Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have been used in transforming our environment and the way people think, behave, and make decisions during the last few decades [1]. In the last two decades everyone connected to the Internet either an enterprise or individuals has become concerned about the security of his/their computational resources. Cybersecurity is responsible for protecting hardware and software resources from cyber attacks e.g. viruses, malware, intrusion, eavesdropping. Cyber attacks either come from black hackers or cyber warfare units. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have played an important role in developing efficient cyber security tools. This paper presents Latest Cyber Security Tools Based on Machine Learning which are: Windows defender ATP, DarckTrace, Cisco Network Analytic, IBM QRader, StringSifter, Sophos intercept X, SIME, NPL, and Symantec Targeted Attack Analytic.
Authored by Taher Ghazal, Mohammad Hasan, Raed Zitar, Nidal Al-Dmour, Waleed Al-Sit, Shayla Islam
Aiming at the single hopping strategy in the terminal information hopping active defense technology, a variety of heterogeneous hopping modes are introduced into the terminal information hopping system, the definition of the terminal information is expanded, and the adaptive adjustment of the hopping strategy is given. A network adversarial training simulation system is researched and designed, and related subsystems are discussed from the perspective of key technologies and their implementation, including interactive adversarial training simulation system, adversarial training simulation support software system, adversarial training simulation evaluation system and adversarial training Mock Repository. The system can provide a good environment for network confrontation theory research and network confrontation training simulation, which is of great significance.
Authored by Man Wang
The digital transformation brought on by 5G is redefining current models of end-to-end (E2E) connectivity and service reliability to include security-by-design principles necessary to enable 5G to achieve its promise. 5G trustworthiness highlights the importance of embedding security capabilities from the very beginning while the 5G architecture is being defined and standardized. Security requirements need to overlay and permeate through the different layers of 5G systems (physical, network, and application) as well as different parts of an E2E 5G architecture within a risk-management framework that takes into account the evolving security-threats landscape. 5G presents a typical use-case of wireless communication and computer networking convergence, where 5G fundamental building blocks include components such as Software Defined Networks (SDN), Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and the edge cloud. This convergence extends many of the security challenges and opportunities applicable to SDN/NFV and cloud to 5G networks. Thus, 5G security needs to consider additional security requirements (compared to previous generations) such as SDN controller security, hypervisor security, orchestrator security, cloud security, edge security, etc. At the same time, 5G networks offer security improvement opportunities that should be considered. Here, 5G architectural flexibility, programmability and complexity can be harnessed to improve resilience and reliability. The working group scope fundamentally addresses the following: •5G security considerations need to overlay and permeate through the different layers of the 5G systems (physical, network, and application) as well as different parts of an E2E 5G architecture including a risk management framework that takes into account the evolving security threats landscape. •5G exemplifies a use-case of heterogeneous access and computer networking convergence, which extends a unique set of security challenges and opportunities (e.g., related to SDN/NFV and edge cloud, etc.) to 5G networks. Similarly, 5G networks by design offer potential security benefits and opportunities through harnessing the architecture flexibility, programmability and complexity to improve its resilience and reliability. •The IEEE FNI security WG's roadmap framework follows a taxonomic structure, differentiating the 5G functional pillars and corresponding cybersecurity risks. As part of cross collaboration, the security working group will also look into the security issues associated with other roadmap working groups within the IEEE Future Network Initiative.
Authored by Ashutosh Dutta, Eman Hammad, Michael Enright, Fawzi Behmann, Arsenia Chorti, Ahmad Cheema, Kassi Kadio, Julia Urbina-Pineda, Khaled Alam, Ahmed Limam, Fred Chu, John Lester, Jong-Geun Park, Joseph Bio-Ukeme, Sanjay Pawar, Roslyn Layton, Prakash Ramchandran, Kingsley Okonkwo, Lyndon Ong, Marc Emmelmann, Omneya Issa, Rajakumar Arul, Sireen Malik, Sivarama Krishnan, Suresh Sugumar, Tk Lala, Matthew Borst, Brad Kloza, Gunes Kurt
This article analyzes the current situation of computer network security in colleges and universities, future development trends, and the relationship between software vulnerabilities and worm outbreaks. After analyzing a server model with buffer overflow vulnerabilities, a worm implementation model based on remote buffer overflow technology is proposed. Complex networks are the medium of worm propagation. By analyzing common complex network evolution models (rule network models, ER random graph model, WS small world network model, BA scale-free network model) and network node characteristics such as extraction degree distribution, single source shortest distance, network cluster coefficient, richness coefficient, and close center coefficient.
