Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Exploring The Integration Of Blockchain In Iot Use Cases: Challenges And Opportunities, Ivannah George

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Blockchain and The Internet of Things (IoT) is a significant paradigm which has gained traction in today’s digital age as two complimentary technologies. The combination of IoT's connectivity with blockchain's security creates new opportunities and solves problems associated with centralized systems. This culminating project aims to delve deeper into the integration of blockchain technology in IoT applications based on select use cases to uncover potential benefits and significant challenges of blockchain integration across different sectors. The research objectives to be addressed are: (RO1) How emerging vulnerabilities manifest in the implementation of blockchain within current IoT ecosystems. (RO2) How current opportunities …

Securing Body Area Networks With Fingerprint Cryptography And Authentication In Manet, Alaa M. Elbanaa, Roayat Ismail Abdelfatah, Mohamed E. Nasr

Journal of Engineering Research

Standard MANETs face issues like incorrect transmission and vulnerability to unauthorized node access, posing significant security concerns, especially regarding authentication procedures. To address these challenges, researchers are exploring innovative approaches to enhance authentication mechanisms within MANETs. In this paper, we present a novel solution integrating a Body Area Network (BAN) scheme to capture biomedical data from sensors such as ECG and EEG, facilitating data transmission across MANETs. Furthermore, we employ a hybrid Elgamal algorithm for encrypting biomedical data, bolstered by fingerprint biometrics to fortify the cryptographic process, enhancing network security. Additionally, we conduct comparative analyses, exploring different key sizes and …

Contextualizing Interpersonal Data Sharing In Smart Homes, Weijia He, Nathan Reitinger, Atheer Almogbil, Yi-Shyuan Chiang, Timothy J. Pierson, David Kotz

Dartmouth Scholarship

A key feature of smart home devices is monitoring the environment and recording data. These devices provide security via motion-detection video alerts, cost-savings via thermostat usage history, and peace of mind via functions like auto-locking doors or water leak detectors. At the same time, the sharing of this information in interpersonal relationships---though necessary---is currently accomplished on an all-or-nothing basis. This can easily lead to oversharing in a multi-user environment. Although prior work has studied people's perceptions of information sharing with vendors or ISPs, the sharing of household data among users who interact personally is less well understood. Interpersonal situations make …

The Next Strike: Pioneering Forward-Thinking Attack Techniques With Rowhammer In Dram Technologies, Nakul Kochar

Theses

In the realm of DRAM technologies this study investigates RowHammer vulnerabilities in DDR4 DRAM memory across various manufacturers, employing advanced multi-sided fault injection techniques to impose attack strategies directly on physical memory rows. Our novel approach, diverging from traditional victim-focused methods, involves strategically allocating virtual memory rows to their physical counterparts for more potent attacks. These attacks, exploiting the inherent weaknesses in DRAM design, are capable of inducing bit flips in a controlled manner to undermine system integrity. We employed a strategy that compromised system integrity through a nuanced approach of targeting rows situated at a distance of two rows …

Measuring Confidentiality With Multiple Observables, John J. Utley

Computer Science Senior Theses

Measuring the confidentiality of programs that need to interact with the outside world can prevent leakages and is important to protect against dangerous attacks. However, information propagation is difficult to follow through a large program with implicit information flow, tricky loops, and complicated instructions. Previous works have tackled this problem in several ways but often measure leakage a program has on average rather than the leakage produced by a set of particularly compromising interactions. We introduce new methods that target a specific set of observables revealed throughout execution to cut down on the resources needed for analysis. Our implementation examines …

Monero: Powering Anonymous Digital Currency Transactions, Jake Braddy

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

Cryptocurrencies rely on a distributed public ledger (record of transactions) in order to perform their intended functions. However, the public’s ability to audit the network is both its greatest strength and greatest weakness: Anyone can see what address sent currency, and to whom the currency was sent. If cryptocurrency is ever going to take some of the responsibility of fiat currency, then there needs to be a certain level of confidentiality. Thus far, Monero has come out on top as the preferred currency for embodying the ideas of privacy and confidentiality. Through numerous cryptographic procedures, Monero is able to obfuscate …

Attribute-Hiding Fuzzy Encryption For Privacy-Preserving Data Evaluation, Zhenhua Chen, Luqi Huang, Guomin Yang, Willy Susilo, Xingbing Fu, Xingxing Jia

