Oportunidades, riesgos y aplicaciones de la inteligencia de fuentes abiertas en la ciberseguridad y la ciberdefensa

The intelligence gathering has transformed significantly in the digital age. A qualitative leap within this domain is the sophistication of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT), a paradigm that exploits publicly available information for planned and strategic objectives. The main purpose of this PhD thesis is to motivate, justify and demonstrate OSINT as a reference paradigm that should complement the present and future of both civilian cybersecurity solutions and cyberdefence national and international strategies. The first objective concerns the critical examination and evaluation of the state of OSINT under the current digital revolution and the growth of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The second objective is geared toward categorizing security and privacy risks associated with OSINT. The third objective focuses on leveraging the OSINT advantages in practical use cases by designing and implementing OSINT techniques to counter online threats, particularly those from social networks. The fourth objective embarks on exploring the Dark web through the lens of OSINT, identifying and evaluating existing techniques for discovering Tor onion addresses, those that enable the access to Dark sites hosted in the Tor network, which could facilitate the monitoring of underground sites. To achieve these objectives, we follow a methodology with clearly ordered steps. Firstly, a rigorous review of the existing literature addresses the first objective, focusing on the state of OSINT, its applications, and its challenges. This serves to identify existing research gaps and establish a solid foundation for an updated view of OSINT. Consequently, a critical part of the methodology involves assessing the potential security and privacy risks that could emerge from the misuse of OSINT by cybercriminals, including using AI to enhance cyberattacks, fulfilling the second objective. Thirdly, to provide practical evidence regarding the power of OSINT, we work in a Twitter use case in the context of the 2019 Spanish general election, designing and implementing OSINT methods to understand the behaviour and impact of automated accounts. Through AI and social media analysis, this process aims to detect social bots in the wild for further behaviour characterization and impact assessment, thus covering the third objective. The last effort is dedicated to the Dark web, reviewing different works in the literature related to the Tor network to identify and characterize the techniques for gathering onion addresses essential for accessing anonymous websites, completing the fourth objective. This comprehensive methodology led to the publication of five remarkable scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals, collectively forming the basis of this PhD thesis. As main conclusions, this PhD thesis underlines the immense potential of OSINT as a strategic tool for problem-solving across many sectors. In the age of Big Data and AI, OSINT aids in deriving insights from vast, complex information sources such as social networks, online documents, web pages and even the corners of the Deep and Dark web. The practical use cases developed in this PhD thesis prove that incorporating OSINT into cybersecurity and cyberdefence is increasingly valuable. Social Media Intelligence (SOCMINT) helps to characterize social bots in disinformation contexts, which, in conjunction with AI, returns sophisticated results, such as the sentiment of organic content generated in social media or the political alignment of automated accounts. On the other hand, the Dark Web Intelligence (DARKINT) enables gathering the links of anonymous Dark web sites. However, we also expose in this PhD thesis that the development of OSINT carries its share of risks. Open data can be exploited for social engineering, spear-phishing, profiling, deception, blackmail, spreading disinformation or launching