longer adequately preserve the client's privacy, particularly where communicating parties have no pre-existing trust relationship. As a result, a unified approach that significantly improves privacy and confidentiality protection in distributed environments was considered. This resulted in the development of XACML Trust Management Authorization Infrastructure (XTMAI) designed to handle privacy and confidentiality mutually and simultaneously using the concept of Obligation of Trust (OoT) protocol. The OoT enables two or more transaction parties to exchange Notice of Obligations (NoB) (obligating constraints) as well as Signed Acceptance of Obligation (SAO), a proof of acceptance, as security assurances before exchange of sensitive resources

An Integrated Framework for the Methodological Assurance of Security and Privacy in the Development and Operation of MultiCloud Applications

x, 169 p.This Thesis studies research questions about how to design multiCloud applications taking into account security and privacy requirements to protect the system from potential risks and about how to decide which security and privacy protections to include in the system. In addition, solutions are needed to overcome the difficulties in assuring security and privacy properties defined at design time still hold all along the system life-cycle, from development to operation.In this Thesis an innovative DevOps integrated methodology and framework are presented, which help to rationalise and systematise security and privacy analyses in multiCloud to enable an informed decision-process for risk-cost balanced selection of the protections of the system components and the protections to request from Cloud Service Providers used. The focus of the work is on the Development phase of the analysis and creation of multiCloud applications.The main contributions of this Thesis for multiCloud applications are four: i) The integrated DevOps methodology for security and privacy assurance; and its integrating parts: ii) a security and privacy requirements modelling language, iii) a continuous risk assessment methodology and its complementary risk-based optimisation of defences, and iv) a Security and Privacy Service Level AgreementComposition method.The integrated DevOps methodology and its integrating Development methods have been validated in the case study of a real multiCloud application in the eHealth domain. The validation confirmed the feasibility and benefits of the solution with regards to the rationalisation and systematisation of security and privacy assurance in multiCloud systems

Policy representation and reasoning with preferences and reactivity

[no abstract

Security risk assessment in cloud computing domains

Cyber security is one of the primary concerns persistent across any computing platform. While addressing the apprehensions about security risks, an infinite amount of resources cannot be invested in mitigation measures since organizations operate under budgetary constraints. Therefore the task of performing security risk assessment is imperative to designing optimal mitigation measures, as it provides insight about the strengths and weaknesses of different assets affiliated to a computing platform. The objective of the research presented in this dissertation is to improve upon existing risk assessment frameworks and guidelines associated to different key assets of Cloud computing domains - infrastructure, applications, and users. The dissertation presents various informal approaches of performing security risk assessment which will help to identify the security risks confronted by the aforementioned assets, and utilize the results to carry out the required cost-benefit tradeoff analyses. This will be beneficial to organizations by aiding them in better comprehending the security risks their assets are exposed to and thereafter secure them by designing cost-optimal mitigation measures --Abstract, page iv

Foundations of Human-Aware Planning -- A Tale of Three Models

abstract: A critical challenge in the design of AI systems that operate with humans in the loop is to be able to model the intentions and capabilities of the humans, as well as their beliefs and expectations of the AI system itself. This allows the AI system to be "human- aware" -- i.e. the human task model enables it to envisage desired roles of the human in joint action, while the human mental model allows it to anticipate how its own actions are perceived from the point of view of the human. In my research, I explore how these concepts of human-awareness manifest themselves in the scope of planning or sequential decision making with humans in the loop. To this end, I will show (1) how the AI agent can leverage the human task model to generate symbiotic behavior; and (2) how the introduction of the human mental model in the deliberative process of the AI agent allows it to generate explanations for a plan or resort to explicable plans when explanations are not desired. The latter is in addition to traditional notions of human-aware planning which typically use the human task model alone and thus enables a new suite of capabilities of a human-aware AI agent. Finally, I will explore how the AI agent can leverage emerging mixed-reality interfaces to realize effective channels of communication with the human in the loop.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Computer Science 201

Security Technologies and Methods for Advanced Cyber Threat Intelligence, Detection and Mitigation

The rapid growth of the Internet interconnectivity and complexity of communication systems has led us to a significant growth of cyberattacks globally often with severe and disastrous consequences. The swift development of more innovative and effective (cyber)security solutions and approaches are vital which can detect, mitigate and prevent from these serious consequences. Cybersecurity is gaining momentum and is scaling up in very many areas. This book builds on the experience of the Cyber-Trust EU project’s methods, use cases, technology development, testing and validation and extends into a broader science, lead IT industry market and applied research with practical cases. It offers new perspectives on advanced (cyber) security innovation (eco) systems covering key different perspectives. The book provides insights on new security technologies and methods for advanced cyber threat intelligence, detection and mitigation. We cover topics such as cyber-security and AI, cyber-threat intelligence, digital forensics, moving target defense, intrusion detection systems, post-quantum security, privacy and data protection, security visualization, smart contracts security, software security, blockchain, security architectures, system and data integrity, trust management systems, distributed systems security, dynamic risk management, privacy and ethics