Privacy-Aware and Secure Decentralized Air Quality Monitoring

Indoor Air Quality monitoring is a major asset to improving quality of life and building management. Today, the evolution of embedded technologies allows the implementation of such monitoring on the edge of the network. However, several concerns need to be addressed related to data security and privacy, routing and sink placement optimization, protection from external monitoring, and distributed data mining. In this paper, we describe an integrated framework that features distributed storage, blockchain-based Role-based Access Control, onion routing, routing and sink placement optimization, and distributed data mining to answer these concerns. We describe the organization of our contribution and show its relevance with simulations and experiments over a set of use cases

Application of Risk Metrics for Role Mining

Incorporating risk consideration in access control systems has recently become a popular research topic. Related to this is risk awareness which is needed to enable access control in an agile and dynamic way. While risk awareness is probably known for an established access control system, being aware of risk even before the access control system is defined can mean identification of users and permissions that are most likely to lead to dangerous or error-prone situations from an administration point of view. Having this information available during the role engineering phase allows data analysts and role engineers to highlight potentially risky users and permissions likely to be misused. While there has been much recent work on role mining, there has been little consideration of risk during the process. In this thesis, we propose to add risk awareness to role mining. We aggregate the various possible risk factors and categorize them into four general types, which we refer to as risk metrics, in the context of role mining. Next, we propose a framework that incorporates some specific examples of each of these risk metrics before and after role mining. We have implemented a proof-of-concept prototype, a Risk Awareness system for Role Mining (aRARM) based on this framework and applied it to two case studies: a small organizational project and a university database setting. The aRARM prototype is automatically able to detect different types of risk factors when we add different types of noise to this data. The results from the two case studies draw some correlation between the behavior of the different risk factors due to different types and amounts of noise. We also discuss the effect of the different types and amounts of noise on the different role mining algorithms implemented for this study. While the detection rating value for calculating the risk priority number has previously been calculated after role mining, we attempt to find an initial estimate of the detection rating before role mining