Authored by Chunhua Feng
Due to the migration megatrend, efficient and effective second-language acquisition is vital. One proposed solution involves AI-enabled conversational agents for person-centered interactive language practice. We present results from ongoing action research targeting quality assurance of proprietary generative dialog models trained for virtual job interviews. The action team elicited a set of 38 requirements for which we designed corresponding automated test cases for 15 of particular interest to the evolving solution. Our results show that six of the test case designs can detect meaningful differences between candidate models. While quality assurance of natural language processing applications is complex, we provide initial steps toward an automated framework for machine learning model selection in the context of an evolving conversational agent. Future work will focus on model selection in an MLOps setting.
Authored by Markus Borg, Johan Bengtsson, Harald Österling, Alexander Hagelborn, Isabella Gagner, Piotr Tomaszewski
This paper presents a case study for designing and implementing a secure communication protocol over a Controller Area Network (CAN). The CAN based protocol uses a hybrid encryption method on a relatively simple hardware / software environment. Moreover, the blockchain technology is proposed as a working solution to provide an extra secure level of the proposed system.
Authored by Adrian-Florin Croitoru, Florin Stîngă, Marius Marian
In construction machinery, connectivity delivers higher advantages in terms of higher productivity, lower costs, and most importantly safer work environment. As the machinery grows more dependent on internet-connected technologies, data security and product cybersecurity become more critical than ever. These machines have more cyber risks compared to other automotive segments since there are more complexities in software, larger after-market options, use more standardized SAE J1939 protocol, and connectivity through long-distance wireless communication channels (LTE interfaces for fleet management systems). Construction machinery also operates throughout the day, which means connected and monitored endlessly. Till today, construction machinery manufacturers are investigating the product cybersecurity challenges in threat monitoring, security testing, and establishing security governance and policies. There are limited security testing methodologies on SAE J1939 CAN protocols. There are several testing frameworks proposed for fuzz testing CAN networks according to [1]. This paper proposes security testing methods (Fuzzing, Pen testing) for in-vehicle communication protocols in construction machinery.
Authored by Sheela Hariharan, Alessandro Papadopoulos, Thomas Nolte
The Controller area network (CAN) is the most extensively used in-vehicle network. It is set to enable communication between a number of electronic control units (ECU) that are widely found in most modern vehicles. CAN is the de facto in-vehicle network standard due to its error avoidance techniques and similar features, but it is vulnerable to various attacks. In this research, we propose a CAN bus intrusion detection system (IDS) based on convolutional neural networks (CNN). U-CAN is a segmentation model that is trained by monitoring CAN traffic data that are preprocessed using hamming distance and saliency detection algorithm. The model is trained and tested using publicly available datasets of raw and reverse-engineered CAN frames. With an F\_1 Score of 0.997, U-CAN can detect DoS, Fuzzy, spoofing gear, and spoofing RPM attacks of the publicly available raw CAN frames. The model trained on reverse-engineered CAN signals that contain plateau attacks also results in a true positive rate and false-positive rate of 0.971 and 0.998, respectively.
Authored by Araya Desta, Shuji Ohira, Ismail Arai, Kazutoshi Fujikawa
Public transportation is an important system of urban passenger transport. The purpose of this article is to explore the impact of network resilience when each station of urban rail transit network was attacked by large passenger flow. Based on the capacity load model, we propose a load redistribution mechanism to simulate the passenger flow propagation after being attacked by large passenger flow. Then, taking Xi'an's rail network as an example, we study the resilience variety of the network after a node is attacked by large passenger flow. Through some attack experiments, the feasibility of the model for studying the resilience of the rail transit system is finally verified.
