A Reliable Data Provenance and Privacy Preservation Architecture for Business-Driven Cyber-Physical Systems Using Blockchain

Cyber-physical systems (CPS) including power systems, transportation, industrial control systems, etc. support both advanced control and communications among system components. Frequent data operations could introduce random failures and malicious attacks or even bring down the whole system. The dependency on a central authority increases the risk of single point of failure. To establish an immutable data provenance scheme for CPS, the authors adopt blockchain and propose a decentralized architecture to assure data integrity. In business-driven CPS, end users are required to share their personal information with multiple third parties. To prevent data leakage and preserve user privacy, the authors isolate and feed different information retrieval requests using tokens specifically generated for each type of request. Providing both traceability of data operations, and unlinkability of end user activities, a robust blockchain-based CPS is prototyped. Evaluation indicates the architecture is capable of assured data provenance validation and user privacy preservation at a low overhead

Intrusion detection using machine learning algorithms

With the growing rate of cyber-attacks, there is a significant need for intrusion detection systems (IDS) in networked environments. As intrusion tactics become more sophisticated and more challenging to detect, this necessitates improved intrusion detection technology to retain user trust and preserve network security. Over the last decade, several detection methodologies have been designed to provide users with reliability, privacy, and information security. The first half of this thesis surveys the literature on intrusion detection techniques based on machine learning, deep learning, and blockchain technology from 2009 to 2018. The survey identifies applications, drawbacks, and challenges of these three intrusion detection methodologies that identify threats in computer network environments. The second half of this thesis proposes a new machine learning Model for intrusion detection that employs random forest, naive Bayes, and decision tree algorithms. We evaluate its performance on a standard dataset of simulated network attacks used in the literature, NSL-KDD. We discuss preprocessing of the dataset and feature selection for training our hybrid model and report its performance using standard metrics such as accuracy, precision, recall, and f-measure. In the final part of the thesis, we evaluate our intrusion model against the performance of existing machine learning models for intrusion detection reported in the literature. Our model predicts the Denial of Service (DOS) attack using a random forest classifier with 99.81% accuracy, Probe attack with 97.89% accuracy, and R2L attack with 97.92% accuracy achieving equivalent or superior performance in comparison with the existing models

Contribuições ao aperfeiçoamento de processos: estudo do macroprocesso de vendas de serviços de tecnologia da informação em uma empresa especialista no mercado de gestão da transmissão de dados entre máquinas (M2M)

O mercado, as perspectivas de mudanças, assim como a necessidade de identificação de elementos competitivos que diferenciam as organizações uma das outras fazem com que os processos sejam questões centrais em uma organização. O presente estudo teve como objetivo estudar o macroprocesso de vendas de serviços de tecnologia da informação em uma empresa especialista no mercado de gestão da transmissão de dados entre máquinas (M2M). As escolhas metodológicas que fundamentam o estudo mostram que a pesquisa é do tipo básica, caracterizando-se como exploratório-descritiva, podendo ser considerada um estudo de caso, onde se fez uso dos instrumentos de pesquisa questionário e observação e se fez uso de abordagens quantitativa e qualitativa para a análise dos resultados. Como principais resultados da pesquisa, o macroprocesso de vendas de produtos e serviços de tecnologia da informação atual teve suas atividades sequenciais descritas, sendo interpretado pelos participantes da pesquisa como um processo regular que necessita de atenção. O nível de satisfação dos participantes da pesquisa aponta a necessidade de ajuste no processo, em especial no que diz respeito às autorizações que são exigidas atualmente para a sua consecução. Os participantes da pesquisa recomendaram que o SLA (Service Level Agreement) fosse melhor definido, que estratégias voltadas para a revisão da autonomia de negociação fossem consideradas, planejamento de campanhas de marketing e definição de estratégias relacionadas com a forma de como a empresa se posiciona frente à concorrência sejam pautadas nas discussões acerca do aperfeiçoamento dos processos na organização

Proposta de concetualização de uma ferramenta de apoio ao desenvolvimento de modelos de negócio na indústria 4.0

O desenvolvimento da indústria 4.0 irá proporcionar novas formas de interação com o cliente e uma rápida adaptação ás suas crescentes necessidades. A inovação de empresas e de modelos de negócio passa assim a ter um peso ainda mais importante no futuro de uma organização. Desta forma deve ser criada uma estratégia que acompanhe o desenvolvimento tecnológico e garanta ás empresas um lugar no mercado futuro. O principal objetivo desta dissertação consiste na concetualização de uma ferramenta que possa ser usada por pequenas e médias empresas de manufatura como guia para a transformação digital no caminho para a indústria 4.0. Para isso, é feita uma revisão da literatura dos conceitos de modelo de negócio e da indústria 4.0. Dentro da revisão literária de modelos de negócio são apresentadas definições do conceito segundo vários autores, como pode evoluir, quais os seus principais componentes e como pode ser feita a avaliação ou o desenvolvimento de um modelo de negócio. Posteriormente é feito um levantamento dos principais componentes da indústria 4.0. Esses principais componentes são descritos individualmente, identificando como podem criar ou capturar valor no contexto em que são utilizados. São também identificados alguns exemplos de aplicações futuras ou já implementadas desses componentes assim como o desenvolvimento de novos modelos de negócio proporcionados pelas implementações

