Cyber Security and Critical Infrastructures 2nd Volume

The second volume of the book contains the manuscripts that were accepted for publication in the MDPI Special Topic "Cyber Security and Critical Infrastructure" after a rigorous peer-review process. Authors from academia, government and industry contributed their innovative solutions, consistent with the interdisciplinary nature of cybersecurity. The book contains 16 articles, including an editorial that explains the current challenges, innovative solutions and real-world experiences that include critical infrastructure and 15 original papers that present state-of-the-art innovative solutions to attacks on critical systems

DDoS Capability and Readiness - Evidence from Australian Organisations

A common perception of cyber defence is that it should protect systems and data from malicious attacks, ideally keeping attackers outside of secure perimeters and preventing entry. Much of the effort in traditional cyber security defence is focused on removing gaps in security design and preventing those with legitimate permissions from becoming a gateway or resource for those seeking illegitimate access. By contrast, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks do not use application backdoors or software vulnerabilities to create their impact. They instead utilise legitimate entry points and knowledge of system processes for illegitimate purposes. DDoS seeks to overwhelm system and infrastructure resources so that legitimate requests are prevented from reaching their intended destination. For this thesis, a literature review was performed using sources from two perspectives. Reviews of both industry literature and academic literature were combined to build a balanced view of knowledge of this area. Industry and academic literature revealed that DDoS is outpacing internet growth, with vandalism, criminal and ideological motivations rising to prominence. From a defence perspective, the human factor remains a weak link in cyber security due to proneness for mistakes, oversights and the variance in approach and methods expressed by differing cultures. How cyber security is perceived, approached, and applied can have a critical effect on the overall outcome achieved, even when similar technologies are implemented. In addition, variance in the technical capabilities of those responsible for the implementation may create further gaps and vulnerabilities. While discussing technical challenges and theoretical concepts, existing literature failed to cover the experiences held by the victim organisations, or the thoughts and feelings of their personnel. This thesis addresses these identified gaps through exploratory research, which used a mix of descriptive and qualitative analysis to develop results and conclusions. The websites of 60 Australian organisations were analysed to uncover the level and quality of cyber security information they were willing to share and the methods and processes they used to engage with their audience. In addition, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 employees from around half of those websites analysed. These were analysed using NVivo12 qualitative analysis software. The difficulty experienced with attracting willing participants reflected the comfort that organisations showed with sharing cyber security information and experiences. However, themes found within the results show that, while DDoS is considered a valid threat, without encouragement to collaborate and standardise minimum security levels, firms may be missing out on valuable strategies to improve their cyber security postures. Further, this reluctance to share leads organisations to rely on their own internal skill and expertise, thus failing to realise the benefits of established frameworks and increased diversity in the workforce. Along with the size of the participant pool, other limitations included the diversity of participants and the impact of COVID-19 which may have influenced participants' thoughts and reflections. These limitations however, present opportunity for future studies using greater participant numbers or a narrower target focus. Either option would be beneficial to the recommendations of this study which were made from a practical, social, theoretical and policy perspective. On a practical and social level, organisational capabilities suffer due to the lack of information sharing and this extends to the community when similar restrictions prevent collaboration. Sharing of knowledge and experiences while protecting sensitive information is a worthy goal and this is something that can lead to improved defence. However, while improved understanding is one way to reduce the impact of cyber-attacks, the introduction of minimum cyber security standards for products, could reduce the ease at which devices can be used to facilitate attacks, but only if policy and effective governance ensures product compliance with legislation. One positive side to COVID-19's push to remote working, was an increase in digital literacy. As more roles were temporarily removed from their traditional physical workplace, many employees needed to rapidly accelerate their digital competency to continue their employment. To assist this transition, organisations acted to implement technology solutions that eased the ability for these roles to be undertaken remotely and as a consequence, they opened up these roles to a greater pool of available candidates. Many of these roles are no longer limited to the geographical location of potential employees or traditional hours of availability. Many of these roles could be accessed from almost anywhere, at any time, which had a positive effect on organisational capability and digital sustainability

