Existing Building Automation Systems (BASs) and Building Automation Networks (BANs) have been shown to have serious cybersecurity problems. Due to the safety-critical and interconnected nature of building subsystems, local and network access control needs to be finer grained, taking into consideration the varying criticality of applications running on heterogeneous devices. In this paper, we present a secure communication framework for BASs that 1) enforces rich access control policy for operating system services and objects, leveraging a microkernel-based architecture; 2) supports fine-grained network access control on a per-process basis; 3) unifies the security control of inter-device and intra-device communication using proxy processes; 4) tunnels legacy insecure communication protocols (e.g., BACnet) through a secure channel, such as SSL, in a manner transparent to legacy applications. We implemented the framework on seL4, a formally verified microkernel. We conducted extensive experiments and analysis to compare the performance and effectiveness of our communication systems against a traditional Linux-based implementation of the same control scenario. Our experiments show that the communication performance of our system is faster or comparable to the Linux-based architecture in embedded systems.

abstract: Cloud computing is known as a new and powerful computing paradigm. This new generation of network computing model delivers both software and hardware as on-demand resources and various services over the Internet. However, the security concerns prevent users from adopting the cloud-based solutions to fulfill the IT requirement for many business critical computing. Due to the resource-sharing and multi-tenant nature of cloud-based solutions, cloud security is especially the most concern in the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). It has been attracting a lot of research and development effort in the past few years. Virtualization is the main technology of cloud computing to enable multi-tenancy. Computing power, storage, and network are all virtualizable to be shared in an IaaS system. This important technology makes abstract infrastructure and resources available to users as isolated virtual machines (VMs) and virtual networks (VNs). However, it also increases vulnerabilities and possible attack surfaces in the system, since all users in a cloud share these resources with others or even the attackers. The promising protection mechanism is required to ensure strong isolation, mediated sharing, and secure communications between VMs. Technologies for detecting anomalous traffic and protecting normal traffic in VNs are also needed. Therefore, how to secure and protect the private traffic in VNs and how to prevent the malicious traffic from shared resources are major security research challenges in a cloud system. This dissertation proposes four novel frameworks to address challenges mentioned above. The first work is a new multi-phase distributed vulnerability, measurement, and countermeasure selection mechanism based on the attack graph analytical model. The second work is a hybrid intrusion detection and prevention system to protect VN and VM using virtual machines introspection (VMI) and software defined networking (SDN) technologies. The third work further improves the previous works by introducing a VM profiler and VM Security Index (VSI) to keep track the security status of each VM and suggest the optimal countermeasure to mitigate potential threats. The final work is a SDN-based proactive defense mechanism for a cloud system using a reconfiguration model and moving target defense approaches to actively and dynamically change the virtual network configuration of a cloud system. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Computer Science 2015

