Encryption helps to ensure that information within a session is not compromised. Authentication and access control measures ensure legitimate and appropriate access to information, and prevent inappropriate access to such resources. While encryption, authentication and access control each has its own responsibility in securing a communication session, a combination of these three mechanisms can provide much better protection for information. This thesis addresses encryption, authentication and access control related problems in cloud and distributed environments, since these problems are very common in modern organization environment. The first one is a User-friendly Location-free Encryption System for Mobile Users (UFLE). It is an encryption and authentication system which provides maximum security to sensitive data in distributed environment: corporate, home and outdoors scenarios, but requires minimum user effort (i.e. no biometric entry, or possession of cryptographic tokens) to access the data. It makes users securely and easily access data any time and any place, as well as avoids data breach due to stolen/lost laptops and USB flash. The multi-factor authentication protocol provided in this scheme is also applicable to cloud storage. The second one is a Simple Privacy-Preserving Identity-Management for Cloud Environment (SPICE). It is the first digital identity management system that can satisfy “unlinkability”and “delegatable authentication” in addition to other desirable properties in cloud environment. Unlinkability ensures that none of the cloud service providers (CSPs), even if they collude, can link the transactions of the same user. On the other hand, delegatable authentication is unique to the cloud platform, in which several CSPs may join together to provide a packaged service, with one of them being the source provider which interacts with the clients and performs authentication, while the others are receiving CSPs which will be transparent to the clients. The authentication should be delegatable such that the receiving CSP can authenticate a user without a direct communication with either the user or the registrar, and without fully trusting the source CSP. The third one addresses re-encryption based access control issue in cloud and distributed storage. We propose the first non-transferable proxy re-encryption scheme [16] which successfully achieves the non-transferable property. Proxy re-encryption allows a third-party (the proxy) to re-encrypt a ciphertext which has been encrypted for one party without seeing the underlying plaintext so that it can be decrypted by another. A proxy re-encryption scheme is said to be non-transferable if the proxy and a set of colluding delegatees cannot re-delegate decryption rights to other parties. The scheme can be utilized for a content owner to delegate content decryption rights to users in the untrusted cloud storage. The advantages of using such scheme are: decryption keys are managed by the content owner, and plaintext is always hidden from cloud provider. / published_or_final_version / Computer Science / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Large-scale data management systems rely more and more on cloud storage, where the need for efficient search capabilities clashes with the need for data confidentiality. Encryption and efficient accessibility are naturally at odds, as for instance strong encryption necessitates that ciphertexts reveal nothing about underlying data. Searchable encryption is an active field in cryptography studying encryption schemes that provide varying levels of efficiency, functionality, and security, and efficient searchable encryption focuses on schemes enabling sub-linear (in the size of the database) search time. I present the first cryptographic study of efficient searchable symmetric encryption schemes supporting two types of search queries, range queries and error-tolerant queries. The natural solution to accommodate efficient range queries on ciphertexts is to use order-preserving encryption (OPE). I propose a security definition for OPE schemes, construct the first OPE scheme with provable security, and further analyze security by characterizing one-wayness of the scheme. Efficient error-tolerant queries are enabled by efficient fuzzy-searchable encryption (EFSE). For EFSE, I introduce relevant primitives, an optimal security definition and a (somewhat space-inefficient, but in a sense efficient as possible) scheme achieving it, and more efficient schemes that achieve a weaker, but practical, security notion. In all cases, I introduce new appropriate security definitions, construct novel schemes, and prove those schemes secure under standard assumptions. The goal of this line of research is to provide constructions and provable security analysis that should help practitioners decide whether OPE or FSE provides a suitable efficiency-security-functionality tradeoff for a given application.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Wollongong, 2003. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references: leaf 191-198.

Thesis (M.App.Sc.) - Carleton University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 80-82). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

The traditional approach to a digital investigation when a computer system is encountered in a running state is to remove the power, image the machine using a write blocker and then analyse the acquired image. This has the advantage of preserving the contents of the computer’s hard disk at that point in time. However, the disadvantage of this approach is that the preservation of the disk is at the expense of volatile data such as that stored in memory, which does not remain once the power is disconnected. There are an increasing number of situations where this traditional approach of ‘pulling the plug’ is not ideal since volatile data is relevant to the investigation; one of these situations is when the machine under investigation is using encryption. If encrypted data is encountered on a live machine, a live investigation can be performed to preserve this evidence in a form that can be later analysed. However, there are a number of difficulties with using evidence obtained from live investigations that may cause the reliability of such evidence to be questioned. This research investigates whether digital evidence obtained from live investigations involving encryption can be considered to be reliable. To determine this, a means of assessing reliability is established, which involves evaluating digital evidence against a set of criteria; evidence should be authentic, accurate and complete. This research considers how traditional digital investigations satisfy these requirements and then determines the extent to which evidence from live investigations involving encryption can satisfy the same criteria. This research concludes that it is possible for live digital evidence to be considered to be reliable, but that reliability of digital evidence ultimately depends on the specific investigation and the importance of the decision being made. However, the research provides structured criteria that allow the reliability of digital evidence to be assessed, demonstrates the use of these criteria in the context of live digital investigations involving encryption, and shows the extent to which each can currently be met.