Comparison and Alignment of Access Control Models

Turvasüsteemipoliitikat rakendatakse arvutis juurdepääsu kontrollimehhanismi kaudu. Juurdepääsu kontrollmehhanismi peamised kontrollid on konfidentsiaalsus, terviklikkus ja turvalisus. Juurdepääsu kontrollmehhanismi saab rakendada mistahes juurdepääsu kontrollmudelite kaudu. See on viis, kuidas volitamata kasutaja eest teavet või ressursse kaitsta, tagades juurdepääsu ainult volitatud kasutajale. On olemas erinevad juurdepääsu kontrollimudelid, kus kõik mudelid pole tänapäeva digitaalkeskkonnale piisavad. Seega tekib probleem ülesande lahendamisel, milline juurdepääsukontrolli mudel sobib teatud tüüpi mitme kasutaja infrastruktuuriga, millel on erinevad juurdepääsuvajadused. Juurdepääsu kontrollmudel erineb vastavalt keskkonnale. On olemas keskkond, mis annab juurdepääsu oma kasutajatele konkreetses võrgustikus ja keskkonnas, kus on kasutajaid, kes vahetavad võrke, et kasutada dünaamiliselt erinevaid ressursse. Seega on ressursside ja võrgu tõhusa kasutamise õige mudeli määramine keeruline, välja arvatud juhul, kui on võimalik olemasolevas mudelis kasutada vajalikke kontseptsioone, et muuta meie uus mudel paindlikumaks.Juurdepääsu kontrollimise standardid erinevate juurdepääsupõhiste õiguste haldamiseks on keerukad. Tekkivate tehnoloogiatega muutuvad süsteemi komponendid ajakohastatuks, seega on väljakutse leida sobiv ja paindlik juhtimismudel, mis vastab süsteemile. Isegi kui saadaval on erinevad juurdepääsukontrolli mudelid, on tõeline probleem leidmaks vajalikku juurdepääsu kontrollimehhanismi, mida saab kasutada meie uue juurdepääsukontrolli mudeli täiustamiseks, et turvaliselt juurde pääsedes ressursse tõhusalt kasutada.Lahenduseks on mõista juurdepääsu kontrollimudeli nõrku ja tugevaid omadusi, võrrelda erinevaid mudeleid ja viia nende parimad omadused kokku paindliku juurdepääsu kontrollimudeli koostamiseks. See saavutatakse süstemaatilise küsitluse abil, kus osalejad kinnitavad, et juurdepääsu kontrollimudelit saab mõista ja võrrelda kolme põhikomponendi: subjekti, poliitika ja objektiga, mille aluseks olevad põhimõtted, metamudelid ja kolme erineva juurdepääsu kontrollimudeli näitel.Erinevate juurdepääsukontrolli mudelite analüütiline võrdlus põhineb aruandel selle kohta, kuidas kasutajad sellega erinevatel juhtudel tegelevad. See uuring aitas saada erinevate inimeste arvamust reaalselt nii, et see empiiriline katsete läbiviimise viis suudaks leida tugevaid ja nõrgemaid tegureid. Lõpuks viiakse kõik tugevad tegureid kooskõlla uue paindliku juurdepääsukontrolli mudeli loomisega.Tulemus aitab võrrelda, uurida ja rakendada sobivat ja vajalikku juurdepääsu kontrollisüsteemile. See paneb meid mõtlema ka sellele, kuidas saab uut juurdepääsu kontrollisüsteemi analüüsida ja võrrelda olemasolevatega. Reaalajas vaatajaskonna abil saab selle väljund olla realistlik. Seda uurimustöö tulemust saab kasutada juurdepääsu kontrolli mudelite edasiseks täiustamiseks.Security system policies are implemented in the computer through access control mechanism. The primary controls that the access control mechanism possesses are confidentiality, integrity, and security. Access control mechanism can be applied through any of the access control models. It is is a way of protecting information or resources from the unauthorized user to provide access to authorized user. There exist different access control models in which all models are not adequate for today's digital environment. So, the problem arises in difficulty faced to choose which access control model suits well for a particular type of multi-user infrastructure with various access needs. Access control model differs according to the environment. There is an environment which grants access to its users within a particular network and for an environment which has users, who switch dynamically between different networks to access resources. Hence, determining the right model for the efficient use of resources and network is difficult, unless, there is a way to implement the needed concepts in our existing model as to make our new flexible model. Access control standards for managing different access privileges are complex to understand. With the emerging technologies, components of a system are getting updated, so, it will be a challenge to find out the suitable and flexible access control model that matches the system. Even though there are different access control model available, there is the real problem in finding out the needed access control mechanism which can be employed for the improvement of our new access control model for the efficient use of the resources to be accessed securely.The solution is to understand the weak and strong features of access control model by comparing different models and aligning their best features to compose into a flexible access control model. It is achieved with the help of systematic survey, where a group of audience validated that access control model can be understood and compared with three main components, subject, policy and object with underlying principles, meta-models and examples of three different access control model. Analytical comparison of different access control model is drawn from a report of how the audience deals with it at various cases that were analyzed. This survey helped to receive the opinion of different people realistically, such that this empirical way of conducting experiments concludes with the way for finding strong and weak factors. Finally, all the strong factors are aligned to form a new flexible access control model. The result helps to compare, study and implement a suitable and necessary access control system. It also makes us think in a way how a new access control system can be analyzed and compared with the existing ones. This research work result can be used for further research in future for the potential enhancement of newer access control models

