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1 – 10 of over 19000A.B. Feroz Khan and Anandharaj G
The purpose of the paper is to analyze the layer wise security issues in IoT and to obtain the effective security mechanism for jamming attack .
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the paper is to analyze the layer wise security issues in IoT and to obtain the effective security mechanism for jamming attack .
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, the authors proposed a multi layer security approach for the detection of DDoS in IoT environment, which protects the smart devices from DDoS, this scheme also reduces the computational cost in the network under mobility condition.
Findings
Even though many works have been done for the security of wireless sensor network (WSN), all works have focused on encryption which depends on the key management strategy. In this study, the authors proposed a multilayer approach to analyze the layer wise security issues and also proposed a threshold-based countermeasure (TBC) for replay attack in each layer.
Originality/value
The results indicate that the proposed algorithm lowers the computational costs and energy consumption than in modern schemes. Also, the proposed research work improves the scalability of sensor networks using the TBC.
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Keywords
Abel Yeboah-Ofori and Francisca Afua Opoku-Boateng
Various organizational landscapes have evolved to improve their business processes, increase production speed and reduce the cost of distribution and have integrated their…
Abstract
Purpose
Various organizational landscapes have evolved to improve their business processes, increase production speed and reduce the cost of distribution and have integrated their Internet with small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) and third-party vendors to improve business growth and increase global market share, including changing organizational requirements and business process collaborations. Benefits include a reduction in the cost of production, online services, online payments, product distribution channels and delivery in a supply chain environment. However, the integration has led to an exponential increase in cybercrimes, with adversaries using various attack methods to penetrate and exploit the organizational network. Thus, identifying the attack vectors in the event of cyberattacks is very important in mitigating cybercrimes effectively and has become inevitable. However, the invincibility nature of cybercrimes makes it challenging to detect and predict the threat probabilities and the cascading impact in an evolving organization landscape leading to malware, ransomware, data theft and denial of service attacks, among others. The paper explores the cybercrime threat landscape, considers the impact of the attacks and identifies mitigating circumstances to improve security controls in an evolving organizational landscape.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach follows two main cybercrime framework design principles that focus on existing attack detection phases and proposes a cybercrime mitigation framework (CCMF) that uses detect, assess, analyze, evaluate and respond phases and subphases to reduce the attack surface. The methods and implementation processes were derived by identifying an organizational goal, attack vectors, threat landscape, identification of attacks and models and validation of framework standards to improve security. The novelty contribution of this paper is threefold: first, the authors explore the existing threat landscapes, various cybercrimes, models and the methods that adversaries are deploying on organizations. Second, the authors propose a threat model required for mitigating the risk factors. Finally, the authors recommend control mechanisms in line with security standards to improve security.
Findings
The results show that cybercrimes can be mitigated using a CCMF to detect, assess, analyze, evaluate and respond to cybercrimes to improve security in an evolving organizational threat landscape.
Research limitations/implications
The paper does not consider the organizational size between large organizations and SMEs. The challenges facing the evolving organizational threat landscape include vulnerabilities brought about by the integrations of various network nodes. Factor influencing these vulnerabilities includes inadequate threat intelligence gathering, a lack of third-party auditing and inadequate control mechanisms leading to various manipulations, exploitations, exfiltration and obfuscations.
Practical implications
Attack methods are applied to a case study for the implementation to evaluate the model based on the design principles. Inadequate cyber threat intelligence (CTI) gathering, inadequate attack modeling and security misconfigurations are some of the key factors leading to practical implications in mitigating cybercrimes.
Social implications
There are no social implications; however, cybercrimes have severe consequences for organizations and third-party vendors that integrate their network systems, leading to legal and reputational damage.
Originality/value
The paper’s originality considers mitigating cybercrimes in an evolving organization landscape that requires strategic, tactical and operational management imperative using the proposed framework phases, including detect, assess, analyze, evaluate and respond phases and subphases to reduce the attack surface, which is currently inadequate.