personalized attacks. Hence, the adoption of legal and ethical practices is also important.La recolección de inteligencia ha sufrido una transformación significativa durante la era digital. En particular, podemos destacar el auge y sofisticicación de la Inteligencia de Fuentes Abiertas (OSINT, por sus siglas en inglés de Open Source Intelligence), paradigma que recolecta y analiza la información públicamente disponible para objetivos estratégicos y planificados. El cometido principal de esta tesis doctoral es motivar, justificar y demostrar que OSINT es un paradigma de referencia para complementar el presente y futuro de las soluciones de ciberseguridad civiles y las estrategias de ciberdefensa nacionales e internacionales. El primer objetivo es examinar y evaluar el estado de OSINT en el contexto actual de revolución digital y crecimiento del Big Data y la Inteligencia Artificial (IA). El segundo objetivo está orientado a categorizar los riesgos de seguridad y privacidad asociados con OSINT. El tercer objetivo se centra en aprovechar las ventajas de OSINT en casos de uso prácticos, diseñando e implementando técnicas de OSINT para contrarrestar amenazas online, particularmente aquellas provenientes de las redes sociales. El cuarto objetivo es explorar la Dark web, buscando identificar y evaluar técnicas existentes para descubrir las direcciones aleatorias de las páginas alojadas en la red Tor. Para alcanzar estos objetivos seguimos una metodología con pasos ordenados. Primero, para abordar el primer objetivo, realizamos una revisión rigurosa de la literatura existente, centrándonos en el estado de OSINT, sus aplicaciones y sus desafíos. A continuación, en relación con el segundo objetivo, evaluamos los posibles riesgos de seguridad y privacidad que podrían surgir del mal uso de OSINT por parte de ciberdelincuentes, incluido el uso de IA para mejorar los ciberataques. En tercer lugar, para proporcionar evidencia práctica sobre el poder de OSINT, trabajamos en un caso de uso de Twitter en el contexto de las elecciones generales españolas de 2019, diseñando e implementando métodos de OSINT para entender el comportamiento y el impacto de las cuentas automatizadas. A través de la IA y el análisis de redes sociales, buscamos detectar bots sociales en Twitter para una posterior caracterización del comportamiento y evaluación del impacto, cubriendo así el tercer objetivo. Luego, dedicamos otra parte de la tesis al cuarto objetivo relacionado con la Dark web, revisando diferentes trabajos en la literatura de la red Tor para identificar y caracterizar las técnicas para recopilar direcciones onion, esenciales para acceder a sitios web anónimos de la red Tor. Esta metodología llevó a la publicación de cinco destacados artículos científicos en revistas revisadas por pares, formando colectivamente la base de esta tesis doctoral. Como principales conclusiones, esta tesis doctoral subraya el inmenso potencial de OSINT como herramienta estratégica para resolver problemas en muchos sectores. En la era de Big Data e IA, OSINT extrae conocimiento a partir de grandes y complejas fuentes de información en abierto como redes sociales, documentos online, páginas web, e incluso en la Deep y Dark web. Por otro lado, los casos prácticos desarrollados evidencian que la incorporación de OSINT en ciberseguridad y ciberdefensa es cada vez más valiosa. La Inteligencia de Redes Sociales (SOCMINT, por sus siglas en inglés Social Media Intelligence) ayuda a caracterizar bots sociales en contextos de desinformación. Por su parte, la Inteligencia de la Web Oscura (DARKINT, por sus siglas en inglés Dark Web Intelligence) permite recopilar enlaces de sitios anónimos de la Dark web. Sin embargo, esta tesis expone como el desarrollo de OSINT lleva consigo una serie de riesgos. Los datos abiertos pueden ser explotados para ingeniería social, spear-phishing, perfilado, engaño, chantaje, difusión de desinformación o lanzamiento de ataques personalizados. Por lo tanto, la adopción de prácticas legales y éticas es también imprescindible