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Privacy-preserving data evaluation is one of the prominent research topics in the big data era. In many data evaluation applications that involve sensitive information, such as the medical records of patients in a medical system, protecting data privacy during the data evaluation process has become an essential requirement. Aiming at solving this problem, numerous fuzzy encryption systems for different similarity metrics have been proposed in literature. Unfortunately, the existing fuzzy encryption systems either fail to achieve attribute-hiding or achieve it, but are impractical. In this paper, we propose a new fuzzy encryption scheme for privacy-preserving data evaluation based on overlap …

Locally Tight Programs, Jorge Fandinno, Vladimir Lifschitz, Nathan Temple

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Program completion is a translation from the language of logic programs into the language of first-order theories. Its original definition has been extended to programs that include integer arithmetic, accept input, and distinguish between output predicates and auxiliary predicates. For tight programs, that generalization of completion is known to match the stable model semantics, which is the basis of answer set programming. We show that the tightness condition in this theorem can be replaced by a less restrictive “local tightness” requirement. From this fact we conclude that the proof assistant ANTHEM-P2P can be used to verify equivalence between locally tight …

Locally Tight Programs, Jorge Fandinno, Vladimir Lifschitz, Nathan Temple

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Program completion is a translation from the language of logic programs into the language of first-order theories. Its original definition has been extended to programs that include integer arithmetic, accept input, and distinguish between output predicates and auxiliary predicates. For tight programs, that generalization of completion is known to match the stable model semantics, which is the basis of answer set programming. We show that the tightness condition in this theorem can be replaced by a less restrictive “local tightness” requirement. From this fact we conclude that the proof assistant ANTHEM-P2P can be used to verify equivalence between locally tight …

A Secure And Privacy-Preserving Signature Protocol Using Quantum Teleportation In Metaverse Environment, Pankaj Kumar, Vivek Bharmaik, Sunil Prajapat, Garima Thakur, Ashok Kumar Das, Sachin Shetty, Joel J. P. C. Rodrigues

VMASC Publications

The burgeoning concept of the metaverse as an interconnected virtual space represents the forefront of the next-generation internet. Quantum teleportation, known for its prowess in ensuring secure and reliable communications, stands poised to revolutionize interactions within this immersive digital realm. In this context, we propose a comprehensive interaction protocol tailored for the metaverse environment. The designed protocol entails two fundamental components: first, the interaction between a user and their avatar, facilitated by a secure seven-qubit entangled state; and second, the interaction between two avatars, enabled through an efficient two-qubit entangled state. To fortify the protocol’s resilience, quantum key distribution (QKD) …

Trusted Digital Twin Network For Intelligent Vehicles, Asad Malik, Ayan Roy, Sanjay Madria

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) infrastructure facilitates wireless communication among vehicles within close proximity. This allows sharing of contextual information such as speed, location, direction, traffic, route closures, human behavior mental conditions to improve traffic flow, reduce collisions, and enhance safety on the road. However, the assumption of honest peers along with the over-reliability on the information shared in the network can pose a serious threat to human safety. A digital twin is a concept that enables a system to develop a virtual environment that mimics the real-life scenario for any situation. The availability of powerful computing equipment inside vehicles can be leveraged …

Secure And Privacy-Preserving Federated Learning With Rapid Convergence In Leo Satellite Networks, Mohamed Elmahallawy

Doctoral Dissertations

"The advancement of satellite technology has enabled the launch of small satellites equipped with high-resolution cameras into low Earth orbit (LEO), enabling the collection of extensive Earth data for training AI models. However, the conventional approach of downloading satellite-related data to a ground station (GS) for training a centralized machine learning (ML) model faces significant challenges. Firstly, the transmission of raw data raises security and privacy concerns, especially in military applications. Secondly, the download bandwidth is limited, which puts a stringent limit on image transmissions to the GS. Lastly, LEO satellites have sporadic visibility with the GS, and orbit the …

Designing High-Performance Identity-Based Quantum Signature Protocol With Strong Security, Sunil Prajapat, Pankaj Kumar, Sandeep Kumar, Ashok Kumar Das, Sachin Shetty, M. Shamim Hossain