Submitted by Elesbão Santiago Neto (neto10uepb@cche.uepb.edu.br) on 2016-11-28T19:41:12Z No. of bitstreams: 1 PDF - Pedro Henrique Oliveira Frazão.pdf: 4658431 bytes, checksum: 260a8a4c2c26522f583a576972d4ce10 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-11-28T19:41:12Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 PDF - Pedro Henrique Oliveira Frazão.pdf: 4658431 bytes, checksum: 260a8a4c2c26522f583a576972d4ce10 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-05-19 / CAPES / The increasing use of cyberspace in International Relations is providing a new scenario for world politics. The evolution of digital media has provided a data flow never before seen in human history, which eventually expanded the role of information as a bargaining chip in the power relations of the current international scenario. One of the changes observed from this process was the strengthening of surveillance – which gains new tools in the cyber environment – as a mechanism of monitoring, law enforcement, control and acquisition of information that makes international actors relevant in the new cyberpower relations. Thus, this dissertation analyzes this phenomenon from two main lines that complement each other: the evolution of surveillance as a key dimension of (cyber)security through a panoptic and post-panoptic approach and how these perspectives influence the current cyber surveillance phenomena. To do so, we present Foucault's studies of disciplinary society and its developments that have given rise to an information society of control, and Bauman’s analysis on liquid modernity and how its characteristics can influence contemporary surveillance. The second line of analysis, drawn from the data collected so far, deals with a vision of cyber surveillance as a tool of cyberspace securitization process. Following this logic, studies of the Copenhagen School, based on the constructivist theory of International Relations, point out a favorable path to understanding the role of cyber surveillance within the cybersecurity issues. As an example case, we examine how this process took place within NSA programs of global surveillance revealed in mid-2013 by Edward Snowden. In order to achieve these objectives, classical authors of surveillance and security studies will be reviewed, as well as new approaches; for the presentation and analysis of the proposed case, documentary analysis, reports and speeches relating to international responses in the face of revelations of the NSA programs will be used. / O crescente uso do ciberespaço nas Relações Internacionais vem propiciando um novo cenário para a política mundial. A evolução dos meios digitais proporcionou um fluxo de dados nunca antes visto na história da humanidade, o que acabou ampliando o papel da informação enquanto moeda de troca nas relações de poder do cenário internacional atual. Uma das transformações observadas a partir deste processo foi o fortalecimento da vigilância – que ganha novas ferramentas no ambiente cibernético – enquanto mecanismo de monitoramento, manutenção da ordem, controle e aquisição de informações que tornem os atores internacionais relevantes nas novas relações de poder cibernéticas. Sendo assim, a presente dissertação analisa este fenômeno a partir de duas linhas principais que se complementam: a evolução da vigilância enquanto dimensão-chave da (ciber)segurança, através de uma abordagem panóptica e pós-panóptica e como estas perspectivas influenciam nos fenômenos atuais de vigilância cibernética. Para tanto, apresentam-se os estudos de Foucault acerca da sociedade disciplinar e os seus desdobramentos que deram lugar a uma sociedade de controle informacional, e as análises de Bauman sobre a modernidade líquida e como tais características podem influenciar a vigilância contemporânea. A segunda linha de análise, elaborada a partir dos dados levantados até então, aborda uma visão da vigilância cibernética enquanto ferramenta do processo de securitização do ciberespaço. Seguindo esta lógica, os estudos da Escola de Copenhague, baseados na teoria construtivista das Relações Internacionais, apontam um caminho propício para a compreensão do papel da vigilância cibernética dentro das questões de cibersegurança. Como exemplo de caso, examina-se como esse processo se deu dentro dos programas de vigilância global da NSA, revelados em meados de 2013 por Edward Snowden. A fim de alcançar tais objetivos, serão revisados autores clássicos dos estudos de vigilância e segurança, bem como novas abordagens; para a apresentação e análise do caso proposto, serão utilizados análises documentais, reportagens e discursos referentes às respostas internacionais em face das revelações dos programas da NSA.

This paper seeks ways of understanding the new challenges of a rapidly changing world, and does so by attempting to resist the disciplinary power of orthodox research methodology, by critically and reflexively inquiring into the politics of (in)security, and ultimately, by seeking novelty. It begins by first declaring its ethical and methodological starting points, then draws out an assemblage of contemporary security problematics. This leads over and narrows down into an inquiry into how to understand the developing structure of information and cyber security in Sweden. Drawing from critical security studies and feminist research ethics, it sketches out an analytical story of power and knowledge in an age of boundless risk, security and information. It furthermore argues for the need of security scholars, practitioners and politicians alike to move beyond simplistic understandings of the world, and to revision it as shaped by more complex dynamics and flows of the global, digitalized and virtual reality of the world.