Imido complexes of vanadium

Imido ligands have been widely used as stabilizing ligands in highoxidationstate transition metal complexes. Their chemistry has experienced a remarkable growth due to the role they play in many important reactions. Following our interest in this area, we have extended our recent results in the synthesis of bis(imido) complexes of molybdenum, d0Mo( NR)2, to the related d0 organoimido complexes of vanadium. In this contribution, we describe the synthesis and characterization of several complexes of vanadium containing the imido ligand

Influence of N-donor bases and the solvent in oxodiperoxomolybdenum catalysed olefin epoxidation with hydrogen peroxide in ionic liquids

Biphasic catalytic olefin epoxidation systems consisting of oxodiperoxomolybdenum catalysts in 1- n -alkyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate ionic liquid (IL) media with aqueous hydrogen peroxide oxidant were optimised by tuning the molecular structure of the IL and employing N -heterocyclic donor base additives to inhibit hydrolysis and enhance the activity of the catalyst. The latter study was only made possible by the solubilising properties of the IL media. Of the bases investigated, pyrazoles were identified as the most efficient additive species and the best results were obtained using 3,5-dimethylpyrazole. Immobilisation of the catalyst in the IL allowed for very efficient catalyst recycling. Finally, the compound [MoO(O 2 ) 2 (3-Mepz) 2 ](3-Mepz = 3-methylpyrazole) was characterised and its structure determined by X-ray crystallography

Use of a truncated conical tank to improve underwater acoustic experiments

Peer Reviewe

Spotting political social bots in Twitter: A use case of the 2019 Spanish general election

While social media has been proved as an exceptionally useful tool to interact with other people and massively and quickly spread helpful information, its great potential has been ill-intentionally leveraged as well to distort political elections and manipulate constituents. In the paper at hand, we analyzed the presence and behavior of social bots on Twitter in the context of the November 2019 Spanish general election. Throughout our study, we classified involved users as social bots or humans, and examined their interactions from a quantitative (i.e., amount of traffic generated and existing relations) and qualitative (i.e., user's political affinity and sentiment towards the most important parties) perspectives. Results demonstrated that a non-negligible amount of those bots actively participated in the election, supporting each of the five principal political parties

Experimental correlations for transient soot measurement in diesel exhaust aerosol with light extinction, electrical mobility and diffusion charger sensor techniques

