133 research outputs found
Sharing Computer Network Logs for Security and Privacy: A Motivation for New Methodologies of Anonymization
Logs are one of the most fundamental resources to any security professional.
It is widely recognized by the government and industry that it is both
beneficial and desirable to share logs for the purpose of security research.
However, the sharing is not happening or not to the degree or magnitude that is
desired. Organizations are reluctant to share logs because of the risk of
exposing sensitive information to potential attackers. We believe this
reluctance remains high because current anonymization techniques are weak and
one-size-fits-all--or better put, one size tries to fit all. We must develop
standards and make anonymization available at varying levels, striking a
balance between privacy and utility. Organizations have different needs and
trust other organizations to different degrees. They must be able to map
multiple anonymization levels with defined risks to the trust levels they share
with (would-be) receivers. It is not until there are industry standards for
multiple levels of anonymization that we will be able to move forward and
achieve the goal of widespread sharing of logs for security researchers.Comment: 17 pages, 1 figur
FLAIM: A Multi-level Anonymization Framework for Computer and Network Logs
FLAIM (Framework for Log Anonymization and Information Management) addresses
two important needs not well addressed by current log anonymizers. First, it is
extremely modular and not tied to the specific log being anonymized. Second, it
supports multi-level anonymization, allowing system administrators to make
fine-grained trade-offs between information loss and privacy/security concerns.
In this paper, we examine anonymization solutions to date and note the above
limitations in each. We further describe how FLAIM addresses these problems,
and we describe FLAIM's architecture and features in detail.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures, in submission to USENIX Lis
08302 Abstracts Collection -- Countering Insider Threats
From July 20 to July 25, 2008, the Dagstuhl Seminar 08302 ``Countering Insider Threats \u27\u27 was held in Schloss Dagstuhl~--~Leibniz Center for Informatics.
During the seminar, several participants presented their current
research, and ongoing work and open problems were discussed. Abstracts of
the presentations given during the seminar as well as abstracts of
seminar results and ideas are put together in this paper. The first section
describes the seminar topics and goals in general.
Links to extended abstracts or full papers are provided, if available
An Investigation of the Security Designs of a Structured Query Language (Sql) Database and its Middleware Application and their Secure Implementation Within Thinclient Environments
The Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and The SarbanesOxley (SOX) regulations greatly influenced the health care industry regarding the means of securing financial and private data within information and technology. With the introduction of thinclient technologies into medical information systems (IS), data security and regulation compliancy becomes more problematic due to the exposure to the World Wide Web (WWW) and malicious activity. This author explores the best practices of the medical industry and information technology industry for securing electronic data within the thinclient environment at the three levels of architecture: the SQL database, its middleware application, and Web interface. Designing security within the SQL database is not good enough as breaches can occur through unintended consequences during data access within the middleware application design and data exchange design over computer networks. For example, a hospital\u27s medical records, which are routinely exchanged over computer networks, are subject to the audit control an encryption requirements mandated for data security. (Department of, 2008). While there is an overlapping of security techniques within each of the three layers of architectural security design, the use of 18 methodologies greatly enhances the ability to protect electronic information. Due to the variety of IS used within a medical facility, security conscientiousness, consistency of security design, excellent communication between designers, developers and system engineers, and the use of standardized security techniques within each of the three layers of architecture are required
The Challenges of Effectively Anonymizing Network Data
The availability of realistic network data plays a significant role in fostering collaboration and ensuring U.S. technical leadership in network security research. Unfortunately, a host of technical, legal, policy, and privacy issues limit the ability of operators to produce datasets for information security testing. In an effort to help overcome these limitations, several data collection efforts (e.g., CRAWDAD[14], PREDICT [34]) have been established in the past few years. The key principle used in all of these efforts to assure low-risk, high-value data is that of trace anonymization—the process of sanitizing data before release so that potentially sensitive information cannot be extracted
Web3.0 Security: Privacy Enhancing and Anonym Auditing in Blockchain-based Structures
The advent of Web 3.0, underpinned by blockchain technologies, promises to
transform the internet's landscape by empowering individuals with decentralized
control over their data. However, this evolution brings unique security
challenges that need to be addressed. This paper explores these complexities,
focusing on enhancing privacy and anonymous auditing within blockchain
structures. We present the architecture of Web 3.0 based on the blockchain,
providing a clear perspective on its workflow and security mechanisms. A
security protocol for Web 3.0 systems, employing privacy-preserving techniques
and anonymous auditing during runtime, is proposed. Key components of our
solution include the integration of privacy-enhancing techniques and the
utilization of Tor for anonymous auditing. We discuss related work and propose
a framework that meets these new security requirements. Lastly, we offer an
evaluation and comparison of our model to existing methods. This research
contributes towards the foundational understanding of Web 3.0's secure
structure and offers a pathway towards secure and privacy-preserving digital
interactions in this novel internet landscape
Balancing Privacy and Progress in Artificial Intelligence: Anonymization in Histopathology for Biomedical Research and Education
The advancement of biomedical research heavily relies on access to large
amounts of medical data. In the case of histopathology, Whole Slide Images
(WSI) and clinicopathological information are valuable for developing
Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms for Digital Pathology (DP).