Advances in mobile and pervasive computing, social network technologies and the exponential growth in Internet applications and services will lead to the development of the Internet of Things (IoT). The IoT services will be a key enabling technology to the development of smart infrastructures that will revolutionize the way we do business, manage critical services, and how we secure, protect, and entertain ourselves. Large-scale IoT applications, such as critical infrastructures (e.g., smart grid, smart transportation, smart buildings, etc.) are distributed systems, characterized by interdependence, cooperation, competition, and adaptation. The integration of IoT premises with sensors, actuators, and control devices allows smart infrastructures to achieve reliable and efficient operations, and to significantly reduce operational costs. However, with the use of IoT, we are experiencing grand challenges to secure and protect such advanced information services due to the significant increase in the attack surface. The interconnections between a growing number of devices expose the vulnerability of IoT applications to attackers. Even devices which are intended to operate in isolation are sometimes connected to the Internet due to careless configuration or to satisfy special needs (e.g., they need to be remotely managed). The security challenge consists of identifying accurately IoT devices, promptly detect vulnerabilities and exploitations of IoT devices, and stop or mitigate the impact of cyberattacks. An Intrusion Detection System (IDS) is in charge of monitoring the behavior of protected systems and is looking for malicious activities or policy violations in order to produce reports to a management station or even perform proactive countermeasures against the detected threat. Anomaly behavior detection is a technique that aims at creating models for the normal behavior of the network and detects any significant deviation from normal operations. With the ability to detect new and novel attacks, the anomaly detection is a promising IDS technique that is actively pursued by researchers. Since each IoT application has its own specification, it is hard to develop a single IDS which works properly for all IoT layers. A better approach is to design customized intrusion detection engines for different layers and then aggregate the analysis results from these engines. On the other hand, it would be cumbersome and takes a lot of effort and knowledge to manually extract the specification of each system. So it will be appropriate to formulate our methodology based on machine learning techniques which can be applied to produce efficient detection engines for different IoT applications. In this dissertation we aim at formalizing a general methodology to perform anomaly behavior analysis for IoT. We first introduce our IoT architecture for smart infrastructures that consists of four layers: end nodes (devices), communications, services, and application. Then we show our multilayer IoT security framework and IoT architecture that consists of five planes: function specification or model plane, attack surface plane, impact plane, mitigation plane, and priority plane. We then present a methodology to develop a general threat model in order to recognize the vulnerabilities in each layer and the possible countermeasures that can be deployed to mitigate their exploitation. In this scope, we show how to develop and deploy an anomaly behavior analysis based intrusion detection system (ABA-IDS) to detect anomalies that might be triggered by attacks against devices, protocols, information or services in our IoT framework. We have evaluated our approach by launching several cyberattacks (e.g. Sensor Impersonation, Replay, and Flooding attacks) against our testbeds developed at the University of Arizona Center for Cloud and Autonomic Computing. The results show that our approach can be used to deploy effective security mechanisms to protect the normal operations of smart infrastructures integrated to the IoT. Moreover, our approach can detect known and unknown attacks against IoT with high detection rate and low false alarms.

The major goal of this dissertation is to enhance software security by provably correct enforcement of in-depth policies. In-depth security policies allude to heterogeneous specification of security strategies that are required to be followed before and after sensitive operations. Prospective security is the enforcement of security, or detection of security violations before the execution of sensitive operations, e.g., in authorization, authentication and information flow. Retrospective security refers to security checks after the execution of sensitive operations, which is accomplished through accountability and deterrence. Retrospective security frameworks are built upon auditing in order to provide sufficient evidence to hold users accountable for their actions and potentially support other remediation actions. Correctness and efficiency of audit logs play significant roles in reaching the accountability goals that are required by retrospective, and consequently, in-depth security policies. This dissertation addresses correct audit logging in a formal framework. Leveraging retrospective controls beside the existing prospective measures enhances security in numerous applications. This dissertation focuses on two major application spaces for in-depth enforcement. The first is to enhance prospective security through surveillance and accountability. For example, authorization mechanisms could be improved by guaranteed retrospective checks in environments where there is a high cost of access denial, e.g., healthcare systems. The second application space is the amelioration of potentially flawed prospective measures through retrospective checks. For instance, erroneous implementations of input sanitization methods expose vulnerabilities in taint analysis tools that enforce direct flow of data integrity policies. In this regard, we propose an in-depth enforcement framework to mitigate such problems. We also propose a general semantic notion of explicit flow of information integrity in a high-level language with sanitization. This dissertation studies the ways by which prospective and retrospective security could be enforced uniformly in a provably correct manner to handle security challenges in legacy systems. Provable correctness of our results relies on the formal Programming Languages-based approach that we have taken in order to provide software security assurance. Moreover, this dissertation includes the implementation of such in-depth enforcement mechanisms for a medical records web application.

The use of physical systems and Virtual Machines has become inefficient and expensive for creating tailored, hands-on exercises for providing cyber security training. The main purpose of this project is to directly address these issues faced in cyber security education with the help of Docker containers. Using Docker, a lightweight and automated platform was developed for creating, sharing, and managing hands-on exercises. With the help of orchestration tools, this platform provides a centralized point to monitor and control the systems and exercises with a high degree of automation. In a classroom/lab environment, this infrastructure enables instructors and students not only to share exercises but also helps create and deploy exercises more easily. By streamlining the end to end delivery and deployment of the exercises, instructors can now efficiently make use of the class/lab hours in educating the students rather than performing system administration tasks.