Semantic privacy-preserving framework for electronic health record linkage

The combination of digitized health information and web-based technologies offers many possibilities for data analysis and business intelligence. In the healthcare and biomedical research domain, applications depending on electronic health records (EHRs) identify privacy preservation as a major concern. Existing solutions cannot always satisfy the evolving research demands such as linking patient records across organizational boundaries due to the potential for patient re-identification. In this work, we show how semantic methods can be applied to support the formulation and enforcement of access control policy whilst ensuring that privacy leakage can be detected and prevented. The work is illustrated through a case study associated with the Australasian Diabetes Data Network (ADDN – www.addn.org.au), the national paediatric type-1 diabetes data registry, and the Australian Urban Research Infrastructure Network (AURIN – www.aurin.org.au) platform that supports Australia-wide access to urban and built environment data sets. We demonstrate that through extending the eXtensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML) with semantic capabilities, finer-grained access control encompassing data risk disclosure mechanisms can be supported. We discuss the contributions that can be made using this approach to socio-economic development and political management within business systems, and especially those situations where secure data access and data linkage is required

Authorization schema for electronic health-care records: for Uganda

This thesis discusses how to design an authorization schema focused on ensuring each patient's data privacy within a hospital information system

Identity Management and Authorization Infrastructure in Secure Mobile Access to Electronic Health Records

