The Proceedings of 15th Australian Information Security Management Conference, 5-6 December, 2017, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia

Conference Foreword The annual Security Congress, run by the Security Research Institute at Edith Cowan University, includes the Australian Information Security and Management Conference. Now in its fifteenth year, the conference remains popular for its diverse content and mixture of technical research and discussion papers. The area of information security and management continues to be varied, as is reflected by the wide variety of subject matter covered by the papers this year. The papers cover topics from vulnerabilities in “Internet of Things” protocols through to improvements in biometric identification algorithms and surveillance camera weaknesses. The conference has drawn interest and papers from within Australia and internationally. All submitted papers were subject to a double blind peer review process. Twenty two papers were submitted from Australia and overseas, of which eighteen were accepted for final presentation and publication. We wish to thank the reviewers for kindly volunteering their time and expertise in support of this event. We would also like to thank the conference committee who have organised yet another successful congress. Events such as this are impossible without the tireless efforts of such people in reviewing and editing the conference papers, and assisting with the planning, organisation and execution of the conference. To our sponsors, also a vote of thanks for both the financial and moral support provided to the conference. Finally, thank you to the administrative and technical staff, and students of the ECU Security Research Institute for their contributions to the running of the conference

Accumulators with Applications to Anonymity-Preserving Revocation

Membership revocation is essential for cryptographic applications, from traditional PKIs to group signatures and anonymous credentials. Of the various solutions for the revocation problem that have been explored, dynamic accumulators are one of the most promising. We propose Braavos, a new, RSA-based, dynamic accumulator. It has optimal communication complexity and, when combined with efficient zero-knowledge proofs, provides an ideal solution for anonymous revocation. For the construction of Braavos we use a modular approach: we show how to build an accumulator with better functionality and security from accumulators with fewer features and weaker security guarantees. We then describe an anonymous revocation component (ARC) that can be instantiated using any dynamic accumulator. ARC can be added to any anonymous system, such as anonymous credentials or group signatures, in order to equip it with a revocation functionality. Finally, we implement ARC with Braavos and plug it into Idemix, the leading implementation of anonymous credentials. This work resolves, for the first time, the problem of practical revocation for anonymous credential systems

Ausgewählte Chancen und Herausforderungen der digitalen Transformation für die Produktentwicklung und Unternehmensorganisation im Finanzdienstleistungssektor

Vor dem Hintergrund der digitalen Transformation sind Finanzdienstleistungsunternehmen auf unterschiedlichen Ebenen zahlreichen Chancen sowie Herausforderungen ausgesetzt. Während der Einsatz neuer Technologien die Optimierung bestehender Geschäftsprozesse sowie das Angebot digitalisierter Finanzdienstleistungen ermöglicht, geht dies zugleich mit veränderten Arbeitsbedingungen innerhalb der Unternehmensorganisation einher. Darüber hinaus sind Finanzdienstleister dazu angehalten die sich ändernden Kundenerwartungen bei den bisherigen Geschäftsaktivitäten sowie bei der Produktentwicklung zu berücksichtigen. Das Ziel der vorliegenden kumulativen Dissertation ist es, bestehende Forschungsdesiderate hinsichtlich der Auswirkungen der digitalen Transformation auf den Finanzdienstleistungssektor, differenziert nach der Kunden- und Produktperspektive sowie der internen Unternehmensperspektive, vertiefend zu analysieren. Das Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE)-Framework von DePietro et al. (1990) wird dabei als theoretischer Rahmen zur Einordnung und Strukturierung der Forschungsmodule verwendet. Die Ergebnisse der acht Module zeigen, dass die Kundenbedürfnisse und –erwartungen im Finanzdienstleistungssektor verstärkt von der digitalen Transformation beeinflusst werden. Dies zeigt sich in der Beratungstätigkeit bspw. durch das Angebot neuer Kundenkanäle sowie der aus dem steigenden Wettbewerbsdruck resultierenden erhöhten Preistransparenz. Im Rahmen der Produktentwicklung sind zudem u. a. ESG-Risiken und Silent Cyber-Risiken zu beachten. Aus der Analyse der Auswirkungen der digitalen Transformation auf die Unternehmensorganisation geht hervor, dass über den Einsatz digitaler Innovationen innerhalb des Backoffice die Realisation von Effizienzgewinnen sowie das Entgegenwirken eines Personalmangels möglich ist. Darüber hinaus wird in den Modulen der Einfluss des Faktors Mensch auf die Cyber-Sicherheit hervorgehoben. Während dieser einerseits als „schwächstes Glied“ und potenzielles Angriffsziel im Sicherheitskonstrukt der Unternehmen dargestellt wird, ist andererseits das Potenzial der Beschäftigten zur Frühwarnung zu berücksichtigen