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Omerah Yousuf and Roohie Naaz Mir
Internet of Things (IoT) is a challenging and promising system concept and requires new types of architectures and protocols compared to traditional networks. Security is an…
Abstract
Purpose
Internet of Things (IoT) is a challenging and promising system concept and requires new types of architectures and protocols compared to traditional networks. Security is an extremely critical issue for IoT that needs to be addressed efficiently. Heterogeneity being an inherent characteristic of IoT gives rise to many security issues that need to be addressed from the perspective of new architectures such as software defined networking, cryptographic algorithms, federated cloud and edge computing.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper analyzes the IoT security from three perspectives: three-layer security architecture, security issues at each layer and security countermeasures. The paper reviews the current state of the art, protocols and technologies used at each layer of security architecture. The paper focuses on various types of attacks that occur at each layer and provides the various approaches used to countermeasure such type of attacks.
Findings
The data exchanged between the different devices or applications in the IoT environment are quite sensitive; thus, the security aspect plays a key role and needs to be addressed efficiently. This indicates the urgent needs of developing general security policy and standards for IoT products. The efficient security architecture needs to be imposed but not at the cost of efficiency and scalability. The paper provides empirical insights about how the different security threats at each layer can be mitigated.
Originality/value
The paper fulfills the need of having an extensive and elaborated survey in the field of IoT security, along with suggesting the countermeasures to mitigate the threats occurring at each level of IoT protocol stack.
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Phishing is essentially a social engineering crime on the Web, whose rampant occurrences and technique advancements are posing big challenges for researchers in both academia and…
Abstract
Purpose
Phishing is essentially a social engineering crime on the Web, whose rampant occurrences and technique advancements are posing big challenges for researchers in both academia and the industry. The purpose of this study is to examine the available phishing literatures and phishing countermeasures, to determine how research has evolved and advanced in terms of quantity, content and publication outlets. In addition to that, this paper aims to identify the important trends in phishing and its countermeasures and provides a view of the research gap that is still prevailing in this field of study.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is a comprehensive literature review prepared after analysing 16 doctoral theses and 358 papers in this field of research. The papers were analyzed based on their research focus, empirical basis on phishing and proposed countermeasures.
Findings
The findings reveal that the current anti‐phishing approaches that have seen significant deployments over the internet can be classified into eight categories. Also, the different approaches proposed so far are all preventive in nature. A Phisher will mainly target the innocent consumers who happen to be the weakest link in the security chain and it was found through various usability studies that neither server‐side security indicators nor client‐side toolbars and warnings are successful in preventing vulnerable users from being deceived.
Originality/value
Educating the internet users about phishing, as well as the implementation and proper application of anti‐phishing measures, are critical steps in protecting the identities of online consumers against phishing attacks. Further research is required to evaluate the effectiveness of the available countermeasures against fresh phishing attacks. Also there is the need to find out the factors which influence internet user's ability to correctly identify phishing websites.
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Uchenna Daniel Ani, Hongmei He and Ashutosh Tiwari
As cyber-attacks continue to grow, organisations adopting the internet-of-things (IoT) have continued to react to security concerns that threaten their businesses within the…
Abstract
Purpose
As cyber-attacks continue to grow, organisations adopting the internet-of-things (IoT) have continued to react to security concerns that threaten their businesses within the current highly competitive environment. Many recorded industrial cyber-attacks have successfully beaten technical security solutions by exploiting human-factor vulnerabilities related to security knowledge and skills and manipulating human elements into inadvertently conveying access to critical industrial assets. Knowledge and skill capabilities contribute to human analytical proficiencies for enhanced cybersecurity readiness. Thus, a human-factored security endeavour is required to investigate the capabilities of the human constituents (workforce) to appropriately recognise and respond to cyber intrusion events within the industrial control system (ICS) environment.
Design/methodology/approach
A quantitative approach (statistical analysis) is adopted to provide an approach to quantify the potential cybersecurity capability aptitudes of industrial human actors, identify the least security-capable workforce in the operational domain with the greatest susceptibility likelihood to cyber-attacks (i.e. weakest link) and guide the enhancement of security assurance. To support these objectives, a Human-factored Cyber Security Capability Evaluation approach is presented using conceptual analysis techniques.
Findings
Using a test scenario, the approach demonstrates the capacity to proffer an efficient evaluation of workforce security knowledge and skills capabilities and the identification of weakest link in the workforce.