Authored by Ning Wang
Concurrency vulnerabilities caused by synchronization problems will occur in the execution of multi-threaded programs, and the emergence of concurrency vulnerabilities often cause great threats to the system. Once the concurrency vulnerabilities are exploited, the system will suffer various attacks, seriously affecting its availability, confidentiality and security. In this paper, we extract 839 concurrency vulnerabilities from Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE), and conduct a comprehensive analysis of the trend, classifications, causes, severity, and impact. Finally, we obtained some findings: 1) From 1999 to 2021, the number of concurrency vulnerabilities disclosures show an overall upward trend. 2) In the distribution of concurrency vulnerability, race condition accounts for the largest proportion. 3) The overall severity of concurrency vulnerabilities is medium risk. 4) The number of concurrency vulnerabilities that can be exploited for local access and network access is almost equal, and nearly half of the concurrency vulnerabilities (377/839) can be accessed remotely. 5) The access complexity of 571 concurrency vulnerabilities is medium, and the number of concurrency vulnerabilities with high or low access complexity is almost equal. The results obtained through the empirical study can provide more support and guidance for research in the field of concurrency vulnerabilities.
Authored by Lili Bo, Xing Meng, Xiaobing Sun, Jingli Xia, Xiaoxue Wu
With the rapid development of Internet Technology in recent years, the demand for security support for complex applications is becoming stronger and stronger. Intel Software Guard Extensions (Intel SGX) is created as an extension of Intel Systems to enhance software security. Intel SGX allows application developers to create so-called enclave. Sensitive application code and data are encapsulated in Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) by enclave. TEE is completely isolated from other applications, operating systems, and administrative programs. Enclave is the core structure of Intel SGX Technology. Enclave supports multi-threading. Thread Control Structure (TCS) stores special information for restoring enclave threads when entering or exiting enclave. Each execution thread in enclave is associated with a TCS. This paper analyzes and verifies the possible security risks of enclave under concurrent conditions. It is found that in the case of multithread concurrency, a single enclave cannot resist flooding attacks, and related threads also throw TCS exception codes.
Authored by Tong Zhang, Xiangjie Cui, Yichuan Wang, Yanning Du, Wen Gao
Server-side web applications are vulnerable to request races. While some previous studies of real-world request races exist, they primarily focus on the root cause of these bugs. To better combat request races in server-side web applications, we need a deep understanding of their characteristics. In this paper, we provide a complementary focus on race effects and fixes with an enlarged set of request races from web applications developed with Object-Relational Mapping (ORM) frameworks. We revisit characterization questions used in previous studies on newly included request races, distinguish the external and internal effects of request races, and relate requestrace fixes with concurrency control mechanisms in languages and frameworks for developing server-side web applications. Our study reveals that: (1) request races from ORM-based web applications share the same characteristics as those from raw-SQL web applications; (2) request races violating application semantics without explicit crashes and error messages externally are common, and latent request races, which only corrupt some shared resource internally but require extra requests to expose the misbehavior, are also common; and (3) various fix strategies other than using synchronization mechanisms are used to fix request races. We expect that our results can help developers better understand request races and guide the design and development of tools for combating request races.
Authored by Zhengyi Qiu, Shudi Shao, Qi Zhao, Hassan Khan, Xinning Hui, Guoliang Jin
The exponential growth of IoT-type systems has led to a reconsideration of the field of database management systems in terms of storing and handling high-volume data. Recently, many real-time Database Management Systems(DBMS) have been developed to address issues such as security, managing concurrent access to stored data, and optimizing data query performance. This paper studies methods that allow to reduce the temporal validity range for common DBMS. The primary purpose of IoT edge devices is to generate data and make it available for machine learning or statistical algorithms. This is achieved inside the Knowledge Discovery in Databases process. In order to visualize and obtain critical Data Mining results, all the device-generated data must be made available as fast as possible for selection, preprocessing and data transformation. In this research we investigate if IoT edge devices can be used with common DBMS proper configured in order to access data fast instead of working with Real Time DBMS. We will study what kind of transactions are needed in large IoT ecosystems and we will analyze the techniques of controlling concurrent access to common resources (stored data). For this purpose, we built a series of applications that are able to simulate concurrent writing operations to a common DBMS in order to investigate the performance of concurrent access to database resources. Another important procedure that will be tested with the developed applications will be to increase the availability of data for users and data mining applications. This will be achieved by using field indexing.
