This thesis proposes a privacy protection framework for the controlled distribution and use of personal private data. The framework is based on the idea that privacy policies can be set directly by the data owner and can be automatically enforced against the data user. Data privacy continues to be a very important topic, as our dependency on electronic communication maintains its current growth, and private data is shared between multiple devices, users and locations. The growing amount and the ubiquitous availability of personal private data increases the likelihood of data misuse. Early privacy protection techniques, such as anonymous email and payment systems have focused on data avoidance and anonymous use of services. They did not take into account that data sharing cannot be avoided when people participate in electronic communication scenarios that involve social interactions. This leads to a situation where data is shared widely and uncontrollably and in most cases the data owner has no control over further distribution and use of personal private data. Previous efforts to integrate privacy awareness into data processing workflows have focused on the extension of existing access control frameworks with privacy aware functions or have analysed specific individual problems such as the expressiveness of policy languages. So far, very few implementations of integrated privacy protection mechanisms exist and can be studied to prove their effectiveness for privacy protection. Second level issues that stem from practical application of the implemented mechanisms, such as usability, life-time data management and changes in trustworthiness have received very little attention so far, mainly because they require actual implementations to be studied. Most existing privacy protection schemes silently assume that it is the privilege of the data user to define the contract under which personal private data is released. Such an approach simplifies policy management and policy enforcement for the data user, but leaves the data owner with a binary decision to submit or withhold his or her personal data based on the provided policy. We wanted to empower the data owner to express his or her privacy preferences through privacy policies that follow the so-called Owner-Retained Access Control (ORAC) model. ORAC has been proposed by McCollum, et al. as an alternate access control mechanism that leaves the authority over access decisions by the originator of the data. The data owner is given control over the release policy for his or her personal data, and he or she can set permissions or restrictions according to individually perceived trust values. Such a policy needs to be expressed in a coherent way and must allow the deterministic policy evaluation by different entities. The privacy policy also needs to be communicated from the data owner to the data user, so that it can be enforced. Data and policy are stored together as a Protected Data Object that follows the Sticky Policy paradigm as defined by Mont, et al. and others. We developed a unique policy combination approach that takes usability aspects for the creation and maintenance of policies into consideration. Our privacy policy consists of three parts: A Default Policy provides basic privacy protection if no specific rules have been entered by the data owner. An Owner Policy part allows the customisation of the default policy by the data owner. And a so-called Safety Policy guarantees that the data owner cannot specify disadvantageous policies, which, for example, exclude him or her from further access to the private data. The combined evaluation of these three policy-parts yields the necessary access decision. The automatic enforcement of privacy policies in our protection framework is supported by a reference monitor implementation. We started our work with the development of a client-side protection mechanism that allows the enforcement of data-use restrictions after private data has been released to the data user. The client-side enforcement component for data-use policies is based on a modified Java Security Framework. Privacy policies are translated into corresponding Java permissions that can be automatically enforced by the Java Security Manager. When we later extended our work to implement server-side protection mechanisms, we found several drawbacks for the privacy enforcement through the Java Security Framework. We solved this problem by extending our reference monitor design to use Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) and the Java Reflection API to intercept data accesses in existing applications and provide a way to enforce data owner-defined privacy policies for business