The traditional approach to a digital investigation when a computer system is encountered in a running state is to remove the power, image the machine using a write blocker and then analyse the acquired image. This has the advantage of preserving the contents of the computer’s hard disk at that point in time. However, the disadvantage of this approach is that the preservation of the disk is at the expense of volatile data such as that stored in memory, which does not remain once the power is disconnected. There are an increasing number of situations where this traditional approach of ‘pulling the plug’ is not ideal since volatile data is relevant to the investigation; one of these situations is when the machine under investigation is using encryption. If encrypted data is encountered on a live machine, a live investigation can be performed to preserve this evidence in a form that can be later analysed. However, there are a number of difficulties with using evidence obtained from live investigations that may cause the reliability of such evidence to be questioned. This research investigates whether digital evidence obtained from live investigations involving encryption can be considered to be reliable. To determine this, a means of assessing reliability is established, which involves evaluating digital evidence against a set of criteria; evidence should be authentic, accurate and complete. This research considers how traditional digital investigations satisfy these requirements and then determines the extent to which evidence from live investigations involving encryption can satisfy the same criteria. This research concludes that it is possible for live digital evidence to be considered to be reliable, but that reliability of digital evidence ultimately depends on the specific investigation and the importance of the decision being made. However, the research provides structured criteria that allow the reliability of digital evidence to be assessed, demonstrates the use of these criteria in the context of live digital investigations involving encryption, and shows the extent to which each can currently be met.

The thesis focuses on the benefits of company data security in Czech environment calculation based on the additional total cost of ownership for the full disk data encryption and the average expected cost for data breach. In addition to the history of encryption, basics of cryptography, information breach statistics and company data encryption common routine, the theoretical part of the thesis above all introduces the method of company data encryption cost and benefits calculation. Within the practical part of the thesis, each step of the method is customized to match the Czech environment, modified by the organization headcount and applied to three virtual companies. The results are then evaluated, the benefits of data encryption compared by the company size in the Czech environment and also the critical discussion is carried out.

Orientador: Julio Cesar López Hernández / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Computação / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-27T12:14:05Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Pietz_Franz_M.pdf: 27442530 bytes, checksum: 1648252389eb63cf26ca0525be124bda (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014 / Resumo: A criptografia visual é um método de compartilhamento de segredos proposto por Naor em Shamir no artigo ''Criptografia Visual'' de 1994. Nele, uma imagem secreta é dividida em um conjunto de parcelas, sendo necessário sobrepor um número mínimo de parcelas para decodificarmos o segredo visualmente, sem nenhum tipo de dispositivo ou cálculo criptográfico; e analisando as parcelas isoladamente, não é possível recuperar nenhuma informação sobre a imagem secreta original. O esquema é considerado seguro e pode ser comparado com as cifras de one-time-pad, também chamadas de cifras perfeitas, devido à dificuldade do atacante obter o segredo ou parte dele. Existem propostas para a utilização de criptografia visual em protocolos de autenticação, como autenticação de transações bancárias e verificação de legitimidade de produtos. Entretanto, esse método possui problemas como definição do segredo recuperado, baixo contraste e desvios de alinhamento, que é o problema mais sensível. Nossa proposta mostra como utilizar um dispositivo móvel, como smartphone ou tablet, para realizar o alinhamento automático de parcelas e auxiliar o usuário no processo de recuperação de segredos encriptados utilizando criptografia visual. Para isso, utilizamos a câmera do dispositivo móvel para torná-lo uma ''transparência'' e técnicas de análise de imagens para localizar uma parcela exibida em um monitor ou impressa na embalagem de um produto, e sobrepô-la com uma parcela presente no dispositivo móvel, permitindo a visualização do segredo recuperado na tela do dispositivo. A utilização de um dispositivo móvel traz vantagens imediatas, como facilidade para a entrega de parcelas no momento da transação, sem necessidade de guardar informação previamente / Abstract: Visual cryptography is a secret sharing method proposed by Naor and Shamir in the paper ''Visual Cryptography'', in 1994. It split a secret image into a set of shares, so that we need to stack a minimum number of shares to visually decode the secret image without the help of hardware or computation, and analyzing the shares alone is not possible to obtain any information about the secret image. The scheme is considered safe and can be compared to the one-time-pad cyphers, also called perfect cyphers, due to the difficulty of an attacker to obtain the secret or part of it. There are proposals to use visual cryptography in authentication protocols, such as in bank transactions and product's legitimacy verification. But these methods have problems with recovered secret's definition, low contrast and misalignment of the shares, which is the most sensitive. Our proposal shows how to use a mobile device, such as smartphone or tablet, to perform automatic alignment of the shares and to assist a user to recover a secret encrypted using visual cryptography. For this, we use the device camera to turn it into a ''transparency'' and image analysis techniques to locate a share that can be displayed on a monitor or printed on the packaging of a product, and overlay it with a second share present on the mobile device, allowing the visualization of the recovered secret on the device's display. Using a mobile device brings immediate advantages, such as easy delivery of shares at the transaction's time, without having to store information in advance / Mestrado / Ciência da Computação / Mestre em Ciência da Computação