Authored by Valentin Pupezescu, Marilena-Cătălina Pupezescu, Lucian-Andrei Perișoară
Early detection of conflict potentials around the community is vital for the Central Java Regional Police Department, especially in the Analyst section of the Directorate of Security Intelligence. Performance in carrying out early detection will affect the peace and security of the community. The performance of potential conflict detection activities can be improved using an integrated early detection information system by shortening the time after observation, report preparation, information processing, and analysis. Developed using Unified Process as a software life cycle, the obtained result shows the time-based performance variables of the officers are significantly improved, including observation time, report production, data finding, and document formatting.
Authored by Ardiawan Harisa, Rahmat Trinanda, Oki Candra, Hanny Haryanto, Indra Gamayanto, Budi Setiawan
False data injection cyber-attack detection models on smart grid operation have been much explored recently, considering analytical physics-based and data-driven solutions. Recently, a hybrid data-driven physics-based model framework for monitoring the smart grid is developed. However, the framework has not been implemented in real-time environment yet. In this paper, the framework of the hybrid model is developed within a real-time simulation environment. OPAL-RT real-time simulator is used to enable Hardware-in-the-Loop testing of the framework. IEEE 9-bus system is considered as a testing grid for gaining insight. The process of building the framework and the challenges faced during development are presented. The performance of the framework is investigated under various false data injection attacks.
Authored by Valeria Vega-Martinez, Austin Cooper, Brandon Vera, Nader Aljohani, Arturo Bretas
One major tool of Energy Management Systems for monitoring the status of the power grid is State Estimation (SE). Since the results of state estimation are used within the energy management system, the security of the power system state estimation tool is most important. The research in this area is targeting detection of False Data Injection attacks on measurements. Though this aspect is crucial, SE also depends on database that are used to describe the relationship between measurements and systems' states. This paper presents a two-stage optimization framework to not only detect, but also correct cyber-attacks pertaining the measurements' model parameters used by the SE routine. In the first stage, an estimate of the line parameters ratios are obtained. In the second stage, the estimated ratios from stage I are used in a Bi-Level model for obtaining a final estimate of the measurements' model parameters. Hence, the presented framework does not only unify the detection and correction in a single optimization run, but also provide a monitoring scheme for the SE database that is typically considered static. In addition, in the two stages, linear programming framework is preserved. For validation, the IEEE 118 bus system is used for implementation. The results illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed model for detecting attacks in the database used in the state estimation process.
Authored by Nader Aljohani, Arturo Bretas, Newton Bretas
The modern networking world is being exposed to many risks more frequently every day. Most of systems strongly rely on remaining anonymous throughout the whole endpoint exploitation process. Covert channels represent risk since they ex-ploit legitimate communications and network protocols to evade typical filtering. This firewall avoidance sees covert channels frequently used for malicious communication of intruders with systems they compromised, and thus a real threat to network security. While there are commercial tools to safeguard computer networks, novel applications such as automotive connectivity and V2X present new challenges. This paper focuses on the analysis of the recent ways of using covert channels and detecting them, but also on the state-of-the-art possibilities of protection against them. We investigate observing the timing covert channels behavior simulated via injected ICMP traffic into standard network communications. Most importantly, we concentrate on enhancing firewall with detection and prevention of such attack built-in features. The main contribution of the paper is design for detection timing covert channel threats utilizing detection methods based on statistical analysis. These detection methods are combined and implemented in one program as a simple host-based intrusion detection system (HIDS). As a result, the proposed design can analyze and detect timing covert channels, with the addition of taking preventive measures to block any future attempts to breach the security of an end device.
