XML Signature Wrapping Still Considered Harmful: A Case Study on the Personal Health Record in Germany

XML Signature Wrapping (XSW) has been a relevant threat to web services for 15 years until today. Using the Personal Health Record (PHR), which is currently under development in Germany, we investigate a current SOAP-based web services system as a case study. In doing so, we highlight several deficiencies in defending against XSW. Using this real-world contemporary example as motivation, we introduce a guideline for more secure XML signature processing that provides practitioners with easier access to the effective countermeasures identified in the current state of research.Comment: Accepted for IFIP SEC 202

Eight Lightweight Usable Security Principles for Developers

We propose eight usable security principles that provide software developers with a lightweight framework to help them integrate security in a user-friendly way. These principles should help developers who must weigh usability and security tradeoffs to facilitate adoption

Browser as a Service (BaaS): Security and Performance Enhancements for the Rich Web

Abstract This paper introduces an architectural approach to access the Web via a virtual Web browser executed within a secure Cloud environment

Risk-Based Authentication for OpenStack: A Fully Functional Implementation and Guiding Example

Online services have difficulties to replace passwords with more secure user authentication mechanisms, such as Two-Factor Authentication (2FA). This is partly due to the fact that users tend to reject such mechanisms in use cases outside of online banking. Relying on password authentication alone, however, is not an option in light of recent attack patterns such as credential stuffing. Risk-Based Authentication (RBA) can serve as an interim solution to increase password-based account security until better methods are in place. Unfortunately, RBA is currently used by only a few major online services, even though it is recommended by various standards and has been shown to be effective in scientific studies. This paper contributes to the hypothesis that the low adoption of RBA in practice can be due to the complexity of implementing it. We provide an RBA implementation for the open source cloud management software OpenStack, which is the first fully functional open source RBA implementation based on the Freeman et al. algorithm, along with initial reference tests that can serve as a guiding example and blueprint for developers

Pump Up Password Security! Evaluating and Enhancing Risk-Based Authentication on a Real-World Large-Scale Online Service

Risk-based authentication (RBA) aims to protect users against attacks involving stolen passwords. RBA monitors features during login, and requests re-authentication when feature values widely differ from previously observed ones. It is recommended by various national security organizations, and users perceive it more usable and equally secure than equivalent two-factor authentication. Despite that, RBA is still only used by very few online services. Reasons for this include a lack of validated open resources on RBA properties, implementation, and configuration. This effectively hinders the RBA research, development, and adoption progress. To close this gap, we provide the first long-term RBA analysis on a real-world large-scale online service. We collected feature data of 3.3 million users and 31.3 million login attempts over more than one year. Based on the data, we provide (i) studies on RBA’s real-world characteristics, and its configurations and enhancements to balance usability, security, and privacy, (ii) a machine learning based RBA parameter optimization method to support administrators finding an optimal configuration for their own use case scenario, (iii) an evaluation of the round-trip time feature’s potential to replace the IP address for enhanced user privacy, and (iv) a synthesized RBA data set to reproduce this research and to foster future RBA research. Our results provide insights on selecting an optimized RBA configuration so that users profit from RBA after just a few logins. The open data set enables researchers to study, test, and improve RBA for widespread deployment in the wild

Rotten Cellar: Security and Privacy of the Browser Cache Revisited

Web browsers use HTTP caches to reduce the amount of data to be transferred over the network and allow Web pages to load faster. Content such as scripts, images, and style sheets, which are static most of the time or shared across multiple websites, are stored and loaded locally when recurring requests ask for cached resources. This behaviour can be exploited if the cache is based on a naive implementation. This paper summarises possible attacks on the browser cache and shows through extensive experiments that even modern web browsers still do not provide enough safeguards to protect their users. Moreover, the available built-in as well as addable cache controls offer rather limited functionality in terms of protection and ease of use. Due to the volatile and inhomogeneous APIs for controlling the cache in modern browsers, the development of enhanced user-centric cache controls remains -until further notice- in the hands of browser manufacturers

