Approved for public release; distribution in unlimited. / As a consequence of the developments in information technology and the Internet, the world is getting increasingly dependent upon distributed systems and network services. Unfortunately, the security of these services has not kept pace with the advances in information technology itself. Security practitioners accept that, a system that is connected to an unbounded network, e.g., the Internet, will be vulnerable to attacks regardless of its security features. However, the emerging discipline of survivability can help ensure that such systems deliver essential services and maintain essential properties, such as integrity, confidentiality and performance, despite the presence of intrusions. Although survivability has been accepted as a means of sufficiently addressing the security problems of current network services, unfortunately, the studies that have been done on network survivability so far are not mature enough and they lack quantifiable metrics. To address this lack of network survivability measure, a global connectivity metric is developed in this thesis. Additionally, an election protocol based on this metric is designed for the SAAM prototype to enhance the survivability of the SAAM server. / Lieutenant Junior Grade, Turkish Navy

M.Com. / Information and the IT systems that support it are important business assets. Their availability, integrity and confidentiality are essential to maintain an organisations competitive edge, cash flow, profitability, company image and compliance with legal requirements. Organisations world-wide are now facing increased security threats from a wide range of sources. Information systems may be the target of a range of serious threats including computer-based fraud, espionage, sabotage, vandalism and other sources of failure or disaster ...

M.Com. / The auditor has the objective to express an opinion on the financial statements on which he is reporting. It is important for the auditor to know that the data which he is auditing has not been changed without the necessary authority or been lost and that the data meets the three Information Security Objectives (IS0s) ...

A research report submitted to the School of Human and Community Development, Faculty of Humanities in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master’s in Community-Based Counselling Psychology, September 2017 / Crime on campus may threaten the sustainability of society. Literature states that a university has an ethos – good or bad – and that such moral criteria can transform students’ characters, defining them for future societies. This study reviewed literature to find evidence of a relationship between empathy and helping attitudes/prosocial behaviour, as well as the psychological impact of the fear of crime and victimisation on empathy and helping attitudes. The aim was to explore the existence of a relationship between the levels of empathy in South African students at the University of the Witwatersrand, and the helping attitudes of the same student cohort. A secondary aim was to determine whether empathy and helping attitudes were influenced by the fear of crime and victimisation at a specific South African. The research design was a non-experimental, cross-sectional survey designed to assess levels of empathy, victimisation, fear of crime, and helping attitudes in students who were willing to participate in the study. A university non-probability convenience population was chosen as an appropriate source of data, in accordance with previous research conducted. Firstly, a series of analysis was run; most of the scores on the independent sample t-tests had no statistically significant effect on the scores of helping attitudes, fear of crime on campus, and empathy. The MANOVA was determined to have had no statistically significant effect on the scores of helping attitudes, fear of crime on campus and empathy. Despite the MANOVA indicating no statistically significant results, further analysis was run, the hierarchical multiple regression scores indicated a statistically significant effect on the scores of helping attitudes, fear of crime, and empathy. The significance of current research is that it looks at the progression of factors that could lead to students’ fear of crime on campus. / XL2018

Thesis (M.M. (Security))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Graduate School of Public and Development Management, 2016 / Technological advancement have seen South African government departments, state owned entities and private companies using cyberspace as a platform of interaction and the storage of information. Technological advancements have a positive impact due to the compression of space, time and thereby ensuring fastpaced interaction across borders. These technological advancements have, however resulted in most organisations, both private and public, becoming prone to cybercrimes and related incidents. In an initiative aimed at countering these threats, the South African government has passed various laws. The National Cybersecurity Policy Framework (NCPF) is a South African Policy framework aimed at countering an increase in the occurrence of cybercrimes and related incidents. This research analyses the status in the implementation of the NCPF objectives allocated to the Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services (DTPS). Then the barriers in the Implementation are unpacked guided by the literature reviewed and finally recommendations on how to counter the identified barriers are provided post the data collection. The report firstly provides an outline of the global perspectives on cybersecurity which is followed by the regional cybersecurity measures, and then the national cybersecurity measures proposed by the South African Government department are outlined. The latter parts of the report focuses on the NCPF in terms of its scope, goals, objectives and stakeholders. Finally, focus is shifted to the DTPS as a chosen area of research wherein data was collected in a form of one-on-one, semi-structured interviews with relevant parties. The results of this research are presented as a narrative description that is synthesised to develop the theoretical conjecture and empirical generalisation of the entire research. This research uncovered that there are numerous barriers in the implementation of the NCPF both within the DTPS as well as between the DTPS and various stakeholders entrusted with the implementation responsibility. The last chapter consists of general conclusions made by the researcher based on the research conducted which is then followed by recommended countermeasures which will be communicated to the DTPS as well as all stakeholders who will be affected by the proposed recommendations. / GR2018