VMASC Publications

Due to the rapid advancement of quantum computers, there has been a furious race for quantum technologies in academia and industry. Quantum cryptography is an important tool for achieving security services during quantum communication. Designated verifier signature, a variant of quantum cryptography, is very useful in applications like the Internet of Things (IoT) and auctions. An identity-based quantum-designated verifier signature (QDVS) scheme is suggested in this work. Our protocol features security attributes like eavesdropping, non-repudiation, designated verification, and hiding sources attacks. Additionally, it is protected from attacks on forgery, inter-resending, and impersonation. The proposed scheme benefits from the traditional designated …

On Vulnerabilities Of Building Automation Systems, Michael Cash

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

Building automation systems (BAS) have become more commonplace in personal and commercial environments in recent years. They provide many functions for comfort and ease of use, from automating room temperature and shading, to monitoring equipment data and status. Even though their convenience is beneficial, their security has become an increased concerned in recent years. This research shows an extensive study on building automation systems and identifies vulnerabilities in some of the most common building communication protocols, BACnet and KNX. First, we explore the BACnet protocol, exploring its Standard BACnet objects and properties. An automation tool is designed and implemented to …

Mobilytics: Mobility Analytics Framework For Transferring Semantic Knowledge, Shreya Ghosh, Soumya K. Ghosh, Sajal K. Das, Prasenjit Mitra

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

The proliferation of sensor-equipped smartphones has led to the generation of vast amounts of GPS data, such as timestamped location points, enabling a range of location-based services. However, deciphering the spatio-temporal dynamics of mobility to understand the underlying motivations behind travel patterns presents a significant challenge. his paper focuses on how individuals' GPS traces (latitude, longitude, timestamp) interpret the connection and correlations among different entities such as people, locations or point-of-interests (POIs), and semantic contexts (trip-purpose). We introduce a mobility analytics framework, named Mobilytics designed to identify trip purposes from individual GPS traces by leveraging a “mobility knowledge graph” (MKG) …

Stealthy Backdoor Attack For Code Models, Zhou Yang, Bowen Xu, Jie M. Zhang, Hong Jin Kang, Jieke Shi, Junda He, David Lo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Code models, such as CodeBERT and CodeT5, offer general-purpose representations of code and play a vital role in supporting downstream automated software engineering tasks. Most recently, code models were revealed to be vulnerable to backdoor attacks. A code model that is backdoor-attacked can behave normally on clean examples but will produce pre-defined malicious outputs on examples injected with that activate the backdoors. Existing backdoor attacks on code models use unstealthy and easy-to-detect triggers. This paper aims to investigate the vulnerability of code models with backdoor attacks. To this end, we propose A (dversarial eature as daptive Back). A achieves stealthiness …

Autonomous Strike Uavs In Support Of Homeland Security Missions: Challenges And Preliminary Solutions, Meshari Aljohani, Ravi Mukkamala, Stephan Olariu

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are becoming crucial tools in modern homeland security applications, primarily because of their cost-effectiveness, risk reduction, and ability to perform a wider range of activities. This study focuses on the use of autonomous UAVs to conduct, as part of homeland security applications, strike missions against high-value terrorist targets. Owing to developments in ledger technology, smart contracts, and machine learning, activities formerly carried out by professionals or remotely flown UAVs are now feasible. Our study provides the first in-depth analysis of the challenges and preliminary solutions for the successful implementation of an autonomous UAV mission. Specifically, we …

Attitudes And Perceptions Towards Privacy And Surveillance In Australia, Aleatha J. Shanley

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Understanding attitudes towards privacy and surveillance technologies used to enhance security objectives is a complex, but crucial aspect for policy makers to consider. Historically, terrorism-related incidents justified the uptake of surveillance practices. More recently however, biosecurity concerns have motivated nation-states to adopt more intrusive surveillance measures. There is a growing body of literature that supports the public’s desire to maintain privacy despite fears of biological or physical threats.