P4TC - Provably-Secure yet Practical Privacy-Preserving Toll Collection

Electronic toll collection (ETC) is widely used all over the world not only to finance our road infrastructures, but also to realize advanced features like congestion management and pollution reduction by means of dynamic pricing. Unfortunately, existing systems rely on user identification and allow tracing a user’s movements. Several abuses of this personalized location data have already become public. In view of the planned Europeanwide interoperable tolling system EETS and the new EU General Data Protection Regulation, location privacy becomes of particular importance. In this paper, we propose a flexible security model and crypto protocol framework designed for privacy-preserving toll collection in the most dominant setting, i.e., Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC) ETC. A major challenge in designing the framework at hand was to combine provable security and practicality, where the latter includes practical performance figures and a suitable treatment of real-world issues, like broken onboard units etc. To the best of our knowledge, our work is the first in the DSRC setting with a rigorous security model and proof and arguably the most comprehensive formal treatment of ETC security and privacy overall. Additionally, we provide a prototypical implementation on realistic hardware which already features fairly practical performance figures. An interaction between an onboard unit and a road-side unit is estimated to take less than a second allowing for toll collection at full speed assuming one road-side unit per lane

To What Extent Has Information Security Professionalism Achieved Recognition?

The practice of securing information was until recently associated strongly with securing the Information Technology systems which store and process it. As it has developed as a specialised area of work however, particularly as the critical importance of human and social factors has increasingly been recognised, it has acquired an identity separate from that of computing. The separation has been sufficient for the formation of a new, distinct occupation, with specialised credentialing bodies being established to attest to practitioners’ professional competence. This study is the first empirical academic investigation into the professionalisation of UK Information Security. It considers attitudes towards professional status, the desirability and practicality of licensing, the current standing of the occupation and its prospects for the future. The analysis draws heavily from the substantial Sociology of the Professions, both from the structural and procedural theory of profession-forming and the later critiques of motivation, class and power. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with twenty-seven individuals comprising security analysts, managers, academics, professional bodies and the UK Government. Interviews took place between November 2012 and March 2015. Results are presented in two stages of analysis, using Actor–Network Theory as a theoretical lens. Whilst significant progress has been made towards forming a recognisable Information Security profession, its status is not yet comparable to more established peers. Aligned with US National Research Council findings but using a broader basis in professionalisation theory, the UK occupation was found to be too diffusely demarcated both internally and with respect to its bordering professions. It has yet to coalesce around distinct internal specialities with discrete qualification routes and establish the hierarchical arrangement of its major branches. Without such stratification of roles and a well-accepted claim to controlling a clearly demarcated body of knowledge, it is not possible to establish the boundaries of a graduate profession superior to any supporting para-professions, and thus position itself as requiring an advanced abstract education comparable to its peers. A rationalisation of credentials and institutions is required to produce a strong professional body which can advance the cause of the profession and properly establish and embed these roles. At present however – contrary to the tenor of much of the relevant sociology – neither the pursuit of professional status nor the exclusion of unqualified workers were found to be major motivators for current practitioners. By contrast government, the final arbiter of professional monopoly, is attempting urgently to increase the appeal of the profession to address a national skills shortfall, but is wary of direct market intervention in the form of licensing. Therefore, whilst change is rapid, significant impediments to full professional recognition remain