A low cost and highly accurate technique for big data spatial-temporal interpolation

The high velocity, variety and volume of data generation by today's systems have necessitated Big Data (BD) analytic techniques. This has penetrated a wide range of industries; BD as a notion has various types and characteristics, and therefore a variety of analytic techniques would be required. The traditional analysis methods are typically unable to analyse spatial-temporal BD. Interpolation is required to approximate the values between the already existing data points, yet since there exist both location and time dimensions, only a multivariate interpolation would be appropriate. Nevertheless, existing software are unable to perform such complex interpolations. To overcome this challenge, this paper presents a layer by layer interpolation approach for spatial-temporal BD. Developing this layered structure provides the opportunity for working with much smaller linear system of equations. Consequently, this structure increases the accuracy and stability of numerical structure of the considered BD interpolation. To construct this layer by layer interpolation, we have used the good properties of Radial Basis Functions (RBFs). The proposed new approach is applied to numerical examples in spatial-temporal big data and the obtained results confirm the high accuracy and low computational cost. Finally, our approach is applied to explore one of the air pollution indices, i.e. daily PM2.5 concentration, based on different stations in the contiguous United States, and it is evaluated by leave-one-out cross validation

The Standardised Digital Forensic Investigation Process Model (SDFIPM)

The field of digital forensics still lacks formal process models that courts can employ to determine the reliability of the process followed in a digital investigation. The existing models have often been developed by digital forensic practitioners, based on their own personal experience and on an ad-hoc basis, without attention to the establishment of standardisation within the field. This has prevented the institution of the formal processes that are urgently required. Moreover, as digital forensic investigators often operate within different fields of law enforcement, commerce and incident response, the existing models have often tended to focus on one particular field and have failed to consider all the environments. This has hindered the development of a generic model that can be applied in all the three stated fields of digital forensics. To address these shortcomings, this paper makes a novel contribution by proposing the Advanced Investigative Process Model (the SDFIPM) for Conducting Digital Forensic Investigations, encompassing the ‘middle part’ of the digital investigative process, which is formal in that it synthesizes, harmonises and extends the existing models, and which is generic in that it can be applied in the three fields of law enforcement, commerce and incident response

Cloud Computing Security: Hardware-Based Attacks and Countermeasures

Despite its many technological and economic benefits, Cloud Computing poses complex security threats resulting from the use of virtualisation technology. Compromising the security of any component in the cloud virtual infrastructure will negatively affect the security of other elements and so impact the overall system security. By characterising the diversity of cyber-attacks carried out in the Cloud, this paper aims to provide an analysis of both common and underexplored security threats associated with the cloud from a technical viewpoint. Accordingly, the paper will suggest emerging solutions that can help to address such threats. The paper also offers future research directions for cloud security that we hope can inspire the research community to develop more effective security solutions for cloud systems

Testing the Comprehensive Digital Forensic Investigation Process Model (the CDFIPM)

The Comprehensive Digital Forensic Investigation Process Model (the CDFIPM), presented in Montasari (IJESDF 8(4)285–301, 2016), provides guidelines for carrying out digital investigations in the UK jurisdiction in a forensically sound manner. The CDFIPM is comprehensive in that it covers the entire digital forensic investigative process; it is generic such that it can be applied in the three fields of law enforcement, incident response and commerce. The model is also formal in that it synthesises, harmonises and extends the existing digital forensic investigation process models. The CDFIPM also needs to be subjected to an evaluation process in order to determine ‘whether the model has been built right’ and ‘whether the right model has been built’. To this end, the CDFIPM is applied to a case study in this paper to determine whether the model meets the two components of ‘utility’ and ‘usability’