applications. / Im Rahmen der Dissertation wurde ein Framework für die Durchsetzung von Richtlinien zum Schutz privater Daten geschaffen, welches darauf setzt, dass diese Richtlinien oder Policies direkt von den Eigentümern der Daten erstellt werden und automatisiert durchsetzbar sind. Der Schutz privater Daten ist ein sehr wichtiges Thema im Bereich der elektronischen Kommunikation, welches durch die fortschreitende Gerätevernetzung und die Verfügbarkeit und Nutzung privater Daten in Onlinediensten noch an Bedeutung gewinnt. In der Vergangenheit wurden verschiedene Techniken für den Schutz privater Daten entwickelt: so genannte Privacy Enhancing Technologies. Viele dieser Technologien arbeiten nach dem Prinzip der Datensparsamkeit und der Anonymisierung und stehen damit der modernen Netznutzung in Sozialen Medien entgegen. Das führt zu der Situation, dass private Daten umfassend verteilt und genutzt werden, ohne dass der Datenbesitzer gezielte Kontrolle über die Verteilung und Nutzung seiner privaten Daten ausüben kann. Existierende richtlinienbasiert Datenschutztechniken gehen in der Regel davon aus, dass der Nutzer und nicht der Eigentümer der Daten die Richtlinien für den Umgang mit privaten Daten vorgibt. Dieser Ansatz vereinfacht das Management und die Durchsetzung der Zugriffsbeschränkungen für den Datennutzer, lässt dem Datenbesitzer aber nur die Alternative den Richtlinien des Datennutzers zuzustimmen, oder keine Daten weiterzugeben. Es war daher unser Ansatz die Interessen des Datenbesitzers durch die Möglichkeit der Formulierung eigener Richtlinien zu stärken. Das dabei verwendete Modell zur Zugriffskontrolle wird auch als Owner-Retained Access Control (ORAC) bezeichnet und wurde 1990 von McCollum u.a. formuliert. Das Grundprinzip dieses Modells besteht darin, dass die Autorität über Zugriffsentscheidungen stets beim Urheber der Daten verbleibt. Aus diesem Ansatz ergeben sich zwei Herausforderungen. Zum einen muss der Besitzer der Daten, der Data Owner, in die Lage versetzt werden, aussagekräftige und korrekte Richtlinien für den Umgang mit seinen Daten formulieren zu können. Da es sich dabei um normale Computernutzer handelt, muss davon ausgegangen werden, dass diese Personen auch Fehler bei der Richtlinienerstellung machen. Wir haben dieses Problem dadurch gelöst, dass wir die Datenschutzrichtlinien in drei separate Bereiche mit unterschiedlicher Priorität aufteilen. Der Bereich mit der niedrigsten Priorität definiert grundlegende Schutzeigenschaften. Der Dateneigentümer kann diese Eigenschaften durch eigene Regeln mittlerer Priorität überschrieben. Darüber hinaus sorgt ein Bereich mit Sicherheitsrichtlinien hoher Priorität dafür, dass bestimmte Zugriffsrechte immer gewahrt bleiben. Die zweite Herausforderung besteht in der gezielten Kommunikation der Richtlinien und deren Durchsetzung gegenüber dem Datennutzer (auch als Data User bezeichnet). Um die Richtlinien dem Datennutzer bekannt zu machen, verwenden wir so genannte Sticky Policies. Das bedeutet, dass wir die Richtlinien über eine geeignete Kodierung an die zu schützenden Daten anhängen, so dass jederzeit darauf Bezug genommen werden kann und auch bei der Verteilung der Daten die Datenschutzanforderungen der Besitzer erhalten bleiben. Für die Durchsetzung der Richtlinien auf dem System des Datennutzers haben wir zwei verschiedene Ansätze entwickelt. Wir haben einen so genannten Reference Monitor entwickelt, welcher jeglichen Zugriff auf die privaten Daten kontrolliert und anhand der in der Sticky Policy gespeicherten Regeln entscheidet, ob der Datennutzer den Zugriff auf diese Daten erhält oder nicht. Dieser Reference Monitor wurde zum einen als Client-seitigen Lösung implementiert, die auf dem Sicherheitskonzept der Programmiersprache Java aufsetzt. Zum anderen wurde auch eine Lösung für Server entwickelt, welche mit Hilfe der Aspekt-orientierten Programmierung den Zugriff auf bestimmte Methoden eines Programms kontrollieren kann. In dem Client-seitigen Referenzmonitor werden Privacy Policies in Java Permissions übersetzt und automatisiert durch den Java Security Manager gegenüber beliebigen Applikationen durchgesetzt. Da dieser Ansatz beim Zugriff auf Daten mit anderer Privacy Policy den Neustart der Applikation erfordert, wurde für den Server-seitigen Referenzmonitor ein anderer Ansatz gewählt. Mit Hilfe der Java Reflection API und Methoden der Aspektorientierten Programmierung gelang es Datenzugriffe in existierenden Applikationen abzufangen und erst nach Prüfung der Datenschutzrichtlinie den Zugriff zuzulassen oder zu verbieten. Beide Lösungen wurden auf ihre Leistungsfähigkeit getestet und stellen eine Erweiterung der bisher bekannten Techniken zum Schutz privater Daten dar.