<div> <div> <div> <p>Cloud computing offers a cost-efficient data analytics platform. This is enabled by constant innovations in tools and technologies for analyzing large volumes of data through distributed batch processing systems and real-time data through distributed stream processing systems. However, due to the sensitive nature of data, many organizations are reluctant to analyze their data in public clouds. To address this stalemate, both software-based and hardware-based solutions have been proposed yet all have substantial limitations in terms of efficiency, expressiveness, and security. In this thesis, we present solutions that enable practical and expressive confidentiality- preserving batch and stream-based analytics. We achieve this by performing computations over encrypted data using Partially Homomorphic Encryption (PHE) and Property-Preserving Encryption (PPE) in novel ways, and by utilizing remote or Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) based trusted services where needed.</p><p><br></p><p>We introduce a set of extensions and optimizations to PHE and PPE schemes and propose the novel abstraction of Secure Data Types (SDTs) which enables the application of PHE and PPE schemes in ways that improve performance and security. These abstractions are leveraged to enable a set of compilation techniques making data analytics over encrypted data more practical. When PHE alone is not expressive enough to perform analytics over encrypted data, we use a novel planner engine to decide the most efficient way of utilizing client-side completion, remote re-encryption, or trusted hardware re-encryption based on Intel Software Guard eXtensions (SGX) to overcome the limitations of PHE. We also introduce two novel symmetric PHE schemes that allow arithmetic operations over encrypted data. Being symmetric, our schemes are more efficient than the state-of-the-art asymmetric PHE schemes without compromising the level of security or the range of homomorphic operations they support. We apply the aforementioned techniques in the context of batch data analytics and demonstrate the improvements over previous systems. Finally, we present techniques designed to enable the use of PHE and PPE in resource-constrained Internet of Things (IoT) devices and demonstrate the practicality of stream processing over encrypted data.</p></div></div></div><div><div><div> </div> </div> </div>

Ubiquitous computing is already weaving itself around us and it is connecting everything to the network of networks. This interconnection of objects to the internet is new computing paradigm called the Internet of Things (IoT) networks. Many capacity and non-capacity constrained devices, such as sensors are connecting to the Internet. These devices interact with each other through the network and provide a new experience to its users. In order to make full use of this ubiquitous paradigm, security on IoT is important. There are problems with privacy concerns regarding certain algorithms that are on IoT, particularly in the area that relates to their avalanche effect means that a small change in the plaintext or key should create a significant change in the ciphertext. The higher the significant change, the higher the security if that algorithm. If the avalanche effect of an algorithm is less than 50% then that algorithm is weak and can create security undesirability in any network. In this, case IoT. In this study, we propose to do the following: (1) Search and select existing block cryptographic algorithms (maximum of ten) used for authentication and encryption from different devices used on IoT. (2) Analyse the avalanche effect of select cryptographic algorithms and determine if they give efficient authentication on IoT. (3) Improve their avalanche effect by designing a mathematical model that improves their robustness against attacks. This is done through the usage of the initial vector XORed with plaintext and final vector XORed with cipher tect. (4) Test the new mathematical model for any enhancement on the avalanche effect of each algorithm as stated in the preceding sentences. (5) Propose future work on how to enhance security on IoT. Results show that when using the proposed method with variation of key, the avalanche effect significantly improved for seven out of ten algorithms. This means that we have managed to improve 70% of algorithms tested. Therefore indicating a substantial success rate for the proposed method as far as the avalanche effect is concerned. We propose that the seven algorithms be replaced by our improved versions in each of their implementation on IoT whenever the plaintext is varied. / Electrical and Mining Engineering / M. Tech. (Electrical Engineering)