Anwendung der Blockchain außerhalb von Geldwährungen

Die Blockchain ist nicht nur im Bereich der Finanzwelt angekommen, auch andere Branchen versuchen sich an ihrer Anwendung. In diesem Artikel werden Konzepte und Modelle von Blockchain-Anwendungen außerhalb des Finanzbereichs vorgestellt, indem die zugehörigen Veröffentlichungen referiert und diskutiert werden. Die Anwendungsbereiche variieren aktuell über den Schutz persönlicher Daten bis zur Sicherung und Überwachung von Nahrungsmittelproduktionsketten

Security and Privacy Enhancing Multi-Cloud Architectures

Security challenges are still among the biggest obstacles when considering the adoption of cloud services. This triggered a lot of research activities, resulting in a quantity of proposals targeting the various cloud security threats. Alongside with these security issues, the cloud paradigm comes with a new set of unique features, which open the path toward novel security approaches, techniques, and architectures. This paper provides a survey on the achievable security merits by making use of multiple distinct clouds simultaneously. Various distinct architectures are introduced and discussed according to their security and privacy capabilities and prospects

Antimicrobial resistance among migrants in Europe: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Rates of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) are rising globally and there is concern that increased migration is contributing to the burden of antibiotic resistance in Europe. However, the effect of migration on the burden of AMR in Europe has not yet been comprehensively examined. Therefore, we did a systematic review and meta-analysis to identify and synthesise data for AMR carriage or infection in migrants to Europe to examine differences in patterns of AMR across migrant groups and in different settings. METHODS: For this systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched MEDLINE, Embase, PubMed, and Scopus with no language restrictions from Jan 1, 2000, to Jan 18, 2017, for primary data from observational studies reporting antibacterial resistance in common bacterial pathogens among migrants to 21 European Union-15 and European Economic Area countries. To be eligible for inclusion, studies had to report data on carriage or infection with laboratory-confirmed antibiotic-resistant organisms in migrant populations. We extracted data from eligible studies and assessed quality using piloted, standardised forms. We did not examine drug resistance in tuberculosis and excluded articles solely reporting on this parameter. We also excluded articles in which migrant status was determined by ethnicity, country of birth of participants' parents, or was not defined, and articles in which data were not disaggregated by migrant status. Outcomes were carriage of or infection with antibiotic-resistant organisms. We used random-effects models to calculate the pooled prevalence of each outcome. The study protocol is registered with PROSPERO, number CRD42016043681. FINDINGS: We identified 2274 articles, of which 23 observational studies reporting on antibiotic resistance in 2319 migrants were included. The pooled prevalence of any AMR carriage or AMR infection in migrants was 25·4% (95% CI 19·1-31·8; I2 =98%), including meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (7·8%, 4·8-10·7; I2 =92%) and antibiotic-resistant Gram-negative bacteria (27·2%, 17·6-36·8; I2 =94%). The pooled prevalence of any AMR carriage or infection was higher in refugees and asylum seekers (33·0%, 18·3-47·6; I2 =98%) than in other migrant groups (6·6%, 1·8-11·3; I2 =92%). The pooled prevalence of antibiotic-resistant organisms was slightly higher in high-migrant community settings (33·1%, 11·1-55·1; I2 =96%) than in migrants in hospitals (24·3%, 16·1-32·6; I2 =98%). We did not find evidence of high rates of transmission of AMR from migrant to host populations. INTERPRETATION: Migrants are exposed to conditions favouring the emergence of drug resistance during transit and in host countries in Europe. Increased antibiotic resistance among refugees and asylum seekers and in high-migrant community settings (such as refugee camps and detention facilities) highlights the need for improved living conditions, access to health care, and initiatives to facilitate detection of and appropriate high-quality treatment for antibiotic-resistant infections during transit and in host countries. Protocols for the prevention and control of infection and for antibiotic surveillance need to be integrated in all aspects of health care, which should be accessible for all migrant groups, and should target determinants of AMR before, during, and after migration. FUNDING: UK National Institute for Health Research Imperial Biomedical Research Centre, Imperial College Healthcare Charity, the Wellcome Trust, and UK National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit in Healthcare-associated Infections and Antimictobial Resistance at Imperial College London