The Domain Name System (DNS) oversees the internet's architecture, providing pointers to both internal and external services. Consequently, enterprises increase their attack surface while simultaneously increasing their exposure to potential cyber threats. Subdomain takeovers happen when a subdomain leads to a website that no longer exists. As a result, the subdomain will be in control of an attacker. A compromised subdomain may be the access point to many attacks like information threats, phishing attacks, infrastructure intrusion and many more. Subdomain takeover attacks are one of the overlooked attack surfaces related to cyber security. This thesis aims to investigate the subdomain takeover attacks, how the attacks happen, the attack methodology by an attacker and drawbacks in the current strategies and tools, which are countermeasures for subdomain takeover attacks. The research focuses on resolving an intrusion from happening within the perspective of an enterprise standpoint. A new custom framework which resolves the subdomain takeover attacks was developed. A comparative study of the newly developed framework and the existing open-source tools and their response to an attack scenario too is made. Also, a comparison of the leading cloud platforms was conducted and their existing security features and mitigation measures for similar attacks and threats.

This dissertation focuses on the spectroscopic and thermodynamic characterization of the unusual metal-RNA cluster found in the P5abc subdomain of the Tetrahymena group I intron. The P5abc subdomain is a part of the P4-P6 domain found in the Tetrahymena thermophila group I intron selfsplicing RNA. From both X-ray crystal structures of the P4-P6 domain, a remarkable cluster of Mg2+ or Mn2+ ions was found in the P5abc subdomain (Cate et al. 1996; Juneau et al. 2001). It is believed that the metal ion core in the P5abc subdomain stabilizes the active conformation of the RNA (Cate et al. 1996). An understanding of the role of these metal ions in facilitating the correct structure of the P5abc subdomain provides insight into how metal ions help overcome the folding barriers of complex RNA structures. Under solution conditions, the properties of this uncommon metal ion core and its influence on the truncated P5abc subdomain structure have been investigated. Both EPR spectroscopy and thermal denaturation experiments have been employed to search for a spectroscopic signature of metal ion core formation and also determine the thermodynamic contribution of the metal ion core on the stability of the folded P5abc structure. A spectroscopic signature of metal ion core formation was assigned for the P5abc subdomain by EPR microwave power saturation studies. Power saturation studies of the P5abc subdomain, P4-P6 domain and corresponding mutants reveal that the addition of 5 equivalents of Mn2+ are required for the wild type P5abc subdomain to form the metal ion core under solution conditions in 0.1 M NaCl. Results from both domain and subdomain microwave power saturation studies suggest that this technique can be applied for detecting clustering of Mn2+ ions in other RNA structures. The thermodynamic consequence of this metal ion core was probed by thermal denaturation techniques including UV-Vis spectroscopy and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). DSC experiments were utilized to directly determine the thermodynamic contribution of the metal ion core. This value was determined to be an average of ∆∆G of -5.3 kcal/mol and is consistent with ∆∆G values obtained for other RNA tertiary structures.

L'objectif de cette thèse était de proposer, puis de valider expérimentalement, un ensemble de méthodes algorithmiques permettant le remaillage parallèle de maillages distribués, en s'appuyant sur une méthode séquentielle de remaillage préexistante. Cet objectif a été atteint par étapes : définition de structures de données et de schémas de communication adaptés aux maillages distribués, permettant le déplacement à moindre coût des interfaces entre sous-domaines sur les processeurs d'une architecture à mémoire distribuée ; utilisation d'algorithmes de répartition dynamique de la charge adaptés aux techniques parallèles de remaillage ; conception d'algorithmes parallèles permettant de scinder le problème global de remaillage parallèle en plusieurs sous-tâches séquentielles, susceptibles de s'exécuter concurremment sur les processeurs de la machine parallèle. Ces contributions ont été mises en oeuvre au sein de la bibliothèque parallèle PaMPA, en s'appuyant sur les briques logicielles MMG3D (remaillage séquentiel de maillages tétraédriques) et PT-Scotch (repartitionnement parallèle de graphes). La bibliothèque PaMPA offre ainsi les fonctionnalités suivantes : communication transparente entre processeurs voisins des valeurs portées par les noeuds, les éléments, etc. ;remaillage, selon des critères fournis par l'utilisateur, de portions du maillage distribué, en offrant une qualité constante, que les éléments à remailler soient portés par un unique processeur ou bien répartis sur plusieurs d'entre eux ; répartition et redistribution de la charge des maillages pour préserver l'efficacité des simulations après remaillage. / The purpose of this thesis was to propose and to validate experimentally a set of algorithmic methods for the parallel remeshing of distributed meshes, based on a preexisting sequential remeshing method. This goal has been achieved through several steps : definition of data structures and of communication schemes suitable for distributed meshes, allowing for cheap migration of subdomain interfaces across the processors of a distributed-memory architecture ; use of dynamic load balancing algorithms suitable for parallel remeshing techniques ; design of parallel algorithms for splitting the global remeshing problem into several independent sequential tasks, susceptible to be executed concurrently across the processors of the parallel machine. These contributions have been implemented into the PaMPA parallel library, taking advantage of the MMG3D (sequential anisotropic tetrahedral remesher) PT-Scotch (parallel graph repartitioning) software. The PaMPA library consequently provides the following features : transparent communication across neighboring processors of data borne by nodes, elements, etc.; remeshing, according to used-defined criteria, of portions of the distributed mesh, that yields constant quality, irrespective of whether elements to be remeshed are located on a single processor or distributed across several of them ; balancing and redistribution of the workload of the mesh, to preserve the efficiency of simulations after the remeshing phase.