We live in an age of the mobile paradigm of anytime/anywhere access, as the mobile device is the most ubiquitous device that people now hold. Due to their portability, availability, easy of use, communication, access and sharing of information within various domains and areas of our daily lives, the acceptance and adoption of these devices is still growing. However, due to their potential and raising numbers, mobile devices are a growing target for attackers and, like other technologies, mobile applications are still vulnerable. Health information systems are composed with tools and software to collect, manage, analyze and process medical information (such as electronic health records and personal health records). Therefore, such systems can empower the performance and maintenance of health services, promoting availability, readability, accessibility and data sharing of vital information about a patients overall medical history, between geographic fragmented health services. Quick access to information presents a great importance in the health sector, as it accelerates work processes, resulting in better time utilization. Additionally, it may increase the quality of care. However health information systems store and manage highly sensitive data, which raises serious concerns regarding patients privacy and safety, and may explain the still increasing number of malicious incidents reports within the health domain. Data related to health information systems are highly sensitive and subject to severe legal and regulatory restrictions, that aim to protect the individual rights and privacy of patients. Along side with these legislations, security requirements must be analyzed and measures implemented. Within the necessary security requirements to access health data, secure authentication, identity management and access control are essential to provide adequate means to protect data from unauthorized accesses. However, besides the use of simple authentication models, traditional access control models are commonly based on predefined access policies and roles, and are inflexible. This results in uniform access control decisions through people, different type of devices, environments and situational conditions, and across enterprises, location and time. Although already existent models allow to ensure the needs of the health care systems, they still lack components for dynamicity and privacy protection, which leads to not have desire levels of security and to the patient not to have a full and easy control of his privacy. Within this master thesis, after a deep research and review of the stat of art, was published a novel dynamic access control model, Socio-Technical Risk-Adaptable Access Control modEl (SoTRAACE), which can model the inherent differences and security requirements that are present in this thesis. To do this, SoTRAACE aggregates attributes from various domains to help performing a risk assessment at the moment of the request. The assessment of the risk factors identified in this work is based in a Delphi Study. A set of security experts from various domains were selected, to classify the impact in the risk assessment of each attribute that SoTRAACE aggregates. SoTRAACE was integrated in an architecture with requirements well-founded, and based in the best recommendations and standards (OWASP, NIST 800-53, NIST 800-57), as well based in deep review of the state-of-art. The architecture is further targeted with the essential security analysis and the threat model. As proof of concept, the proposed access control model was implemented within the user-centric architecture, with two mobile prototypes for several types of accesses by patients and healthcare professionals, as well the web servers that handles the access requests, authentication and identity management. The proof of concept shows that the model works as expected, with transparency, assuring privacy and data control to the user without impact for user experience and interaction. It is clear that the model can be extended to other industry domains, and new levels of risks or attributes can be added because it is modular. The architecture also works as expected, assuring secure authentication with multifactor, and secure data share/access based in SoTRAACE decisions. The communication channel that SoTRAACE uses was also protected with a digital certificate. At last, the architecture was tested within different Android versions, tested with static and dynamic analysis and with tests with security tools. Future work includes the integration of health data standards and evaluating the proposed system by collecting users’ opinion after releasing the system to real world.Hoje em dia vivemos em um paradigma móvel de acesso em qualquer lugar/hora, sendo que os dispositivos móveis são a tecnologia mais presente no dia a dia da sociedade. Devido à sua portabilidade, disponibilidade, fácil manuseamento, poder de comunicação, acesso e partilha de informação referentes a várias áreas e domínios das nossas vidas, a aceitação e integração destes dispositivos é cada vez maior. No entanto, devido ao seu potencial e aumento do número de utilizadores, os dispositivos móveis são cada vez mais alvos de ataques, e tal como outras tecnologias, aplicações móveis continuam a ser vulneráveis. Sistemas de informação de saúde são compostos por ferramentas e softwares que permitem recolher, administrar, analisar e processar informação médica (tais como documentos de saúde eletrónicos). Portanto, tais sistemas podem potencializar a performance e a manutenção dos serviços de saúde, promovendo assim a disponibilidade, acessibilidade e a partilha de dados vitais referentes ao registro médico geral dos pacientes, entre serviços e instituições que estão geograficamente fragmentadas. O rápido acesso a informações médicas apresenta uma grande importância para o setor da saúde, dado que acelera os processos de trabalho, resultando assim numa melhor eficiência na utilização do tempo e recursos. Consequentemente haverá uma melhor qualidade de tratamento. Porém os sistemas de informação de saúde armazenam e manuseiam dados bastantes sensíveis, o que levanta sérias preocupações referentes à privacidade e segurança do paciente. Assim se explica o aumento de incidentes maliciosos dentro do domínio da saúde. Os dados de saúde são altamente sensíveis e são sujeitos a severas leis e restrições regulamentares, que pretendem assegurar a proteção dos direitos e privacidade dos pacientes, salvaguardando os seus dados de saúde. Juntamente com estas legislações, requerimentos de segurança devem ser analisados e medidas implementadas. Dentro dos requerimentos necessários para aceder aos dados de saúde, uma autenticação segura, gestão de identidade e controlos de acesso são essenciais para fornecer meios adequados para a proteção de dados contra acessos não autorizados. No entanto, além do uso de modelos simples de autenticação, os modelos tradicionais de controlo de acesso são normalmente baseados em políticas de acesso e cargos pré-definidos, e são inflexíveis. Isto resulta em decisões de controlo de acesso uniformes para diferentes pessoas, tipos de dispositivo, ambientes e condições situacionais, empresas, localizações e diferentes alturas no tempo. Apesar dos modelos existentes permitirem assegurar algumas necessidades dos sistemas de saúde, ainda há escassez de componentes para accesso dinâmico e proteção de privacidade , o que resultam em níveis de segurança não satisfatórios e em o paciente não ter controlo directo e total sobre a sua privacidade e documentos de saúde. Dentro desta tese de mestrado, depois da investigação e revisão intensiva do estado da arte, foi publicado um modelo inovador de controlo de acesso, chamado SoTRAACE, que molda as diferenças de acesso inerentes e requerimentos de segurança presentes nesta tese. Para isto, o SoTRAACE agrega atributos de vários ambientes e domínios que ajudam a executar uma avaliação de riscos, no momento em que os dados são requisitados. A avaliação dos fatores de risco identificados neste trabalho são baseados num estudo de Delphi. Um conjunto de peritos de segurança de vários domínios industriais foram selecionados, para classificar o impacto de cada atributo que o SoTRAACE agrega. O SoTRAACE foi integrado numa arquitectura para acesso a dados médicos, com requerimentos bem fundados, baseados nas melhores normas e recomendações (OWASP, NIST 800-53, NIST 800-57), e em revisões intensivas do estado da arte. Esta arquitectura é posteriormente alvo de uma análise de segurança e modelos de ataque. Como prova deste conceito, o modelo de controlo de acesso proposto é implementado juntamente com uma arquitetura focada no utilizador, com dois protótipos para aplicações móveis, que providênciam vários tipos de acesso de pacientes e profissionais de saúde. A arquitetura é constituída também por servidores web que tratam da gestão de dados, controlo de acesso e autenticação e gestão de identidade. O resultado final mostra que o modelo funciona como esperado, com transparência, assegurando a privacidade e o controlo de dados para o utilizador, sem ter impacto na sua interação e experiência. Consequentemente este modelo pode-se extender para outros setores industriais, e novos níveis de risco ou atributos podem ser adicionados a este mesmo, por ser modular. A arquitetura também funciona como esperado, assegurando uma autenticação segura com multi-fator, acesso e partilha de dados segura baseado em decisões do SoTRAACE. O canal de comunicação que o SoTRAACE usa foi também protegido com um certificado digital. A arquitectura foi testada em diferentes versões de Android, e foi alvo de análise estática, dinâmica e testes com ferramentas de segurança. Para trabalho futuro está planeado a integração de normas de dados de saúde e a avaliação do sistema proposto, através da recolha de opiniões de utilizadores no mundo real