The mobility attribute of a mobile agent implies deployment thereof in untrustworthy environments, which introduces malicious host threats. The research question deals with how a security framework could be constructed to address the mentioned threats without introducing high costs or restraining the mobile agent's autonomy or performance. Available literature have been studied, analysed and discussed. The salient characteristics as well as the drawbacks of current solutions were isolated. Through this knowledge a dynamic mobile agent security framework was defined. The framework is based on the definition of multiple security levels, depending on type of deployment environment and type of application. A prototype was constructed and tested and it was found to be lightweight and efficient, giving developers insight into possible security threats as well as tools for maximum protection against malicious hosts. The framework outperformed other frameworks / models as it provides dynamic solutions without burdening a system with unnecessary security gadgets and hence paying for it in system cost and performance / Computing / D.Phil.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Sensor networks have great potential to be employed in mission critical situations like battlefields but also in more everyday security and commercial applications such as building and traffic surveillance, habitat monitoring and smart homes etc. However, wireless sensor networks pose unique security challenges. While the deployment of sensor nodes in an unattended environment makes the networks vulnerable to a variety of potential attacks, the inherent power and memory limitations of sensor nodes makes conventional security solutions unfeasible. Though there has been some development in the field of sensor network security, the solutions presented thus far address only some of security problems faced. This research presents a security framework WSNSF (Wireless Sensor Networks Security Framework) to provide a comprehensive security solution against the known attacks in sensor networks. The proposed framework consists of four interacting components: a secure triple-key (STKS) scheme, secure routing algorithms (SRAs), a secure localization technique (SLT) and a malicious node detection mechanism. Singly, each of these components can achieve certain level of security. However, when deployed as a framework, a high degree of security is achievable. WSNSF takes into consideration the communication and computation limitations of sensor networks. While there is always a trade off between security and performance, experimental results prove that the proposed framework can achieve high degree of security with negligible overheads.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Sensor networks have great potential to be employed in mission critical situations like battlefields but also in more everyday security and commercial applications such as building and traffic surveillance, habitat monitoring and smart homes etc. However, wireless sensor networks pose unique security challenges. While the deployment of sensor nodes in an unattended environment makes the networks vulnerable to a variety of potential attacks, the inherent power and memory limitations of sensor nodes makes conventional security solutions unfeasible. Though there has been some development in the field of sensor network security, the solutions presented thus far address only some of security problems faced. This research presents a security framework WSNSF (Wireless Sensor Networks Security Framework) to provide a comprehensive security solution against the known attacks in sensor networks. The proposed framework consists of four interacting components: a secure triple-key (STKS) scheme, secure routing algorithms (SRAs), a secure localization technique (SLT) and a malicious node detection mechanism. Singly, each of these components can achieve certain level of security. However, when deployed as a framework, a high degree of security is achievable. WSNSF takes into consideration the communication and computation limitations of sensor networks. While there is always a trade off between security and performance, experimental results prove that the proposed framework can achieve high degree of security with negligible overheads.

A long standing problem in information technology security is how to help reduce the security footprint. Many specific proposals exist to address specific problems in information technology security. Most information technology solutions need to be repeatable throughout the course of an information systems lifecycle. The Chain-Link Fence Model is a new model for creating and implementing information technology procedures. This model was validated by two different methods: the first being interviews with experts in the field of information technology and the second being four distinct case studies demonstrating the creation and implementation of information technology procedures. (169 pages)

The primary objective of the proposed research is to develop a framework for smart and robust fingerprinting of networked systems. Many fingerprinting techniques have been proposed in the past, however most of these techniques are designed for a specific purpose, such as Operating System (OS) fingerprinting, Access Point (AP) fingerprinting, etc. Such standalone techniques often have limitations which render them dysfunctional in certain scenarios or against certain counter measures. In order to overcome such limitations, we propose a fingerprinting framework that can combine multiple fingerprinting techniques in a smart manner, using a centralized decision making engine. We believe that any given scenario or a counter measure is less likely to circumvent a group of diverse fingerprinting techniques, which serves as the primary motivation behind the aforementioned method of attack. Another major portion of the thesis concentrates on the design and development of a device and device type fingerprinting sub-module (GTID) that has been integrated into the proposed framework. This sub-module used statistical analysis of packet inter arrival times (IATs) to identify the type of device that is generating the traffic. This work also analyzes the performance of the identification technique on a real campus network and propose modifications that use pattern recognition neural networks to improve the overall performance. Additionally, we impart capabilities to the fingerprinting technique to enable the identification of 'Unknown' devices (i.e., devices for which no signature is stored), and also show that it can be extended to perform both device and device type identification.