Authored by Adrián Ondov, Pavol Helebrandt
Dual Connectivity is a key approach to achieving optimization of throughput and latency in heterogeneous networks. Originally a technique introduced by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) for terrestrial communications, it is not been widely explored in satellite systems. In this paper, Dual Connectivity is implemented in a multi-orbital satellite network, where a network model is developed by employing the diversity gains from Dual Connectivity and Carrier Aggregation for the enhancement of satellite uplink capacity. An introduction of software defined network controller is performed at the network layer coupled with a carefully designed hybrid resource allocation algorithm which is implemented strategically. The algorithm performs optimum dynamic flow control and traffic steering by considering the availability of resources and the channel propagation information of the orbital links to arrive at a resource allocation pattern suitable in enhancing uplink system performance. Simulation results are shown to evaluate the achievable gains in throughput and latency; in addition we provide useful insight in the design of multi-orbital satellite networks with implementable scheduler design.
Authored by Michael Dazhi, Hayder Al-Hraishawi, Mysore Shankar, Symeon Chatzinotas
With the intelligent development of power system, due to the double-layer structure of smart grid and the characteristics of failure propagation across layers, the attack path also changes significantly: from single-layer to multi-layer and from static to dynamic. In response to the shortcomings of the single-layer attack path of traditional attack path identification methods, this paper proposes the idea of cross-layer attack, which integrates the threat propagation mechanism of the information layer and the failure propagation mechanism of the physical layer to establish a forward-backward bi-directional detection model. The model is mainly used to predict possible cross-layer attack paths and evaluate their path generation probabilities to provide theoretical guidance and technical support for defenders. The experimental results show that the method proposed in this paper can well identify the dynamic cross-layer attacks in the smart grid.
Authored by Binbin Wang, Yi Wu, Naiwang Guo, Lei Zhang, Chang Liu
The Internet of Things is a developing technology that converts physical objects into virtual objects connected to the internet using wired and wireless network architecture. Use of cross-layer techniques in the internet of things is primarily driven by the high heterogeneity of hardware and software capabilities. Although traditional layered architecture has been effective for a while, cross-layer protocols have the potential to greatly improve a number of wireless network characteristics, including bandwidth and energy usage. Also, one of the main concerns with the internet of things is security, and machine learning (ML) techniques are thought to be the most cuttingedge and viable approach. This has led to a plethora of new research directions for tackling IoT's growing security issues. In the proposed study, a number of cross-layer approaches based on machine learning techniques that have been offered in the past to address issues and challenges brought on by the variety of IoT are in-depth examined. Additionally, the main issues are mentioned and analyzed, including those related to scalability, interoperability, security, privacy, mobility, and energy utilization.
Authored by K. Saranya, Dr. A. Valarmathi
In the deep nano-scale regime, reliability has emerged as one of the major design issues for high-density integrated systems. Among others, key reliability-related issues are soft errors, high temperature, and aging effects (e.g., NBTI-Negative Bias Temperature Instability), which jeopardize the correct applications' execution. Tremendous amount of research effort has been invested at individual system layers. Moreover, in the era of growing cyber-security threats, modern computing systems experience a wide range of security threats at different layers of the software and hardware stacks. However, considering the escalating reliability and security costs, designing a highly reliable and secure system would require engaging multiple system layers (i.e. both hardware and software) to achieve cost-effective robustness. This talk provides an overview of important reliability issues, prominent state-of-the-art techniques, and various hardwaresoftware collaborative reliability modeling and optimization techniques developed at our lab, with a focus on the recent works on ML-based reliability techniques. Afterwards, this talk will also discuss how advanced ML techniques can be leveraged to devise new types of hardware security attacks, for instance on logic locked circuits. Towards the end of the talk, I will also give a quick pitch on the reliability and security challenges for the embedded machine learning (ML) on resource/energy-constrained devices subjected to unpredictable and harsh scenarios.