Blind Source Separation for the Processing of Contact-Less Biosignals

(Spatio-temporale) Blind Source Separation (BSS) eignet sich für die Verarbeitung von Multikanal-Messungen im Bereich der kontaktlosen Biosignalerfassung. Ziel der BSS ist dabei die Trennung von (z.B. kardialen) Nutzsignalen und Störsignalen typisch für die kontaktlosen Messtechniken. Das Potential der BSS kann praktisch nur ausgeschöpft werden, wenn (1) ein geeignetes BSS-Modell verwendet wird, welches der Komplexität der Multikanal-Messung gerecht wird und (2) die unbestimmte Permutation unter den BSS-Ausgangssignalen gelöst wird, d.h. das Nutzsignal praktisch automatisiert identifiziert werden kann. Die vorliegende Arbeit entwirft ein Framework, mit dessen Hilfe die Effizienz von BSS-Algorithmen im Kontext des kamera-basierten Photoplethysmogramms bewertet werden kann. Empfehlungen zur Auswahl bestimmter Algorithmen im Zusammenhang mit spezifischen Signal-Charakteristiken werden abgeleitet. Außerdem werden im Rahmen der Arbeit Konzepte für die automatisierte Kanalauswahl nach BSS im Bereich der kontaktlosen Messung des Elektrokardiogramms entwickelt und bewertet. Neuartige Algorithmen basierend auf Sparse Coding erwiesen sich dabei als besonders effizient im Vergleich zu Standard-Methoden.(Spatio-temporal) Blind Source Separation (BSS) provides a large potential to process distorted multichannel biosignal measurements in the context of novel contact-less recording techniques for separating distortions from the cardiac signal of interest. This potential can only be practically utilized (1) if a BSS model is applied that matches the complexity of the measurement, i.e. the signal mixture and (2) if permutation indeterminacy is solved among the BSS output components, i.e the component of interest can be practically selected. The present work, first, designs a framework to assess the efficacy of BSS algorithms in the context of the camera-based photoplethysmogram (cbPPG) and characterizes multiple BSS algorithms, accordingly. Algorithm selection recommendations for certain mixture characteristics are derived. Second, the present work develops and evaluates concepts to solve permutation indeterminacy for BSS outputs of contact-less electrocardiogram (ECG) recordings. The novel approach based on sparse coding is shown to outperform the existing concepts of higher order moments and frequency-domain features

A competitive analysis of the personal computer industry

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Alfred P. Sloan School of Management, 1982.MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND DEWEYBibliography: leaves 188-192.by Gary Noble Farner.M.S

Development of lightweight structural health monitoring systems for aerospace applications

This thesis investigates the development of structural health monitoring systems (SHM) for aerospace applications. The work focuses on each aspect of a SHM system covering novel transducer technologies and damage detection techniques to detect and locate damage in metallic and composite structures. Secondly the potential of energy harvesting and power arranagement methodologies to provide a stable power source is assessed. Finally culminating in the realisation of smart SHM structures. 1. Transducer Technology A thorough experimental study of low profile, low weight novel transducers not normally used for acoustic emission (AE) and acousto-ultrasonics (AU) damage detection was conducted. This included assessment of their performance when exposed to aircraft environments and feasibility of embedding these transducers in composites specimens in order to realise smart structures. 2. Damage Detection An extensive experimental programme into damage detection utilising AE and AU were conducted in both composites and metallic structures. These techniques were used to assess different damage mechanism within these materials. The same transducers were used for novel AE location techniques coupled with AU similarity assessment to successfully detect and locate damage in a variety of structures. 3. Energy Harvesting and Power Management Experimental investigations and numerical simulations were undertaken to assess the power generation levels of piezoelectric and thermoelectric generators for typical vibration and temperature differentials which exist in the aerospace environment. Furthermore a power management system was assessed to demonstrate the ability of the system to take the varying nature of the input power and condition it to a stable power source for a system. 4. Smart Structures The research conducted is brought together into a smart carbon fibre wing showcasing the novel embedded transducers for AE and AU damage detection and location, as well as vibration energy harvesting. A study into impact damage detection using the techniques showed the successful detection and location of damage. Also the feasibility of the embedded transducers for power generation was assessed