Mitigating Insider Threat Risks in Cyber-physical Manufacturing Systems

Cyber-Physical Manufacturing System (CPMS)—a next generation manufacturing system—seamlessly integrates digital and physical domains via the internet or computer networks. It will enable drastic improvements in production flexibility, capacity, and cost-efficiency. However, enlarged connectivity and accessibility from the integration can yield unintended security concerns. The major concern arises from cyber-physical attacks, which can cause damages to the physical domain while attacks originate in the digital domain. Especially, such attacks can be performed by insiders easily but in a more critical manner: Insider Threats. Insiders can be defined as anyone who is or has been affiliated with a system. Insiders have knowledge and access authentications of the system\u27s properties, therefore, can perform more serious attacks than outsiders. Furthermore, it is hard to detect or prevent insider threats in CPMS in a timely manner, since they can easily bypass or incapacitate general defensive mechanisms of the system by exploiting their physical access, security clearance, and knowledge of the system vulnerabilities. This thesis seeks to address the above issues by developing an insider threat tolerant CPMS, enhanced by a service-oriented blockchain augmentation and conducting experiments & analysis. The aim of the research is to identify insider threat vulnerabilities and improve the security of CPMS. Blockchain\u27s unique distributed system approach is adopted to mitigate the insider threat risks in CPMS. However, the blockchain limits the system performance due to the arbitrary block generation time and block occurrence frequency. The service-oriented blockchain augmentation is providing physical and digital entities with the blockchain communication protocol through a service layer. In this way, multiple entities are integrated by the service layer, which enables the services with less arbitrary delays while retaining their strong security from the blockchain. Also, multiple independent service applications in the service layer can ensure the flexibility and productivity of the CPMS. To study the effectiveness of the blockchain augmentation against insider threats, two example models of the proposed system have been developed: Layer Image Auditing System (LIAS) and Secure Programmable Logic Controller (SPLC). Also, four case studies are designed and presented based on the two models and evaluated by an Insider Attack Scenario Assessment Framework. The framework investigates the system\u27s security vulnerabilities and practically evaluates the insider attack scenarios. The research contributes to the understanding of insider threats and blockchain implementations in CPMS by addressing key issues that have been identified in the literature. The issues are addressed by EBIS (Establish, Build, Identify, Simulation) validation process with numerical experiments and the results, which are in turn used towards mitigating insider threat risks in CPMS

Blockchain potential and disruptors for South Africa towards 2030

Blockchain (also called distributed ledger technology), the technology that underpins cryptocurrencies, is resulting in a new era of openness, decentralisation and global inclusion (World Economic Forum, 2017). Blockchain technology is set to complement another emerging field or group of technologies which are collectively defined as the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This revolution is characterised by a “range of new technologies that are blending the physical, digital and biological worlds, impacting all disciplines, economies and industries, and even challenging ideas about what it means to be human” (World Economic Forum, 2017). Certain features of Blockchain technology namely; decentralisation, implied anonymity, transparency and immutability presents people with a technology that may well transform business models and indeed entire industries in the world and in South Africa. Some of these industries are explored further in this research, delving into ideas of how Blockchains may add value to them. This research effort approaches Blockchain technology from a future studies perspective, and assesses whether South Africa is ready to embrace the technology. The research also explores what South African stakeholders can do to be better prepared for expected disruptors and opportunities that the technology will bring. South Africa is seen as a developing nation in the global context and can well benefit from strategic use of emerging technologies such as Blockchain. This research effort will implement Inayatullah’s (2008) six pillars methodology, incorporating the various tools and methodologies within each pillar, in an effort to describe and present possible future scenarios for Blockchains in South Africa. This insight will be used to provide well thought out strategic recommendations for South Africa to prepare for adoption of Blockchain technologies, which could ultimately provide a competitive advantage for the country in the global marketplace

Applications of Internet of Things

This book introduces the Special Issue entitled “Applications of Internet of Things”, of ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information. Topics covered in this issue include three main parts: (I) intelligent transportation systems (ITSs), (II) location-based services (LBSs), and (III) sensing techniques and applications. Three papers on ITSs are as follows: (1) “Vehicle positioning and speed estimation based on cellular network signals for urban roads,” by Lai and Kuo; (2) “A method for traffic congestion clustering judgment based on grey relational analysis,” by Zhang et al.; and (3) “Smartphone-based pedestrian’s avoidance behavior recognition towards opportunistic road anomaly detection,” by Ishikawa and Fujinami. Three papers on LBSs are as follows: (1) “A high-efficiency method of mobile positioning based on commercial vehicle operation data,” by Chen et al.; (2) “Efficient location privacy-preserving k-anonymity method based on the credible chain,” by Wang et al.; and (3) “Proximity-based asynchronous messaging platform for location-based Internet of things service,” by Gon Jo et al. Two papers on sensing techniques and applications are as follows: (1) “Detection of electronic anklet wearers’ groupings throughout telematics monitoring,” by Machado et al.; and (2) “Camera coverage estimation based on multistage grid subdivision,” by Wang et al

M2M Security Technology of CPS Based on Blockchains

As the core of intelligent manufacturing, cyber-physical systems (CPS) have serious security issues, especially for the communication security of their terminal machine-to-machine (M2M) communications. In this paper, blockchain technology is introduced to address such a security problem of communications between different types of machines in the CPS. According to the principles of blockchain technology, we designed a blockchain for secure M2M communications. As a communication system, M2M consists of public network areas, device areas, and private areas, and we designed a sophisticated blockchain structure between the public area and private area. For validating our design, we took cotton spinning production as a case study to demonstrate our solution to M2M communication problems under the CPS framework. We have demonstrated that the blockchain technology can effectively solve the safety of expansion of machines in the production process and the communication data between the machines cannot be tampered with