Authored by Muhammad Shafique
In the Smart Grid paradigm, this critical infrastructure operation is increasingly exposed to cyber-threats due to the increased dependency on communication networks. An adversary can launch an attack on a power grid operation through False Data Injection into system measurements and/or through attacks on the communication network, such as flooding the communication channels with unnecessary data or intercepting messages. A cross-layered strategy that combines power grid data, communication grid monitoring and Machine Learning-based processing is a promising solution for detecting cyber-threats. In this paper, an implementation of an integrated solution of a cross-layer framework is presented. The advantage of such a framework is the augmentation of valuable data that enhances the detection of anomalies in the operation of power grid. IEEE 118-bus system is built in Simulink to provide a power grid testing environment and communication network data is emulated using SimComponents. The performance of the framework is investigated under various FDI and communication attacks.
Authored by Nader Aljohani, Dennis Agnew, Keerthiraj Nagaraj, Sharon Boamah, Reynold Mathieu, Arturo Bretas, Janise McNair, Alina Zare
Embedded devices are becoming increasingly pervasive in safety-critical systems of the emerging cyber-physical world. While trusted execution environments (TEEs), such as ARM TrustZone, have been widely deployed in mobile platforms, little attention has been given to deployment on real-time cyber-physical systems, which present a different set of challenges compared to mobile applications. For safety-critical cyber-physical systems, such as autonomous drones or automobiles, the current TEE deployment paradigm, which focuses only on confidentiality and integrity, is insufficient. Computation in these systems also needs to be completed in a timely manner (e.g., before the car hits a pedestrian), putting a much stronger emphasis on availability.To bridge this gap, we present RT-TEE, a real-time trusted execution environment. There are three key research challenges. First, RT-TEE bootstraps the ability to ensure availability using a minimal set of hardware primitives on commodity embedded platforms. Second, to balance real-time performance and scheduler complexity, we designed a policy-based event-driven hierarchical scheduler. Third, to mitigate the risks of having device drivers in the secure environment, we designed an I/O reference monitor that leverages software sandboxing and driver debloating to provide fine-grained access control on peripherals while minimizing the trusted computing base (TCB).We implemented prototypes on both ARMv8-A and ARMv8-M platforms. The system is tested on both synthetic tasks and real-life CPS applications. We evaluated rover and plane in simulation and quadcopter both in simulation and with a real drone.
Authored by Jinwen Wang, Ao Li, Haoran Li, Chenyang Lu, Ning Zhang
Supply chain cyberattacks that exploit insecure third-party software are a growing concern for the security of the electric power grid. These attacks seek to deploy malicious software in grid control devices during the fabrication, shipment, installation, and maintenance stages, or as part of routine software updates. Malicious software on grid control devices may inject bad data or execute bad commands, which can cause blackouts and damage power equipment. This paper describes an experimental setup to simulate the software update process of a commercial power relay as part of a hardware-in-the-loop simulation for grid supply chain cyber-security assessment. The laboratory setup was successfully utilized to study three supply chain cyber-security use cases.
Authored by Joseph Keller, Shuva Paul, Santiago Grijalva, Vincent Mooney
The damage or destruction of Critical Infrastructures (CIs) affect societies’ sustainable functioning. Therefore, it is crucial to have effective methods to assess the risk and resilience of CIs. Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) and Failure Mode Effects and Criticality Analysis (FMECA) are two approaches to risk assessment and criticality analysis. However, these approaches are complex to apply to intricate CIs and associated Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). We provide a top-down strategy, starting from a high abstraction level of the system and progressing to cover the functional elements of the infrastructures. This approach develops from FMECA but estimates risks and focuses on assessing resilience. We applied the proposed technique to a real-world CI, predicting how possible improvement scenarios may influence the overall system resilience. The results show the effectiveness of our approach in benchmarking the CI resilience, providing a cost-effective way to evaluate plausible alternatives concerning the improvement of preventive measures.
Authored by Gonçalo Carvalho, Nadia Medeiros, Henrique Madeira, Bruno Cabral