The purpose of this thesis work was to conduct a general research on existing security techniques and come up with a considerable algorithm for data security in cloud storage. Cloud storage is an infrastructure or is a model of computer data storage in which the digital data is stored in logical pools. It unifies object storage for both developers and enterprises, from live applications data to cloud archival. It help to save valuable space on PC computers or mobile devices and provides the easy storage and access of data anywhere in the world. However, just as the benefits of cloud computing abounds, so also are the risks involved. If data are not well secured or encrypted before deployment for storage in the cloud, in case of negligence on the side of the developers, then hackers can gain unauthorized access to the data. The behavior of existing security algorithms on data were studied, the encryption and decryption process of the each algorithm on data was studied and also their weaknesses against attacks. Apart from data encryption, security policies also plays an important roll in cloud storage which was also covered in this report. The research work was conducted through the use of online publications, literature review, books, academic publications and reputable research materials. The study showed that regardless of the challenges in cloud storage, there is still a suitable algorithm for protecting data against attack in the cloud.

Owing to the explosive growth of data driven by e-commerce, social media, and mobile apps, data outsourcing and integration have become two popular Internet services. These services involve one or more data owners (DOs), many requesting clients, and a service provider (SP). The DOs outsource/synchronize their data to the SP, and the SP will provide query services to the requesting clients on behalf of DOs. However, as a third-party server, the SP might alter (leave out or forge) the outsourced/integrated data and query results, intentionally or not. To address this trustworthy issue, the SP is expected to deliver their services in an authenticatable manner, so that the correctness of the service results can be verified by the clients. Unfortunately, existing work on query authentication cannot preserve the privacy of the data being queried. Furthermore, almost all previous studies assume only a single data source/owner, while data integration services usually combine data from multiple sources. In this dissertation, we take the first step to study the authentication of location-based queries with confidentiality and investigate authenticated online data integration services. Cost models, security analysis, and experimental results consistently show the effectiveness and robustness of our proposed schemes under various system settings and query workloads.

Prof. W.H. Steeb

The purpose of this project is to develop a generic Java Application Programming Interface (API) that would be used to provide security and user privacy to functions such as data transfer, key management, digital signature, etc.

This master’s thesis is devoted to safe operating remote station. The security of data and electronic services is very important nowadays because the number of attacks to computer networks is increasing. The security of network services and information can be provided in several different ways which can be combined. The basic security mechanisms are authentication and data encryption. Both these methods are included to the implementation of operating remote station which is the main part of this work. The user of the resulting application will have a choice from several methods of authentication and data encryption. Whole traffic is encryption from the transfer of view of remote desktop to the transfer of files. Safety factor depends only up to the user consequently on that what type of authentication and encryption the user choose. The thesis also deals with analysis of implemented safely functions. Brings the results of analysis of effect of encryption algorithms to data connection of remote desktop.

A Research Project Abstract submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for Master of Science in Engineering [Electrical]: Telecommunications at the University Of The Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 07 June 2016 / Utilities use Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition systems as their industrial control system. The architecture of these systems in the past was based on them being isolated from other networks. Now with recent ever changing requirements of capabilities from these systems there is a need to converge with information technology systems and with the need to have these industrial networks communicating on packet switched networks there are cyber security concerns that come up. This research project looks at the whether using encryption in an IP/MPLS core network for SCADA in an OT IT environment has an effect on the performance requirements. This was done through an experimental simulation with the results recorded. The research project also looks at the key literature study considerations. The key research question for the research project of this MSc 50/50 mini-thesis is “whether using encryption in SCADA systems, the services performance requirements are still met in OT/ IT environment over an MPLS core network”? The research project seeks to determine if SCADA performance requirements are met over an encrypted MPLS/IP core network in an OT/IT environment. The key focus area of the research project is only encryption in the whole cyber security value chain versus SCADA services performances. This means that the research project only focused on the encryption portion of the whole cyber security value chain and the scope did not focus on other aspects of the value chain. This suffices for an MSc 50/50 mini-thesis research project as a focus on the whole value chain would require a full MSc thesis. Thus the primary objective for the research project is to research and demonstrate that encryption is essential for secure SCADA communication over a MPLS/IP core network. As aforementioned encryption forms an essential part of the Cyber Security value chain which has to achieve the following objectives. Confidentiality: ensuring that the information source is really from that source. Integrity: ensuring that the information has not been altered in any way. Availability: ensuring that system is not comprised but that it is available. These objectives of encryption should be met with SCADA service performance requirements not violated which is the objective of the research project. / M T 2016