This research set out to explore attitudes towards privacy and surveillance in an Australian context. Throughout the course of this endeavour, the COVID-19 pandemic emerged bringing with it a variety of track …

Unleashing The Power Of Internet Of Things And Blockchain: A Comprehensive Analysis And Future Directions, Abderahman Rejeb, Karim Rejeb, Andrea Appolloni, Sandeep Jagtap, Mohammad Iranmanesh, Salem Alghamdi, Yaser Alhasawi, Yasanur Kayikci

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

As the fusion of the Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain technology advances, it is increasingly shaping diverse fields. The potential of this convergence to fortify security, enhance privacy, and streamline operations has ignited considerable academic interest, resulting in an impressive body of literature. However, there is a noticeable scarcity of studies employing Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) to dissect and categorize this field. This review paper endeavours to bridge this gap by meticulously analysing a dataset of 4455 journal articles drawn solely from the Scopus database, cantered around IoT and blockchain applications. Utilizing LDA, we have extracted 14 distinct topics …

A Systematic Review Of K-12 Cybersecurity Education Around The World, Ahmed Ibrahim, Marnie Mckee, Leslie F. Sikos, Nicola F. Johnson

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

This paper presents a systematic review of K-12 cybersecurity education literature from around the world. 24 academic papers dated from 2013-2023 were eligible for inclusion in the literature established within the research protocol. An additional 19 gray literature sources comprised the total. A range of recurring common topics deemed as aspects of cybersecurity behavior or practice were identified. A variety of cybersecurity competencies and skills are needed for K-12 students to apply their knowledge. As may be expected to be the case with interdisciplinary fields, studies are inherently unclear in the use of their terminology, and this is compounded in …

A Conceptual Decentralized Identity Solution For State Government, Martin Duclos

Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, state governments, exemplified by Mississippi, have significantly expanded their online service offerings to reduce costs and improve efficiency. However, this shift has led to challenges in managing digital identities effectively, with multiple fragmented solutions in use. This paper proposes a Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) framework based on distributed ledger technology. SSI grants individuals control over their digital identities, enhancing privacy and security without relying on a centralized authority. The contributions of this research include increased efficiency, improved privacy and security, enhanced user satisfaction, and reduced costs in state government digital identity management. The paper provides background on digital …

Role Of Authentication Factors In Fin-Tech Mobile Transaction Security, Habib Ullah Khan, Muhammad Sohail, Shah Nazir, Tariq Hussain, Babar Shah, Farman Ali

All Works

Fin-Tech is the merging of finance and technology, to be considered a key term for technology-based financial operations and money transactions as far as Fin-Tech is concerned. In the massive field of business, mobile money transaction security is a great challenge for researchers. The user authentication schemes restrict the ability to enforce the authentication before the account can access and operate. Although authentication factors provide greater security than a simple static password, financial transactions have potential drawbacks because cybercrime expands the opportunities for fraudsters. The most common enterprise challenge is mobile-based user authentication during transactions, which addresses the security issues …

A Reliable And Secure Mobile Cyber-Physical Digital Microfluidic Biochip For Intelligent Healthcare, Yinan Yao, Decheng Qiu, Huangda Liu, Zhongliao Yang, Ximeng Liu, Yang Yang, Chen Dong

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Digital microfluidic, as an emerging and potential technology, diversifies the biochemical applications platform, such as protein dilution sewage detection. At present, a vast majority of universal cyberphysical digital microfluidic biochips (DMFBs) transmit data through wires via personal computers and microcontrollers (like Arduino), consequently, susceptible to various security threats and with the popularity of wireless devices, losing competitiveness gradually. On the premise that security be ensured first and foremost, calls for wireless portable, safe, and economical DMFBs are imperative to expand their application fields, engage more users, and cater to the trend of future wireless communication. To this end, a new …

Lsav: Lightweight Source Address Validation In Sdn To Counteract Ip Spoofing-Based Ddos Attacks, Ali̇ Karakoç, Fati̇h Alagöz

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

In this paper, we propose a design to detect and prevent IP spoofing-based distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on software-defined networks (SDNs). DDoS attacks are still one of the significant problems for internet service providers (ISPs) and individual users. These attacks can disrupt customer services by targeting the availability of the system, and in some cases, they can completely shut down the target infrastructure. Protecting the system against DDoS attacks is therefore crucial for ensuring the reliability and availability of internet services. To address this problem, we propose a lightweight source address validation (LSAV) framework that leverages the flexibility …

Integrity, Confidentiality, And Equity: Using Inquiry-Based Labs To Help Students Understand Ai And Cybersecurity, Richard C. Alexander, Liran Ma, Ze-Li Dou, Zhipeng Cai, Yan Huang