With the advent of globalisation and ever changing technologies, the need for increased attention to information security is becoming more and more vital. Organisations are facing all sorts of risks and threats these days. It therefore becomes important for all business stakeholders to take the appropriate proactive measures in securing their assets for business survival and growth. Information is today regarded as one of the most valuable assets of an organisation. Without a proper information security framework, policies, procedures and practices, the existence of an organisation is threatened in this world of fierce competition. Information security policies stand as one of the key enablers to safeguarding an organisation from risks and threats. However, writing a set of information security policies and procedures is not enough. If one really aims to have an effective security framework in place, there is a need to develop and implement information security policies that adhere to established standards such as BS 7799 and the like. Furthermore, one should ensure that all stakeholders comply with established standards, policies and best practices systematically to reap full benefits of security measures. These challenges are not only being faced in the international arena but also in countries like Mauritius. International researches have shown that information security policy is still a problematic area when it comes to its implementation and compliance. Findings have shown that several major developed countries are still facing difficulties in this area. There was a general perception that conditions in Mauritius were similar. With the local government's objective to turn Mauritius into a "cyber-island" that could act as an Information Communication & Technology (ICT) hub for the region, there was a need to ensure the adoption and application of best practices specially in areas of information security. This dissertation therefore aims at conducting a research project in Mauritius and assessing whether large Mauritian private companies, that are heavily dependent on IT, have proper and reliable security policies in place which comply with international norms and standards such as British Standard Organisation (BSO) 7799/ ISO 17799/ ISO 27001. The study will help assess the state of, and risks associated with, present implementation of information security policies and practices in the local context. Similarities and differences between the local security practices and international ones have also been measured and compared to identify any specific characteristics in local information security practices. The findings of the study will help to enlighten the security community, local management and stakeholders, on the realities facing corporations in the area of information security policies and practices in Mauritius. Appropriate recommendations have been formulated in light of the findings to improve the present state of information security issues while contributing to the development of the security community / Computing / M.Sc. (Information Systems)

With the advent of globalisation and ever changing technologies, the need for increased attention to information security is becoming more and more vital. Organisations are facing all sorts of risks and threats these days. It therefore becomes important for all business stakeholders to take the appropriate proactive measures in securing their assets for business survival and growth. Information is today regarded as one of the most valuable assets of an organisation. Without a proper information security framework, policies, procedures and practices, the existence of an organisation is threatened in this world of fierce competition. Information security policies stand as one of the key enablers to safeguarding an organisation from risks and threats. However, writing a set of information security policies and procedures is not enough. If one really aims to have an effective security framework in place, there is a need to develop and implement information security policies that adhere to established standards such as BS 7799 and the like. Furthermore, one should ensure that all stakeholders comply with established standards, policies and best practices systematically to reap full benefits of security measures. These challenges are not only being faced in the international arena but also in countries like Mauritius. International researches have shown that information security policy is still a problematic area when it comes to its implementation and compliance. Findings have shown that several major developed countries are still facing difficulties in this area. There was a general perception that conditions in Mauritius were similar. With the local government's objective to turn Mauritius into a "cyber-island" that could act as an Information Communication & Technology (ICT) hub for the region, there was a need to ensure the adoption and application of best practices specially in areas of information security. This dissertation therefore aims at conducting a research project in Mauritius and assessing whether large Mauritian private companies, that are heavily dependent on IT, have proper and reliable security policies in place which comply with international norms and standards such as British Standard Organisation (BSO) 7799/ ISO 17799/ ISO 27001. The study will help assess the state of, and risks associated with, present implementation of information security policies and practices in the local context. Similarities and differences between the local security practices and international ones have also been measured and compared to identify any specific characteristics in local information security practices. The findings of the study will help to enlighten the security community, local management and stakeholders, on the realities facing corporations in the area of information security policies and practices in Mauritius. Appropriate recommendations have been formulated in light of the findings to improve the present state of information security issues while contributing to the development of the security community / Computing / M.Sc. (Information Systems)

