Efforts and Suggestions for Improving Cybersecurity Education

In this growing technology epoch, one of the main concerns is about the cyber threats. To tackle this issue, highly skilled and motivated cybersecurity professionals are needed, who can prevent, detect, respond, or even mitigate the effect of such threats. However, the world faces workforce shortage of qualified cybersecurity professionals and practitioners. To solve this dilemma several cybersecurity educational programs have arisen. Before it was just a couple of courses in a computer science graduate program. Now a day’s different cybersecurity courses are introduced at the high school level, undergraduate computer science and information systems programs, even in the government level. Due to some peculiar nature of cybersecurity, educational institutions face many issues when designing a cybersecurity curriculum or cybersecurity activities

Cognitive Radio for Smart Grid with Security Considerations

In this paper, we investigate how Cognitive Radio as a means of communication can be utilized to serve a smart grid deployment end to end, from a home area network to power generation. We show how Cognitive Radio can be mapped to integrate the possible different communication networks within a smart grid large scale deployment. In addition, various applications in smart grid are defined and discussed showing how Cognitive Radio can be used to fulfill their communication requirements. Moreover, information security issues pertained to the use of Cognitive Radio in a smart grid environment at different levels and layers are discussed and mitigation techniques are suggested. Finally, the well-known Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) is integrated with the Cognitive Radio part of a smart grid communication network to protect against unauthorized access to customer’s data and to the network at large

Trustworthy Federated Learning: A Survey

Federated Learning (FL) has emerged as a significant advancement in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI), enabling collaborative model training across distributed devices while maintaining data privacy. As the importance of FL increases, addressing trustworthiness issues in its various aspects becomes crucial. In this survey, we provide an extensive overview of the current state of Trustworthy FL, exploring existing solutions and well-defined pillars relevant to Trustworthy . Despite the growth in literature on trustworthy centralized Machine Learning (ML)/Deep Learning (DL), further efforts are necessary to identify trustworthiness pillars and evaluation metrics specific to FL models, as well as to develop solutions for computing trustworthiness levels. We propose a taxonomy that encompasses three main pillars: Interpretability, Fairness, and Security & Privacy. Each pillar represents a dimension of trust, further broken down into different notions. Our survey covers trustworthiness challenges at every level in FL settings. We present a comprehensive architecture of Trustworthy FL, addressing the fundamental principles underlying the concept, and offer an in-depth analysis of trust assessment mechanisms. In conclusion, we identify key research challenges related to every aspect of Trustworthy FL and suggest future research directions. This comprehensive survey serves as a valuable resource for researchers and practitioners working on the development and implementation of Trustworthy FL systems, contributing to a more secure and reliable AI landscape.Comment: 45 Pages, 8 Figures, 9 Table

UNION: A Trust Model Distinguishing Intentional and Unintentional Misbehavior in Inter-UAV Communication

[EN] Ensuring the desired level of security is an important issue in all communicating systems, and it becomes more challenging in wireless environments. Flying Ad Hoc Networks (FANETs) are an emerging type of mobile network that is built using energy-restricted devices. Hence, the communications interface used and that computation complexity are additional factors to consider when designing secure protocols for these networks. In the literature, various solutions have been proposed to ensure secure and reliable internode communications, and these FANET nodes are known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). In general, these UAVs are often detected as malicious due to an unintentional misbehavior related to the physical features of the UAVs, the communication mediums, or the network interface. In this paper, we propose a new context-aware trust-based solution to distinguish between intentional and unintentional UAV misbehavior. The main goal is to minimize the generated error ratio while meeting the desired security levels. Our proposal simultaneously establishes the inter-UAV trust and estimates the current context in terms of UAV energy, mobility pattern, and enqueued packets, in order to ensure full context awareness in the overall honesty evaluation. In addition, based on computed trust and context metrics, we also propose a new inter-UAV packet delivery strategy. Simulations conducted using NS2.35 evidence the efficiency of our proposal, called UNION., at ensuring high detection ratios > 87% and high accuracy with reduced end-to-end delay, clearly outperforming previous proposals known as RPM, T-CLAIDS, and CATrust.This research is partially supported by the United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) under Grant no. 31T065.Barka, E.; Kerrache, CA.; Lagraa, N.; Lakas, A.; Tavares De Araujo Cesariny Calafate, CM.; Cano, J. (2018). UNION: A Trust Model Distinguishing Intentional and Unintentional Misbehavior in Inter-UAV Communication. Journal of Advanced Transportation. 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/7475357S112Ghazzai, H., Ben Ghorbel, M., Kadri, A., Hossain, M. J., & Menouar, H. (2017). Energy-Efficient Management of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for Underlay Cognitive Radio Systems. IEEE Transactions on Green Communications and Networking, 1(4), 434-443. doi:10.1109/tgcn.2017.2750721Sharma, V., & Kumar, R. (2016). Cooperative frameworks and network models for flying ad hoc networks: a survey. Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience, 29(4), e3931. doi:10.1002/cpe.3931Sun, J., Wang, W., Kou, L., Lin, Y., Zhang, L., Da, Q., & Chen, L. (2017). A data authentication scheme for UAV ad hoc network communication. The Journal of Supercomputing, 76(6), 4041-4056. doi:10.1007/s11227-017-2179-3He, D., Chan, S., & Guizani, M. (2017). Drone-Assisted Public Safety Networks: The Security Aspect. IEEE Communications Magazine, 55(8), 218-223. doi:10.1109/mcom.2017.1600799cmSeong-Woo Kim, & Seung-Woo Seo. (2012). Cooperative Unmanned Autonomous Vehicle Control for Spatially Secure Group Communications. IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, 30(5), 870-882. doi:10.1109/jsac.2012.120604Singh, A., Maheshwari, M., Nikhil, & Kumar, N. (2011). Security and Trust Management in MANET. Communications in Computer and Information Science, 384-387. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-20573-6_67Kerrache, C. A., Calafate, C. T., Cano, J.-C., Lagraa, N., & Manzoni, P. (2016). Trust Management for Vehicular Networks: An Adversary-Oriented Overview. IEEE Access, 4, 9293-9307. doi:10.1109/access.2016.2645452Li, W., & Song, H. (2016). ART: An Attack-Resistant Trust Management Scheme for Securing Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks. IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, 17(4), 960-969. doi:10.1109/tits.2015.2494017Raghunathan, V., Schurgers, C., Sung Park, & Srivastava, M. B. (2002). Energy-aware wireless microsensor networks. IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, 19(2), 40-50. doi:10.1109/79.985679Feeney, L. M. (2001). Mobile Networks and Applications, 6(3), 239-249. doi:10.1023/a:1011474616255De Rango, F., Guerriero, F., & Fazio, P. (2012). Link-Stability and Energy Aware Routing Protocol in Distributed Wireless Networks. IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, 23(4), 713-726. doi:10.1109/tpds.2010.160Hyytia, E., Lassila, P., & Virtamo, J. (2006). Spatial node distribution of the random waypoint mobility model with applications. IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, 5(6), 680-694. doi:10.1109/tmc.2006.86Wang, Y., Chen, I.-R., Cho, J.-H., Swami, A., Lu, Y.-C., Lu, C.-T., & Tsai, J. J. P. (2018). CATrust: Context-Aware Trust Management for Service-Oriented Ad Hoc Networks. IEEE Transactions on Services Computing, 11(6), 908-921. doi:10.1109/tsc.2016.2587259Kumar, N., & Chilamkurti, N. (2014). Collaborative trust aware intelligent intrusion detection in VANETs. Computers & Electrical Engineering, 40(6), 1981-1996. doi:10.1016/j.compeleceng.2014.01.00

