Exploring the adoption of physical security controls in smartphones

The proliferation of smartphones has changed our life due to the enhanced connectivity, increased storage capacity and innovative functionality they offer. Their increased popularity has drawn the attention of attackers, thus, nowadays their users are exposed to many security and privacy threats. The fact that smartphones store significant data (e.g. personal, business, government, etc.) in combination with their mobility, increase the impact of unauthorized physical access to smartphones. However, past research has revealed that this is not clearly understood by smartphone users, as they disregard the available security controls. In this context, this paper explores the attitudes and perceptions towards security controls that protect smartphone user’s data from unauthorized physical access. We conducted a survey to measure their adoption and the rea-sons behind users’ selections. Our results, suggest that nowadays users are more concerned about their physical security, but still reveal that a considerable portion of our sample is prone to unauthorized physical access

Análise comparativa do desgaste das interfaces titânio/titânio e titânio/zircónia dos conjuntos pilar/implante após envelhecimento

Objectives: Due to its hardness, zirconia abutments may damage the titanium of the implant's connection during its clinical use. This study aimed to assess the wear of the seating platforms of externally hexed titanium implants when connected to zirconia abutments comparing to titanium abutments, after thermocycling and mechanical loading (TCML).Methods: Six BNT (R) S4 external connection implants (Phibo (R) Dental Solutions, Barcelona, Spain) were selected and divided into two groups (n=3): TiCE, screwed to titanium abutments and ZrCE, screwed to zirconia abutments. The samples underwent thermocycling (5000 cycles; 5-55 degrees C) and mechanical loading (1.2 x 106 cycles; 88.8 N; 4 Hz). Before and after TCML, the seating platforms of the implants were analyzed by 3D profilometry in two areas to measure their topography based on the superficial analysis parameters (Sa and Sz) parameters, and were studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Data were statistically analyzed by Mann-Whitney test (p 0.05 and p = 0.059). The abutment's material (titanium/zirconia) did not statistically significantly influence the Sa and Sz values after TCML (p = 0.886> 0.05 and p = 0.200, respectively). However, the SEM analysis reveals a mild wear in some vertices of the hex when connected to zirconia abutments.Conclusions: After simulating five years of clinical use, the externally hexed implants, analyzed by 3D profilometry, showed similar wear patterns in the corresponding seating platforms when connected to zirconia or titanium abutments. The SEM images showed zirconia particles being transferred to the implant, which requires further study. (C) 2016 Sociedade Portuguesa de Estomatologia e Medicina Dentaria.Objetivos Devido á sua dureza, os pilares de zircónia podem provocar danos sobre o titânio da conexão do implante durante a utilização clínica. O presente trabalho pretendeu avaliar o desgaste das plataformas protéticas de implantes de titânio com conexão hexágono externo quando conectados com pilares de zircónia em comparação com pilares de titânio, após carga cíclica e termociclagem (TCML). Métodos Foram selecionados 6 implantes de conexão externa BNT® S4 Phibo® Dental Solutions (Barcelona, Espanha), que foram divididos em 2 grupos (n = 3): TiCe aparafusados a pilares de titânio e ZrCe aparafusados a pilares de zircónio. As amostras foram submetidas a TCML (5.000 ciclos; 5–55 °C) e carga cíclica (1,2 × 106 ciclos; 88,8 N; 4 Hz). Antes e após TCML, as plataformas de assentamento de conexão dos implantes foram sujeitas a análise por perfilometria 3 D em 2 localizações para a medição da sua topografia com utilização dos parâmetros de análise superficial (Sa e Sz) e examinadas por microscopia eletrónica de varrimento(MEV). Análise estatística: Mann-Whitney test (p < 0,05). Resultados Não se observaram diferenças estatisticamente significativas nos valores de Sa e de Sz entre os implantes no estado inicial e após TCML (p = 0,573 > 0,05 e p = 0,059). O material do pilar (titânio/zircónia) não exerceu influência estatisticamente significativa nos valores de Sa e Sz após TCML (teste U p = 0,886 > 0,05 e p = 0,200, respetivamente). No entanto, a análise por MEV revelou ligeiro desgaste em alguns vértices do hexágono quando conectados com pilares de zircónia. Conclusões Após uma simulação de 5 anos de utilização clínica, os implantes com hexágono externo, analisados por perfilometria 3 D, apresentaram padrões de desgaste das plataformas de assentamento equivalentes quando conectados a pilares de zircónia ou de titânio. As imagens de MEV mostram a passagem de partículas de zircónia para o implante, aspeto que merece investigação suplementar.Authors gratefully acknowledge the funding of Project NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000022 - SciTech - Science and Technology for Competitive and Sustainable Industries, cofinanced by Programa Operacional Regional do Norte (NORTE2020), through Fundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional (FEDER)

