NEMESYS: Enhanced Network Security for Seamless Service Provisioning in the Smart Mobile Ecosystem

As a consequence of the growing popularity of smart mobile devices, mobile malware is clearly on the rise, with attackers targeting valuable user information and exploiting vulnerabilities of the mobile ecosystems. With the emergence of large-scale mobile botnets, smartphones can also be used to launch attacks on mobile networks. The NEMESYS project will develop novel security technologies for seamless service provisioning in the smart mobile ecosystem, and improve mobile network security through better understanding of the threat landscape. NEMESYS will gather and analyze information about the nature of cyber-attacks targeting mobile users and the mobile network so that appropriate counter-measures can be taken. We will develop a data collection infrastructure that incorporates virtualized mobile honeypots and a honeyclient, to gather, detect and provide early warning of mobile attacks and better understand the modus operandi of cyber-criminals that target mobile devices. By correlating the extracted information with the known patterns of attacks from wireline networks, we will reveal and identify trends in the way that cyber-criminals launch attacks against mobile devices.Comment: Accepted for publication in Proceedings of the 28th International Symposium on Computer and Information Sciences (ISCIS'13); 9 pages; 1 figur

Opportunistic Communications for Emergency Support

I herewith certify that all material in this dissertation which is not my own work has been properly acknowledged

Autonomous navigation systems for emergency management in buildings

The evacuation of urban areas during an emergency is complex and challenging due to the dynamic conditions and ambiguity of information available to people in the affected area. Autonomous navigation systems can improve the outcome of such evacuations by providing up-to-date guidance and directions to people during the emergency. In this paper we present two distributed navigation systems deployed inside a confined space, such as a building, that use simple but effective communications to gather and disseminate information for the computation of evacuation paths. The first system is composed of a network of static decision nodes (DNs) positioned in the building, where DNs distributedly compute the best paths using local communication and computation, and each DN provides directions to people in its vicinity. The second system is composed of mobile communication nodes (CNs) carried by the people in the area. CNs form an opportunistic network in order to exchange information regarding the hazard and each CNs directs its user towards the safest/closest exit. Sensor nodes pre-deployed in the building monitor the environment and provide their measurements to both systems. We investigate the effect of failures of DNs on the evacuation outcome and study how the two systems can be used in conjunction to overcome such problems. A multi-agent simulation platform is used for the performance evaluation of our proposed systems in evacuation scenarios inside a three-floor building

Spatial computers for emergency support

We present two spatially distributed computing systems that operate in a building and provide intelligent navigation services to people for evacuation purposes. These systems adapt to changing conditions by monitoring the building and using local communication and computation for determining the best evacuation paths. The first system, called distributed evacuation system (DES), comprises a network of decision nodes (DNs) positioned at specific locations inside the building. DNs provide people with directions regarding the best available exit. The second system, called opportunistic emergency support system (OESS), consists of mobile communication nodes (CNs) carried by people. CNs form an opportunistic network in order to exchange information regarding the hazard and to direct the evacuees towards the safest exit. BothDESandOESSemploy sensor nodes deployed at fixed locations for monitoring the hazard.We evaluate the spatial systems using simulation experiments with a purpose-built emergency simulator called DBES.We show how parameters such as the frequency of information exchange and communication range affect the system performance and evacuation outcome