Towards a trusted unmanned aerial system using blockchain (BUAS) for the protection of critical infrastructure

With the exponential growth in the number of vital infrastructures such as nuclear plants and transport and distribution networks, these systems have become more susceptible to coordinated cyber attacks. One of the effective approaches used to strengthen the security of these infrastructures is the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) for surveillance and data collection. However, UAVs themselves are prone to attacks on their collected sensor data. Recently, Blockchain (BC) has been proposed as a revolutionary technology which can be integrated within IoT to provide a desired level of security and privacy. However, the integration of BC within IoT networks, where UAV's sensors constitute a major component, is extremely challenging. The major contribution of this study is two-fold. (1) survey of the security issues for UAV's collected sensor data, define the security requirements for such systems, and identify ways to address them. (2) propose a novel Blockchain-based solution to ensure the security of, and the trust between the UAVs and their relevant ground control stations (GCS). Our implementation results and analysis show that using UAVs as means for protecting critical infrastructure is greatly enhanced through the utilization of trusted Blockchain-based Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs).N/

Towards a national trauma registry for the United Arab Emirates

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Trauma is a major health problem in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as well as worldwide. Trauma registries provide large longitudinal databases for analysis and policy improvement. We aim in this paper to report on the development and evolution of a national trauma registry using a staged approach by developing a single-center registry, a two-center registry, and then a multi-center registry. The three registries were established by developing suitable data collection forms, databases, and interfaces to these databases. The first two registries collected data for a finite period of time and the third is underway. The steps taken to establish these registries depend on whether the registry is intended as a single-center or multi-center registry.</p> <p>Findings</p> <p>Several issues arose and were resolved during the development of these registries such as the relational design of the database, whether to use a standalone database management system or a web-based system, and the usability and security of the system. The inclusion of preventive medicine data elements is important in a trauma registry and the focus on road traffic collision data elements is essential in a country such as the UAE. The first two registries provided valuable data which has been analyzed and published.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The main factors leading to the successful establishment of a multi-center trauma registry are the development of a concise data entry form, development of a user-friendly secure web-based database system, the availability of a computer and Internet connection in each data collection center, funded data entry personnel well trained in extracting medical data from the medical record and entering it into the computer, and experienced personnel in trauma injuries and data analysis to continuously maintain and analyze the registry.</p

Implementation of a Biometric-Based Blockchain System for Preserving Privacy, Security, and Access Control in Healthcare Records

The use of Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems has emerged with the continuous advancement of the Internet of Things (IoT) and smart devices. This is driven by the various advantages for both patients and healthcare providers, including timely and distant alerts, continuous control, and reduced cost, to name a few. However, while providing these advantages, various challenges involving heterogeneity, scalability, and network complexity are still open. Patient security, data privacy, and trust are also among the main challenges that need more research effort. To this end, this paper presents an implementation of a biometric-based blockchain EHR system (BBEHR), a prototype that uniquely identifies patients, enables them to control access to their EHRs, and ensures recoverable access to their EHRs. This approach overcomes the dependency on the private/public key approach used by most blockchain technologies to identify patients, which becomes more crucial in situations where a loss of the private key permanently hinders the ability to access patients&rsquo; EHRs. Our solution covers component selection, high-level implementation, and integration of subsystems, was well as the coding of a prototype to validate the mitigation of the risk of permanent loss of access to EHRs by using patients&rsquo; fingerprints. A performance analysis of BBEHR showed our system&rsquo;s robustness and effectiveness in identifying patients and ensuring access control for their EHRs by using blockchain smart contracts with no additional overhead