Transferring medical data "as open as possible" enhances the usability of the
data for secondary purposes but poses a risk to patient privacy. At the same
time, existing regulations push towards keeping medical data "as closed as
necessary" to avoid re-identification risks. Generally, these legal regulations
require the removal of sensitive data but do not consider the possibility of
data linkage attacks due to modern image-matching algorithms. In addition, the
lack of standardization in DP makes it harder to establish a single solution
for all formats of WSIs. These challenges raise problems for bio-informatics
researchers in balancing privacy and progress while developing AI algorithms.
This paper explores the legal regulations and terminologies for medical
data-sharing. We review existing approaches and highlight challenges from the
histopathological perspective. We also present a data-sharing guideline for
histological data to foster multidisciplinary research and education.Comment: Accepted to FAIEMA 202
Privacy-by-Design Regulatory Compliance Automation in Cloud Environment
The proposed Master's thesis revolves around the development of a privacy-preserving Attribute Verifier for regulatory compliance, first designed cryptographically, and then implemented in a Cloud Environment. The Attribute Verifier makes use of the Attribute Verification Protocol and its underlying encryption scheme, composed of Decentralized Attribute-Based Encryption (DABE) combined with a Zero- Knowledge Proof (ZKP) approach. The contribution of this work was integrating a ticketing system, concerning tickets of compliance, with the existing protocol, and automating the whole workflow, simulating all the actors involved, in AWS Cloud Environment.
The major goal was to improve the security and privacy of sensitive data kept in the cloud as well as to comply with Cloud Regulatory, Standards, and different Data Protection Regulations. In particular, the use case covered in this Thesis refers to the General Protection Data Regulation (GDPR), specifically the compliance with Article 32. The word "Automation" in the title refers to the achievement of having automated in AWS Cloud Environment, through code, three main security objectives: Privacy, Identity and Access Management, and Attribute-based Access Control. A goal that was pursued because, in the majority of the cases, adherence to a Regulatory still requires heavy manual effort, especially when it's about pure Data Protection Regulations, i.e. in a legal setting. And when the manual effort is not required, confidentiality can be still heavily affected, and that's where the need for a privacy-by-design solution comes from.
The Attribute Verifier was developed to verify the attributes of a Prover (e.g. a company, an institution, a healthcare provider, etc.) without revealing the actual attributes or assets and to grant access to encrypted data only if the verification is successful. The proposed example, among many applicable, it's the one a National Bank attempting to demonstrate to a Verifier, i.e. the European Central Bank, compliance with Article 32 of the GDPR
Anonymization of Event Logs for Network Security Monitoring
A managed security service provider (MSSP) must collect security event logs from
their customers’ network for monitoring and cybersecurity protection. These logs
need to be processed by the MSSP before displaying it to the security operation
center (SOC) analysts. The employees generate event logs during their working hours
at the customers’ site. One challenge is that collected event logs consist of personally
identifiable information (PII) data; visible in clear text to the SOC analysts or any
user with access to the SIEM platform.
We explore how pseudonymization can be applied to security event logs to help
protect individuals’ identities from the SOC analysts while preserving data utility
when possible. We compare the impact of using different pseudonymization functions
on sensitive information or PII. Non-deterministic methods provide higher level of
privacy but reduced utility of the data.
Our contribution in this thesis is threefold. First, we study available architectures
with different threat models, including their strengths and weaknesses. Second, we
study pseudonymization functions and their application to PII fields; we benchmark
them individually, as well as in our experimental platform. Last, we obtain valuable
feedbacks and lessons from SOC analysts based on their experience.
Existing works[43, 44, 48, 39] are generally restricting to the anonymization of
the IP traces, which is only one part of the SOC analysts’ investigation of PCAP
files inspection. In one of the closest work[47], the authors provide useful, practical
anonymization methods for the IP addresses, ports, and raw logs
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