A study of soot measurement deviation using a diffusion charger sensor with three dilution ratios was conducted in order to obtain an optimum setting that can be used to obtain accurate measurements in terms of soot mass emitted by a light-duty diesel engine under transient operating conditions. The paper includes three experimental phases: an experimental validation of the measurement settings in steady-state operating conditions; evaluation of the proposed setting under the New European Driving Cycle; and a study of correlations for different measurement techniques. These correlations provide a reliable tool for estimating soot emission from light extinction measurement or from accumulation particle mode concentration. There are several methods and correlations to estimate soot concentration in the literature but most of them were assessed for steady-state operating points. In this case, the correlations are obtained by more than 4000 points measured in transient conditions. The results of the new two correlations, with less than 4% deviation from the reference measurement, are presented in this paper.Bermúdez, V.; Pastor Soriano, JV.; López, JJ.; Campos, D. (2014). Experimental correlations for transient soot measurement in diesel exhaust aerosol with light extinction, electrical mobility and diffusion charger sensor techniques. Measurement Science and Technology. 25(6):1-13. doi:10.1088/0957-0233/25/6/065204S113256Davidson, C. I., Phalen, R. F., & Solomon, P. A. (2005). Airborne Particulate Matter and Human Health: A Review. Aerosol Science and Technology, 39(8), 737-749. doi:10.1080/02786820500191348Pope, C. A., Bates, D. V., & Raizenne, M. E. (1995). Health effects of particulate air pollution: time for reassessment? Environmental Health Perspectives, 103(5), 472-480. doi:10.1289/ehp.95103472Giechaskiel, B., Dilara, P., Sandbach, E., & Andersson, J. (2008). Particle measurement programme (PMP) light-duty inter-laboratory exercise: comparison of different particle number measurement systems. Measurement Science and Technology, 19(9), 095401. doi:10.1088/0957-0233/19/9/095401Park, K., Kittelson, D. B., & McMurry, P. H. (2004). Structural Properties of Diesel Exhaust Particles Measured by Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM): Relationships to Particle Mass and Mobility. Aerosol Science and Technology, 38(9), 881-889. doi:10.1080/027868290505189LUO, C.-H., LEE, W.-M., & LIAW, J.-J. (2009). Morphological and semi-quantitative characteristics of diesel soot agglomerates emitted from commercial vehicles and a dynamometer. Journal of Environmental Sciences, 21(4), 452-457. doi:10.1016/s1001-0742(08)62291-3Matti Maricq, M. (2007). Chemical characterization of particulate emissions from diesel engines: A review. Journal of Aerosol Science, 38(11), 1079-1118. doi:10.1016/j.jaerosci.2007.08.001Smith, O. I. (1981). Fundamentals of soot formation in flames with application to diesel engine particulate emissions. Progress in Energy and Combustion Science, 7(4), 275-291. doi:10.1016/0360-1285(81)90002-2Haynes, B. S., & Wagner, H. G. (1981). Soot formation. Progress in Energy and Combustion Science, 7(4), 229-273. doi:10.1016/0360-1285(81)90001-0Bockhorn, H. (Ed.). (1994). Soot Formation in Combustion. Springer Series in Chemical Physics. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-85167-4Tree, D. R., & Svensson, K. I. (2007). Soot processes in compression ignition engines. Progress in Energy and Combustion Science, 33(3), 272-309. doi:10.1016/j.pecs.2006.03.002Kennedy, I. M. (1997). Models of soot formation and oxidation. Progress in Energy and Combustion Science, 23(2), 95-132. doi:10.1016/s0360-1285(97)00007-5Buonanno, G., Dell’Isola, M., Stabile, L., & Viola, A. (2011). Critical aspects of the uncertainty budget in the gravimetric PM measurements. Measurement, 44(1), 139-147. doi:10.1016/j.measurement.2010.09.037Symonds, J. P. R., Reavell, K. S. J., Olfert, J. S., Campbell, B. W., & Swift, S. J. (2007). Diesel soot mass calculation in real-time with a differential mobility spectrometer. Journal of Aerosol Science, 38(1), 52-68. doi:10.1016/j.jaerosci.2006.10.001Luque de Castro, M. D., & Priego-Capote, F. (2010). Soxhlet extraction: Past and present panacea. Journal of Chromatography A, 1217(16), 2383-2389. doi:10.1016/j.chroma.2009.11.027Wang, S. C., & Flagan, R. C. (1990). Scanning Electrical Mobility Spectrometer. Aerosol Science and Technology, 13(2), 230-240. doi:10.1080/02786829008959441Snegirev, A. Y., Makhviladze, G. ., & Roberts, J. . (2001). The effect of particle coagulation and fractal structure on the optical properties and detection of smoke. Fire Safety Journal, 36(1), 73-95. doi:10.1016/s0379-7112(00)00037-0Zhou, Z.-Q., Ahmed, T. U., & Y. Choi, M. (1998). Measurement of dimensionless soot extinction constant using a gravimetric sampling technique. Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science, 18(1), 27-32. doi:10.1016/s0894-1777(98)10005-5Arregle, J., Bermúdez, V., Serrano, J. R., & Fuentes, E. (2006). Procedure for engine transient cycle emissions testing in real time. Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science, 30(5), 485-496. doi:10.1016/j.expthermflusci.2005.10.002Bermúdez, V., Luján, J. M., Serrano, J. R., & Pla, B. (2008). Transient particle emission measurement with optical techniques. Measurement Science and Technology, 19(6), 065404. doi:10.1088/0957-0233/19/6/065404Giechaskiel, B., Maricq, M., Ntziachristos, L., Dardiotis, C., Wang, X., Axmann, H., … Schindler, W. (2014). Review of motor vehicle particulate emissions sampling and measurement: From smoke and filter mass to particle number. Journal of Aerosol Science, 67, 48-86. doi:10.1016/j.jaerosci.2013.09.003Lapuerta, M., Armas, O., & Gómez, A. (2003). Diesel Particle Size Distribution Estimation from Digital Image Analysis. Aerosol Science and Technology, 37(4), 369-381. doi:10.1080/02786820300970Desantes, J. M., Bermúdez, V., Molina, S., & Linares, W. G. (2011). Methodology for measuring exhaust aerosol size distributions using an engine test under transient operating conditions. Measurement Science and Technology, 22(11), 115101. doi:10.1088/0957-0233/22/11/115101Roessler, D. M. (1982). Diesel particle mass concentration by optical techniques. Applied Optics, 21(22), 4077. doi:10.1364/ao.21.004077Park, D., Kim, S., An, M., & Hwang, J. (2007). Real-time measurement of submicron aerosol particles having a log-normal size distribution by simultaneously using unipolar diffusion charger and unipolar field charger. Journal of Aerosol Science, 38(12), 1240-1245. doi:10.1016/j.jaerosci.2007.09.00