Conceivable security risks and authentication techniques for smart devices

With the rapidly escalating use of smart devices and fraudulent transaction of users’ data from their devices, efficient and reliable techniques for authentication of the smart devices have become an obligatory issue. This paper reviews the security risks for mobile devices and studies several authentication techniques available for smart devices. The results from field studies enable a comparative evaluation of user-preferred authentication mechanisms and their opinions about reliability, biometric authentication and visual authentication techniques

Cyber risk assessment in cloud provider environments: Current models and future needs

Traditional frameworks for risk assessment do not work well for cloud computing. While recent work has often focussed on the risks faced by firms adopting or selecting cloud services, there has been little research on how cloud providers might assess their own services. In this paper, we use an in-depth review of the extant literature to highlight the weaknesses of traditional risk assessment frameworks for this task. Using examples, we then describe a new risk assessment model (CSCCRA) and compare this against three established approaches. For each approach, we consider its goals, the risk assessment process, decisions, the scope of the assessment and the way in which risk is conceptualised. This evaluation points to the need for dynamic models specifically designed to evaluate cloud risk. Our suggestions for future research are aimed at improving the identification, assessment, and mitigation of inter-dependent cloud risks inherent in a defined supply chain

A multivariant secure framework for smart mobile health application

This is an accepted manuscript of an article published by Wiley in Transactions on Emerging Telecommunications Technologies, available online: https://doi.org/10.1002/ett.3684 The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version.Wireless sensor network enables remote connectivity of technological devices such as smart mobile with the internet. Due to its low cost as well as easy availability of data sharing and accessing devices, the Internet of Things (IoT) has grown exponentially during the past few years. The availability of these devices plays a remarkable role in the new era of mHealth. In mHealth, the sensors generate enormous amounts of data and the context-aware computing has proven to collect and manage the data. The context aware computing is a new domain to be aware of context of involved devices. The context-aware computing is playing a very significant part in the development of smart mobile health applications to monitor the health of patients more efficiently. Security is one of the key challenges in IoT-based mHealth application development. The wireless nature of IoT devices motivates attackers to attack on application; these vulnerable attacks can be denial of service attack, sinkhole attack, and select forwarding attack. These attacks lead intruders to disrupt the application's functionality, data packet drops to malicious end and changes the route of data and forwards the data packet to other location. There is a need to timely detect and prevent these threats in mobile health applications. Existing work includes many security frameworks to secure the mobile health applications but all have some drawbacks. This paper presents existing frameworks, the impact of threats on applications, on information, and different security levels. From this line of research, we propose a security framework with two algorithms, ie, (i) patient priority autonomous call and (ii) location distance based switch, for mobile health applications and make a comparative analysis of the proposed framework with the existing ones.Published onlin

In Cloud We Trust: Risk-Assessment-as-a-Service

Part 1: Full PapersInternational audienceCloud computing is an emerging paradigm that allows adoption of on-demand services in a cost-effective way. Migrating services to the Cloud also means been exposed to new threats and vulnerabilities, thus, resulting in a modified assessment of risk. Assessing risk in the Cloud remains an open research issue, as it requires a given level of trust of the Cloud service provider for providing assessment data and implementing controls. This paper surveys existing knowledge, regarding risk assessment for the Cloud, and highlights the requirements for the design of a cloud-targeted method that is offered as a service, which is also in compliance with the specific characteristics of the Cloud