MCom (Business Information Systems) / Department of Business Information Systems / Although technology is being progressively used in supporting student learning and enhancing business processes within tertiary institutions, certain aspects are hindering the decisions of cloud usage. Among many challenges of utilizing cloud computing, cybersecurity has become a primary concern for the adoption. The main aim of the study was to investigate the effect of cloud cyber-security usage at rural based tertiary institutions in order to compare the usage with an urban-based institution and propose a cybersecurity framework for adoption of cloud computing cybersecurity. The research questions focused on determining the drivers for cloud cybersecurity usage; the current adoption issues; how cybersecurity challenges, benefits, and quality affects cloud usage; the adoption perceptions and awareness of key stakeholders and identifying a cloud cybersecurity adoption framework. A quantitative approach was applied with data collected from a simple random sample of students, lecturers, admin and IT staff within the tertiary institutions through structured questionnaires. The results suggested compliance with legal law as a critical driver for cloud cybersecurity adoption. The study also found a lack of physical control of data and harmful activities executed on the internet as challenges hampering the adoption. Prevention of identity fraud and cheaper security costs were identified as benefits of adoption. Respondents found cloud cybersecurity to be accurate and effective, although most of the students and employees have not used it. However, respondents were aware of the value of cybersecurity adoption and perceive for it to be useful and convenient, hence have shown the intention of adopting it. There were no significant elements identified to differentiate the perceptions of usage at rural and urban-based tertiary institutions. The results of the study are to be used for clarifying the cybersecurity aspects of cloud computing and forecasting the suitability cloud cybersecurity within the tertiary institutions. Recommendations were made on how tertiary institutions and management can promote cloud cybersecurity adoption and how students, lecturers, and staff can effectively use cloud cybersecurity. / NRF

Vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) are a subclass of mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) in which the mobile nodes are vehicles; these vehicles are autonomous systems connected by wireless communication on a peer-to-peer basis. They are self-organized, self-configured and self-controlled infrastructure-less networks. This kind of network has the advantage of being able to be set-up and deployed anywhere and anytime because it has no infrastructure set-up and no central administration. Distributing information between these vehicles over long ranges in such networks, however, is a very challenging task, since sharing information always has a risk attached to it especially when the information is confidential. The disclosure of such information to anyone else other than the intended parties could be extremely damaging, particularly in military applications where controlling the dissemination of messages is essential. This thesis therefore provides a review of the issue of security in VANET and MANET; it also surveys existing solutions for dissemination control. It highlights a particular area not adequately addressed until now: controlling information flow in VANETs. This thesis contributes a policy-based framework to control the dissemination of messages communicated between nodes in order to ensure that message remains confidential not only during transmission, but also after it has been communicated to another peer, and to keep the message contents private to an originator-defined subset of nodes in the VANET. This thesis presents a novel framework to control data dissemination in vehicle ad hoc networks in which policies are attached to messages as they are sent between peers. This is done by automatically attaching policies along with messages to specify how the information can be used by the receiver, so as to prevent disclosure of the messages other than consistent with the requirements of the originator. These requirements are represented as a set of policy rules that explicitly instructs recipients how the information contained in messages can be disseminated to other nodes in order to avoid unintended disclosure. This thesis describes the data dissemination policy language used in this work; and further describes the policy rules in order to be a suitable and understandable language for the framework to ensure the confidentiality requirement of the originator. This thesis also contributes a policy conflict resolution that allows the originator to be asked for up-to-date policies and preferences. The framework was evaluated using the Network Simulator (NS-2) to provide and check whether the privacy and confidentiality of the originators’ messages were met. A policy-based agent protocol and a new packet structure were implemented in this work to manage and enforce the policies attached to packets at every node in the VANET. Some case studies are presented in this thesis to show how data dissemination can be controlled based on the policy of the originator. The results of these case studies show the feasibility of our research to control the data dissemination between nodes in VANETs. NS-2 is also used to test the performance of the proposed policy-based agent protocol and demonstrate its effectiveness using various network performance metrics (average delay and overhead).