Interoperability, Trust Based Information Sharing Protocol and Security: Digital Government Key Issues

Improved interoperability between public and private organizations is of key significance to make digital government newest triumphant. Digital Government interoperability, information sharing protocol and security are measured the key issue for achieving a refined stage of digital government. Flawless interoperability is essential to share the information between diverse and merely dispersed organisations in several network environments by using computer based tools. Digital government must ensure security for its information systems, including computers and networks for providing better service to the citizens. Governments around the world are increasingly revolving to information sharing and integration for solving problems in programs and policy areas. Evils of global worry such as syndrome discovery and manage, terror campaign, immigration and border control, prohibited drug trafficking, and more demand information sharing, harmonization and cooperation amid government agencies within a country and across national borders. A number of daunting challenges survive to the progress of an efficient information sharing protocol. A secure and trusted information-sharing protocol is required to enable users to interact and share information easily and perfectly across many diverse networks and databases globally.Comment: 20 page

Context-aware access control in ubiquitous computing (CRAAC)

Ubiquitous computing (UbiComp) envisions a new computing environment, where computing devices and related technology are widespread (i.e. everywhere) and services are provided at anytime. The technology is embedded discreetly in the environment to raise users' awareness. UbiComp environments support the proliferation of heterogeneous devices such as embedded computing devices, personal digital assistants (PDAs), wearable computers, mobile phones, laptops, office desktops (PCs), and hardware sensors. These devices may be interconnected by common networks (e.g. wired, wireless), and may have different levels of capabilities (i.e. computational power, storage, power consumption, etc). They are seamlessly integrated and interoperated to provide smart services (i.e. adaptive services). A UbiComp environment provides smart services to users based on the users' and/or system's current contexts. It provides the services to users unobtrusively and in turn the user's interactions with the environment should be as non-intrusive and as transparent as possible. Access to such smart services and devices must be controlled by an effective access control system that adapts its decisions based on the changes in the surrounding contextual information. This thesis aims at designing an adaptive fine-grained access control solution that seamlessly fits into UbiComp environments. The solution should be flexible in supporting the use of different contextual information and efficient, in terms of access delays, in controlling access to resources with divergent levels of sensitivity. The main contribution of this thesis is the proposal of the Context-Risk-Aware Access Control (CRAAC) model. CRAAC achieves fine-grained access control based upon the risk level in the underlying access environment and/or the sensitivity level of the requested resource object. CRAAC makes new contributions to the access control field, those include 1) introducing the concept of level of assurance based access control, 2) providing a method to convert the contextual attributes values into the corresponding level of assurance, 3) Proposing two methods to aggregate the set of level of assurance into one requester level of assurance, 4) supporting four modes of working each suits a different application context and/or access control requirements, 5) a comprehensive access control architecture that supports the CRAAC four modes of working, and 6) an evaluation of the CRAAC performance at runtime.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online Serviceral Centre and Educational BureauCairo UniversityGBUnited Kingdo