As quantum computers continue to develop, they pose a threat to cryptography since many popular cryptosystems will be rendered vulnerable. This is because the security of most currently used asymmetric systems requires the computational hardness of the integer factorization problem, the discrete logarithm or the elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem. However, there are still some cryptosystems that resist quantum computing. We will look at code-based cryptography in general and the McEliece cryptosystem specifically. Our goal is to understand the structure behind the McEliece scheme, including the encryption and decryption processes, and what some advantages and disadvantages are that the system has to offer. In addition, using the results from Courtois, Finiasz, and Sendrier's paper in 2001, we will discuss a digital signature scheme based on the McEliece cryptosystem. We analyze one classical algebraic attack against the security analysis of the system based on the distinguishing problem whether the public key of the McEliece scheme is generated from a generating matrix of a binary Goppa code or a random binary matrix. The idea of the attack involves solving an algebraic system of equations and we examine the dimension of the solution space of the linearized system of equations. With the assistance from a paper in 2010 by Faugere, Gauthier-Umana, Otmani, Perret, Tillich, we will see the parameters needed for the intractability of the distinguishing problem. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

This research addresses the need for increased interoperability between the varied access control systems in use today, and for a secure means of providing access to remote physical devices over untrusted networks. The Universal Physical Access Control System (UPACS) is an encryption-enabled security protocol that provides a standard customizable device control mechanism that can be used to control the behavior of a wide variety of physical devices, and provide users the ability to securely access those physical devices over untrusted networks. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

The Rijndael cipher was chosen as the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) in August 1999. Its internal structure exhibits unusual properties such as a clean and simple algebraic description for the S-box. In this research, we construct a scalable family of ciphers which behave very much like the original Rijndael. This approach gives us the opportunity to use computational complexity theory. In the main result, we generate a candidate one-way function family from the scalable Rijndael family. We note that, although reduction to one-way functions is a common theme in the theory of public-key cryptography, it is rare to have such a defense of security in the private-key theatre. In this thesis a plan of attack is introduced at the circuit level whose aim is not break the cryptosystem in any practical way, but simply to break the very bold Rijndael security claim. To achieve this goal, we are led to a formal understanding of the Rijndael security claim, juxtaposing it with rigorous security treatments. Several of the questions that arise in this regard are as follows: ``Do invertible functions represented by circuits with very small numbers of gates have better than worst case implementations for their inverses?' ``How many plaintext/ciphertext pairs are needed to uniquely determine the Rijndael key?'

Many e-voting techniques have been proposed but not widely used in reality. One of the problems associated with most of existing e-voting techniques is the lack of transparency, leading to a failure to deliver voter assurance. In this work, we propose a transparent, auditable, end-to-end verifiable, and mutual restraining e-voting protocol that exploits the existing multi-party political dynamics such as in the US. The new e-voting protocol consists of three original technical contributions -- universal verifiable voting vector, forward and backward mutual lock voting, and in-process check and enforcement -- that, along with a public real time bulletin board, resolves the apparent conflicts in voting such as anonymity vs. accountability and privacy vs. verifiability. Especially, the trust is split equally among tallying authorities who have conflicting interests and will technically restrain each other. The voting and tallying processes are transparent to voters and any third party, which allow any voter to verify that his vote is indeed counted and also allow any third party to audit the tally. For the environment requiring receipt-freeness and coercion-resistance, we introduce additional approaches to counter vote-selling and voter-coercion issues. Our interactive voting protocol is suitable for small number of voters like boardroom voting where interaction between voters is encouraged and self-tallying is necessary; while our non-interactive protocol is for the scenario of large number of voters where interaction is prohibitively expensive. Equipped with a hierarchical voting structure, our protocols can enable open and fair elections at any scale.