Research report submitted to the School of Economic and Business Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Commerce (Information Systems) by coursework and research. Johannesburg, 28 February 2017. / This study is informed by very little empirical research in the field of cybercrime and specifically in the context of South African banks. The study bridges this gap in knowledge by analyzing the cybercrime phenomenon from the perspective of a South African bank. It also provides a sound basis for conducting future studies using a different perspective. In order to achieve this, an interpretive research approach was adopted using a case study in one of the biggest banks in South Africa where cybercrime is currently a topical issue and one that is receiving attention from senior management. Cohen and Felson (1979) Routine Activity Theory was used as a theoretical lens to formulate a conceptual framework which informed the data collection, analysis and synthesis of cybercrime in the selected bank. Primary data was obtained via semistructured interviews. Secondary data was also obtained which allowed for data triangulation. From the perspective of a South African bank, the study concluded that weak security and access controls, poor awareness and user education, prevalent use of the internet, low conviction rates and perceived material gain are the major factors that lead to cybercriminal activity. In order to curb the ever increasing rate of cybercrime, South African banking institutions should consider implementing stronger security and access controls to safeguard customer information, increase user awareness and education, implement effective systems and processes and actively participate in industry wide focus groups. The transnational nature of cybercrime places an onus on all banks in South Africa and other countries to collaborate and define a joint effort to combat the increasing exposure to cybercriminal activity. The use of the Routine Activity Theory provided an avenue to study the cybercrime phenomenon through a different theoretical lens and aided a holistic understanding of the trends and the behavioral attributes contributing to cybercriminal activity that can help South African banks model practical solutions to proactively combat the splurge of cybercrime. Keywords: Cybercrime, internet, crime, computer networks, Routine Activity Theory, South African banks. / GR2018

Consider a scenario where a server S shares a symmetric key kU with each user U. Building on a 2-party solution of Bohli et al., we describe an authenticated 3-party key establishment which remains secure if a computational Bilinear Diffie Hellman problem is hard or the server is uncorrupted. If the BDH assumption holds during a protocol execution, but is invalidated later, entity authentication and integrity of the protocol are still guaranteed. Key establishment protocols based on hardness assumptions, such as discrete logarithm problem (DLP) and integer factorization problem (IFP) are vulnerable to quantum computer attacks, whereas the protocols based on other hardness assumptions, such as conjugacy search problem and decomposition search problem can resist such attacks. The existing protocols based on the hardness assumptions which can resist quantum computer attacks are only passively secure. Compilers are used to convert a passively secure protocol to an actively secure protoc ol. Compilers involve some tools such as, signature scheme and a collision-resistant hash function. If there are only passively secure protocols but not a signature scheme based on same assumption then the application of existing compilers requires the use of such tools based on different assumptions. But the introduction of new tools, based on different assumptions, makes the new actively secure protocol rely on more than one hardness assumptions. We offer an approach to derive an actively secure two-party protocol from a passively secure two-party protocol without introducing further hardness assumptions. This serves as a useful formal tool to transform any basic algebric method of public key cryptography to the real world applicaticable cryptographic scheme. In a recent preprint, Vivek et al. propose a compiler to transform a passively secure 3-party key establishment to a passively secure group key establishment. To achieve active security, they apply this compiler to Joux's / protoc ol and apply a construction by Katz and Yung, resulting in a 3-round group key establishment. In this reserach, we show how Joux's protocol can be extended to an actively secure group key establishment with two rounds. The resulting solution is in the standard model, builds on a bilinear Diffie-Hellman assumption and offers forward security as well as strong entity authentication. If strong entity authentication is not required, then one half of the participants does not have to send any message in the second round, which may be of interest for scenarios where communication efficiency is a main concern. / by Kashi Neupane. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2012. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

With augmenting security concerns and decreasing costs of surveillance and computing equipment, research on automated systems for object detection has been increasing, but the majority of the studies focus their attention on sequences where high resolution objects are present. The main objective of this work is the detection and extraction of information of low resolution objects (e.g. objects that are so far away from the camera that they occupy only tens of pixels) in order to provide a base for higher level information operations such as classification and behavioral analysis. The system proposed is composed of four stages (preprocessing, background modeling, information extraction, and post processing) and uses context based region of importance selection, histogram equalization, background subtraction and morphological filtering techniques. The result is a system capable of detecting and tracking low resolution objects in a controlled background scene which can be a base for systems with higher complexity. / by Diego F. Pava. / Thesis (M.S.C.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2009. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2009. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

In recent years there has been dramatic growth in mobile devices and technologies. According to reports from comScore [1], 47% users in the United States (aged more than 13) are using a smartphones as their primary phone. Smartphone offers more advanced computing ability and connectivity than contemporary phones. In today’s world, a user wants to keep their smartphones private, because of the personal information present in it. Among these users, some of them are minors. This thesis addresses the functionality to track/control the mobile activities of minors by their parents using mobile phones. As a parent they want to know, whom his/her child is talking to and for what they are accessing browser for. Cellular network companies are providing number blocking services from the carrier side, but those are monthly paid services. In this thesis, we propose application architecture for remotely control the child phone and grant access to selected numbers for call and text. We use the emerging Android mobile platform and Google nexus phones to implement and test the application. This architecture will help developers to make more innovative applications in future which helps parent to access child phone information. We performed a study and reported the result using the proposal. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2013.

IEEE 802.11 networks successfully satisfy high data demands and are cheaper compared to cellular networks. Modern mobile computers and phones are equipped with 802.11 and are VoIP capable. Current network designs do not dynamically accommodate changes in the usage. We propose a dynamic power control algorithm that provides greater capacity within a limited geographic region. Most other power algorithms necessitate changes in 802.11 requiring hardware changes. Proposed algorithm only requires firmware updates to enable dynamic control of APs transmit power. We use earlier studies to determine the limit of the number of users to optimize power. By lowering transmit power of APs with large number of users, we can effectively decrease the cell size. The resulting gap is then covered by dynamically activating additional APs. This also provides greater flexibility and reduces the network planning costs. / by Serkan Dural. / Thesis (M.S.C.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2009. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2009. Mode of access: World Wide Web.