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Recent advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) have brought society closer to the long-held dream of creating machines to help with both common and complex tasks and functions. From recommending movies to detecting disease in its earliest stages, AI has become an aspect of daily life many people accept without scrutiny. Despite its functionality and promise, AI has inherent security risks that users should understand and programmers must be trained to address. The ICE (integrity, confidentiality, and equity) cybersecurity labs developed by a team of cybersecurity researchers addresses these vulnerabilities to AI models through a series of hands-on, inquiry-based labs. Through …

Privacy-Preserving Bloom Filter-Based Keyword Search Over Large Encrypted Cloud Data, Yanrong Liang, Jianfeng Ma, Yinbin Miao, Da Kuang, Xiangdong Meng, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

To achieve the search over encrypted data in cloud server, Searchable Encryption (SE) has attracted extensive attention from both academic and industrial fields. The existing Bloom filter-based SE schemes can achieve similarity search, but will generally incur high false positive rates, and even leak the privacy of values in Bloom filters (BF). To solve the above problems, we first propose a basic Privacy-preserving Bloom filter-based Keyword Search scheme using the Circular Shift and Coalesce-Bloom Filter (CSC-BF) and Symmetric-key Hidden Vector Encryption (SHVE) technology (namely PBKS), which can achieve effective search while protecting the values in BFs. Then, we design a …

Healthaichain: Improving Security And Safety Using Blockchain Technology Applications In Ai-Based Healthcare Systems, Naresh Kshetri, James Hutson, Revathy G

Faculty Scholarship

Blockchain as a digital ledger for keeping records of digital transactions and other information, it is secure and decentralized technology. The globally growing number of digital population every day possesses a significant threat to online data including the medical and patients’ data. After bitcoin, blockchain technology has emerged into a general-purpose technology with applications in medical industries and healthcare. Blockchain can promote highly configurable openness while retaining the highest security standards for critical data of medical patients. Referred to as distributed record keeping for healthcare systems which makes digital assets unalterable and transparent via a cryptographic hash and decentralized network. …

Metaverse Key Requirements And Platforms Survey, Akbobek Abilkaiyrkyzy, Ahmed Elhagry, Fedwa Laamarti, Abdulmotaleb El Saddik

Computer Vision Faculty Publications

The growing interest in the metaverse has led to an abundance of platforms, each with its own unique features and limitations. This paper's objective is two-fold. First, we aim at providing an objective analysis of requirements that need to be fulfilled by metaverse platforms. We survey a broad set of criteria including interoperability, immersiveness, persistence, multimodal and social interaction, scalability, level of openness, configurability, market access, security, and blockchain integration, among others. Second, we review a wide range of existing metaverse platforms, and we critically evaluate their ability to meet the requirements listed. We identify their limitations, which must be …

Decentralized Multimedia Data Sharing In Iov: A Learning-Based Equilibrium Of Supply And Demand, Jiani Fan, Minrui Xu, Jiale Guo, Lwin Khin Shar, Jiawen Kang, Dusit Niyato, Kwok-Yan Lam

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The Internet of Vehicles (IoV) has great potential to transform transportation systems by enhancing road safety, reducing traffic congestion, and improving user experience through onboard infotainment applications. Decentralized data sharing can improve security, privacy, reliability, and facilitate infotainment data sharing in IoVs. However, decentralized data sharing may not achieve the expected efficiency if there are IoV users who only want to consume the shared data but are not willing to contribute their own data to the community, resulting in incomplete information observed by other vehicles and infrastructure, which can introduce additional transmission latency. Therefore, in this paper, by modeling the …

Intrusion Detection: Machine Learning Techniques For Software Defined Networks, Jacob S. Rodriguez

Masters Theses

In recent years, software defined networking (SDN) has gained popularity as a novel approach towards network management and architecture. Compared to traditional network architectures, this software-based approach offers greater flexibility, programmability, and automation. However, despite the advantages of this system, there still remains the possibility that it could be compromised. As we continue to explore new approaches to network management, we must also develop new ways of protecting those systems from threats. Throughout this paper, I will describe and test a network intrusion detection system (NIDS), and how it can be implemented within a software defined network. This system will …