Security, Privacy and Safety Risk Assessment for Virtual Reality Learning Environment Applications

Social Virtual Reality based Learning Environments (VRLEs) such as vSocial render instructional content in a three-dimensional immersive computer experience for training youth with learning impediments. There are limited prior works that explored attack vulnerability in VR technology, and hence there is a need for systematic frameworks to quantify risks corresponding to security, privacy, and safety (SPS) threats. The SPS threats can adversely impact the educational user experience and hinder delivery of VRLE content. In this paper, we propose a novel risk assessment framework that utilizes attack trees to calculate a risk score for varied VRLE threats with rate and duration of threats as inputs. We compare the impact of a well-constructed attack tree with an adhoc attack tree to study the trade-offs between overheads in managing attack trees, and the cost of risk mitigation when vulnerabilities are identified. We use a vSocial VRLE testbed in a case study to showcase the effectiveness of our framework and demonstrate how a suitable attack tree formalism can result in a more safer, privacy-preserving and secure VRLE system.Comment: Tp appear in the CCNC 2019 Conferenc

Sifting Through Clutter and Finding Answers that Utter Among COVID-19 Data for Medical Users via Gateways

<p>Science gateways have been a crucial tool that lowers the barriers of computer language proficiency for researchers and scientists alike to implement digital tools to further their research agendas. However, gateways remain somewhat esoteric and difficult to use for many potential users. A chatbot has been proposed as a solution to aid gateway users and for the improvement of gateway usability. Via in-depth interviews with 10 medical professionals, we investigated the challenges they faced when extracting data, namely, slow speed, limited scope, and mixed quality of data. We suggest future gateway developments to address the issues that medical professionals face when searching for publications and data. Findings suggest that gateways could serve practitioners (i.e., clinicians, healthcare providers in this case), beyond the original vision for research and education. Moreover, gateway projects could consider conducting similar market research interviews to better understand the work context (including challenges) faced by the intended users of specific gateways.<br> </p&gt