Use of a truncated conical tank to improve underwater acoustic experiments

Peer Reviewe

Recent developments in amino acid-derived imidazole-, imidazolium- and N-heterocyclic carbene-carboxylate complexes

Compounds based on imidazole or imidazolium moieties are excellent building blocks for the preparation of a plethora of ligand precursors. The introduction of chirality in these compounds is relatively easy through the Debus-Radziszewski reaction, in which the chiral pools are natural or non-natural amino acids. Using this synthetic route, enantiopure imidazole-carboxylate, imidazolium-carboxylate, and imidazolium-dicarboxylate ligand precursors can be prepared, from which N-heterocyclic carbenes (NHC) with one or two carboxylate groups can also be obtained. This review is a personal account that summarizes our recent results regarding the use of all these compounds as chiral ligands coordinated to several transition metals (Cu, Zn, Ag and Mo). The structural features of the new synthesized coordination polymers with novel bonding modes will be described, and the bonding capabilities of these ligands rationalized on the basis of theoretical calculations. The efficiency of homochiral imidazolium-dicarboxylate compounds as chiral inductors in asymmetric catalysis will also be discussed. Finally, the antimicrobial and antitumoral activities of imidazolium- and NHC-carboxylate silver complexes and the found chirality-activity and structure–activity relationships will be highlighted.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICIN). España PGC2018-093443-B-I0

Thiodiacetate-manganese chemistry with N-ligands: unique control of the supramolecular arrangement over the metal coordination mode

[EN] Compounds based on the Mn-tda unit (tda=S(CH2COO)2 2) and N co-ligands have been analyzed in terms of structural, spectroscopic, magnetic properties and DFT calculations. The precursors [Mn(tda)(H2O)]n (1) and [Mn(tda)(H2O)3] H2O (2) have been characterized by powder and X-ray diffraction, respectively. Their derivatives with bipyridyl-type ligands have formulas [Mn(tda)(bipy)]n (3), [{Mn(N-N)}2(u-H2O)(u-tda)2]n (N-N=4,4'-Me2bipy (4), 5,5'-Me2bipy, (5)) and [Mn(tda){(MeO)2bipy} 2 H2O]n (6). Depending on the presence/position of substituents at bipy, the supramolecular arrangement can affect the metal coordination type. While all the complexes consist of 1D coordination polymers, only 3 has a copper-acetate core with local trigonal prismatic metal coordination.Financial support from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion (CTQ2007-61037 and CTQ2010-15515, FEDER supported) and the Junta de Andalucia (Proyecto de Excelencia, P07-FQM-2474) is gratefully acknowledged. This work was also supported by Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Universita e della Ricerca (MIUR) through "Progetti di Rilevante Interesse Nazionale" (PRIN) project 2008RFEB3X "Aspetti elettronici di legame chimico, proprieta chimico-fisiche e reattivita di nanocluster metallici". We are grateful to CICA for permitting the use of their computational resources. Other computations were also carried out at the CINECA center, and the authors (A. I., C. M.) acknowledge the ISCRA-CINECA HP grant HP10BNL89W.Grirrane, A.; Pastor, A.; Galindo, A.; Álvarez, E.; Mealli, C.; Ienco, A.; Orlandini, A.... (2011). Thiodiacetate-manganese chemistry with N-ligands: unique control of the supramolecular arrangement over the metal coordination mode. Chemistry - A European Journal. 17:10600-10617. https://doi.org/10.1002/chem.201100988S10600106171