Despite substantial effort made by the usable security community at facilitating the use of recommended security systems and behaviors, much security advice is ignored and many security systems are underutilized. I argue that this disconnect can partially be explained by the fact that security behaviors have myriad unaccounted for social consequences. For example, by using two-factor authentication, one might be perceived as “paranoid”. By encrypting an e-mail correspondence, one might be perceived as having something to hide. Yet, to date, little theoretical work in usable security has applied theory from social psychology to understand how these social consequences affect people’s security behaviors. Likewise, little systems work in usable security has taken social factors into consideration. To bridge these gaps in literature and practice, I begin to build a theory of social cybersecurity and apply those theoretical insights to create systems that encourage better cybersecurity behaviors. First, through a series of interviews, surveys and a large-scale analysis of how security tools diffuse through the social networks of 1.5 million Facebook users, I empirically model how social influences affect the adoption of security behaviors and systems. In so doing, I provide some of the first direct evidence that security behaviors are strongly driven by social influence, and that the design of a security system strongly influences its potential for social spread. Specifically, security systems that are more observable, inclusive, and stewarded are positively affected by social influence, while those that are not are negatively affected by social influence. Based on these empirical results, I put forth two prescriptions: (i) creating socially grounded interface “nudges” that encourage better cybersecurity behaviors, and (ii) designing new, more socially intelligent end-user facing security systems. As an example of a social “nudge”, I designed a notification that informs Facebook users that their friends use optional security systems to protect their own accounts. In an experimental evaluation with 50,000 Facebook users, I found that this social notification was significantly more effective than a non-social control notification at attracting clicks to improve account security and in motivating the adoption of promoted, optional security tools. As an example of a socially intelligent cybersecurity system, I designed Thumprint: an inclusive authentication system that authenticates and identifies individual group members of a small, local group through a single, shared secret knock. Through my evaluations, I found that Thumprint is resilient to casual but motivated adversaries and that it can reliably differentiate multiple group members who share the same secret knock. Taken together, these systems point towards a future of socially intelligent cybersecurity that encourages better security behaviors. I conclude with a set of descriptive and prescriptive takeaways, as well as a set of open problems for future work. Concretely, this thesis provides the following contributions: (i) an initial theory of social cybersecurity, developed from both observational and experimental work, that explains how social influences affect security behaviors; (ii) a set of design recommendations for creating socially intelligent security systems that encourage better cybersecurity behaviors; (iii) the design, implementation and comprehensive evaluation of two such systems that leverage these design recommendations; and (iv) a reflection on how the insights uncovered in this work can be utilized alongside broader design considerations in HCI, security and design to create an infrastructure of useful, usable and socially intelligent cybersecurity systems.

With constant technological advancements, the attacks against existing infrastructure is constantly increasing and causing more damage. The current Red and Blue team approach to cybersecurity assessments is used to test the effectiveness of security defenses and in identifying vulnerabilities before they are exploited. Due to a lack of collaboration and inherently contradicting natures of these teams, the credibility of audits is impacted. While this has led to the synergistic and collaborative Purple team, it is important to understand how cybersecurity professionals perceive this new concept and its function. Analyzing perceptions of self-reported cybersecurity professionals via an online survey showed most believed Purple teams were beneficial and should be created from and collaborate with Red and Blue teams. However, past Red team experience was negatively linked to perceived benefit. Those who had more years of experience or had been on Red teams were more likely to believe Purple teams may have ownership or learning issues. Furthermore, professionals identified active managerial involvement and project clarity as critical success factors for Purple teams. Alongside these, management could help find the right skillset, provide resources, and offer active direction in order to avoid issues and maximize outcomes. Based on assessment relevance, a collaborative agreed-upon methodology for Red, Blue, and Purple teams was provided.

Background: Today´s world is characterized by a high level of digitalization that contributes to the development of new and effective technologies. However, this digital success requires knowledge and awareness about cybersecurity. Previous studies have shown that during 2020 the number of cyber-attacks among Swedish companies have increased. Due to digitalization, external parties find new methods to enter a company's systems and take advantage of its innovations and valuable information. That can affect the company's value negatively by ruining its reputation and making the stakeholders mistrust it. Purpose: The purpose of the study is to contribute to an increased understanding of strategic leadership´s influence on cyber risk awareness. Methodology: This study follows a qualitative research method. The data have been conducted through semi-structured interviews, based on 11 respondents consisting of experts whose professional background is anchored in cybersecurity. The research process follows an abductive approach. Conclusion: This study concludes that the current state of cyber risk awareness is not sufficient although it is increasing. Risk awareness is dependent on knowledge and organizational culture. This study concludes that the top management has a significant role in the influence of organizational culture and knowledge and thereby the risk awareness of a company, which in turn has an impact ontheir cybersecurity. It is the responsibility of the top management to delegate tasks that enhance riskawareness. Therefore, cyber risk awareness is to be treated as a top management issue. As a contribution, the study provides an insight on how humans, in this case, the top managementinfluences a company's cybersecurity through risk awareness.