On Robustness and Countermeasures of Reliable Server Pooling Systems against Denial of Service Attacks

Abstract. The Reliable Server Pooling (RSerPool) architecture is the IETF's novel approach to standardize a light-weight protocol framework for server redundancy and session failover. It combines ideas from different research areas into a single, resource-efficient and unified architecture. While there have already been a number of contributions on the performance of RSerPool for its main tasks -pool management, load distribution and failover handling -the robustness of the protocol framework has not yet been evaluated against intentional attacks. The first goal of this paper is to provide a robustness analysis. In particular, we would like to outline the attack bandwidth necessary for a significant impact on the service. Furthermore, we present and evaluate our countermeasure approach to significantly reduce the impact of attacks

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

A Deep Learning Based Approach To Detect Covert Channels Attacks and Anomaly In New Generation Internet Protocol IPv6

The increased dependence of internet-based technologies in all facets of life challenges the government and policymakers with the need for effective shield mechanism against passive and active violations. Following up with the Qatar national vision 2030 activities and its goals for “Achieving Security, stability and maintaining public safety” objectives, the present paper aims to propose a model for safeguarding the information and monitor internet communications effectively. The current study utilizes a deep learning based approach for detecting malicious communications in the network traffic. Considering the efficiency of deep learning in data analysis and classification, a convolutional neural network model was proposed. The suggested model is equipped for detecting attacks in IPv6. The performance of the proposed detection algorithm was validated using a number of datasets, including a newly created dataset. The performance of the model was evaluated for covert channel, DDoS attacks detection in IPv6 and for anomaly detection. The performance assessment produced an accuracy of 100%, 85% and 98% for covert channel detection, DDoS detection and anomaly detection respectively. The project put forward a novel approach for detecting suspicious communications in the network traffic

Unified architecture of mobile ad hoc network security (MANS) system

In this dissertation, a unified architecture of Mobile Ad-hoc Network Security (MANS) system is proposed, under which IDS agent, authentication, recovery policy and other policies can be defined formally and explicitly, and are enforced by a uniform architecture. A new authentication model for high-value transactions in cluster-based MANET is also designed in MANS system. This model is motivated by previous works but try to use their beauties and avoid their shortcomings, by using threshold sharing of the certificate signing key within each cluster to distribute the certificate services, and using certificate chain and certificate repository to achieve better scalability, less overhead and better security performance. An Intrusion Detection System is installed in every node, which is responsible for colleting local data from its host node and neighbor nodes within its communication range, pro-processing raw data and periodically broadcasting to its neighborhood, classifying normal or abnormal based on pro-processed data from its host node and neighbor nodes. Security recovery policy in ad hoc networks is the procedure of making a global decision according to messages received from distributed IDS and restore to operational health the whole system if any user or host that conducts the inappropriate, incorrect, or anomalous activities that threaten the connectivity or reliability of the networks and the authenticity of the data traffic in the networks. Finally, quantitative risk assessment model is proposed to numerically evaluate MANS security

A comprehensive meta-analysis of cryptographic security mechanisms for cloud computing

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.The concept of cloud computing offers measurable computational or information resources as a service over the Internet. The major motivation behind the cloud setup is economic benefits, because it assures the reduction in expenditure for operational and infrastructural purposes. To transform it into a reality there are some impediments and hurdles which are required to be tackled, most profound of which are security, privacy and reliability issues. As the user data is revealed to the cloud, it departs the protection-sphere of the data owner. However, this brings partly new security and privacy concerns. This work focuses on these issues related to various cloud services and deployment models by spotlighting their major challenges. While the classical cryptography is an ancient discipline, modern cryptography, which has been mostly developed in the last few decades, is the subject of study which needs to be implemented so as to ensure strong security and privacy mechanisms in today’s real-world scenarios. The technological solutions, short and long term research goals of the cloud security will be described and addressed using various classical cryptographic mechanisms as well as modern ones. This work explores the new directions in cloud computing security, while highlighting the correct selection of these fundamental technologies from cryptographic point of view

Reviewing effectivity in security approaches towards strengthening internet architecture

The usage of existing Internet architecture is shrouded by various security loopholes and hence is highly ineffective towards resisting potential threats over internet. Hence, it is claimed that future internet architecture has been evolved as a solution to address this security gaps of existing internet architecture. Therefore, this paper initiates its discussion by reviewing the existing practices of web security in conventional internet architecture and has also discussed about some recent solutions towards mitigating potentially reported threats e.g. cross-site scripting, SQL inject, and distributed denial-of-service. The paper has also discussed some of the recent research contribution towards security solution considering future internet architecture. The proposed manuscripts contributes to showcase the true effectiveness of existing approaches with respect to advantages and limitation of existing approaches along with explicit highlights of existing research problems that requires immediate attention

Discovering New Vulnerabilities in Computer Systems

Vulnerability research plays a key role in preventing and defending against malicious computer system exploitations. Driven by a multi-billion dollar underground economy, cyber criminals today tirelessly launch malicious exploitations, threatening every aspect of daily computing. to effectively protect computer systems from devastation, it is imperative to discover and mitigate vulnerabilities before they fall into the offensive parties\u27 hands. This dissertation is dedicated to the research and discovery of new design and deployment vulnerabilities in three very different types of computer systems.;The first vulnerability is found in the automatic malicious binary (malware) detection system. Binary analysis, a central piece of technology for malware detection, are divided into two classes, static analysis and dynamic analysis. State-of-the-art detection systems employ both classes of analyses to complement each other\u27s strengths and weaknesses for improved detection results. However, we found that the commonly seen design patterns may suffer from evasion attacks. We demonstrate attacks on the vulnerabilities by designing and implementing a novel binary obfuscation technique.;The second vulnerability is located in the design of server system power management. Technological advancements have improved server system power efficiency and facilitated energy proportional computing. However, the change of power profile makes the power consumption subjected to unaudited influences of remote parties, leaving the server systems vulnerable to energy-targeted malicious exploit. We demonstrate an energy abusing attack on a standalone open Web server, measure the extent of the damage, and present a preliminary defense strategy.;The third vulnerability is discovered in the application of server virtualization technologies. Server virtualization greatly benefits today\u27s data centers and brings pervasive cloud computing a step closer to the general public. However, the practice of physical co-hosting virtual machines with different security privileges risks introducing covert channels that seriously threaten the information security in the cloud. We study the construction of high-bandwidth covert channels via the memory sub-system, and show a practical exploit of cross-virtual-machine covert channels on virtualized x86 platforms