Practical implications
The approach can enable organisations to gain better workforce security perspectives like security-consciousness, alertness and response aptitudes, thus guiding organisations into adopting strategic means of appropriating security remediation outlines, scopes and resources without undue wastes or redundancies.
Originality/value
This paper demonstrates originality by providing a framework and computational approach for characterising and quantify human-factor security capabilities based on security knowledge and security skills. It also supports the identification of potential security weakest links amongst an evaluated industrial workforce (human agents), some key security susceptibility areas and relevant control interventions. The model and validation results demonstrate the application of action research. This paper demonstrates originality by illustrating how action research can be applied within socio-technical dimensions to solve recurrent and dynamic problems related to industrial environment cyber security improvement. It provides value by demonstrating how theoretical security knowledge (awareness) and practical security skills can help resolve cyber security response and control uncertainties within industrial organisations.
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Faisal Lone, Harsh Kumar Verma and Krishna Pal Sharma
The purpose of this study is to extensively explore the vehicular network paradigm, challenges faced by them and provide a reasonable solution for securing these vulnerable…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to extensively explore the vehicular network paradigm, challenges faced by them and provide a reasonable solution for securing these vulnerable networks. Vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communication has brought the long-anticipated goal of safe, convenient and sustainable transportation closer to reality. The connected vehicle (CV) paradigm is critical to the intelligent transportation systems vision. It imagines a society free of a troublesome transportation system burdened by gridlock, fatal accidents and a polluted environment. The authors cannot overstate the importance of CVs in solving long-standing mobility issues and making travel safer and more convenient. It is high time to explore vehicular networks in detail to suggest solutions to the challenges encountered by these highly dynamic networks.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper compiles research on various V2X topics, from a comprehensive overview of V2X networks to their unique characteristics and challenges. In doing so, the authors identify multiple issues encountered by V2X communication networks due to their open communication nature and high mobility, especially from a security perspective. Thus, this paper proposes a trust-based model to secure vehicular networks. The proposed approach uses the communicating nodes’ behavior to establish trustworthy relationships. The proposed model only allows trusted nodes to communicate among themselves while isolating malicious nodes to achieve secure communication.
Findings
Despite the benefits offered by V2X networks, they have associated challenges. As the number of CVs on the roads increase, so does the attack surface. Connected cars provide numerous safety-critical applications that, if compromised, can result in fatal consequences. While cryptographic mechanisms effectively prevent external attacks, various studies propose trust-based models to complement cryptographic solutions for dealing with internal attacks. While numerous trust-based models have been proposed, there is room for improvement in malicious node detection and complexity. Optimizing the number of nodes considered in trust calculation can reduce the complexity of state-of-the-art solutions. The theoretical analysis of the proposed model exhibits an improvement in trust calculation, better malicious node detection and fewer computations.
Originality/value
The proposed model is the first to add another dimension to trust calculation by incorporating opinions about recommender nodes. The added dimension improves the trust calculation resulting in better performance in thwarting attacks and enhancing security while also reducing the trust calculation complexity.
Details
Keywords
Jialiang Xie, Shanli Zhang, Honghui Wang and Mingzhi Chen
With the rapid development of Internet technology, cybersecurity threats such as security loopholes, data leaks, network fraud, and ransomware have become increasingly prominent…
Abstract
Purpose
With the rapid development of Internet technology, cybersecurity threats such as security loopholes, data leaks, network fraud, and ransomware have become increasingly prominent, and organized and purposeful cyberattacks have increased, posing more challenges to cybersecurity protection. Therefore, reliable network risk assessment methods and effective network security protection schemes are urgently needed.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on the dynamic behavior patterns of attackers and defenders, a Bayesian network attack graph is constructed, and a multitarget risk dynamic assessment model is proposed based on network availability, network utilization impact and vulnerability attack possibility. Then, the self-organizing multiobjective evolutionary algorithm based on grey wolf optimization is proposed. And the authors use this algorithm to solve the multiobjective risk assessment model, and a variety of different attack strategies are obtained.
Findings
The experimental results demonstrate that the method yields 29 distinct attack strategies, and then attacker's preferences can be obtained according to these attack strategies. Furthermore, the method efficiently addresses the security assessment problem involving multiple decision variables, thereby providing constructive guidance for the construction of security network, security reinforcement and active defense.
Originality/value
A method for network risk assessment methods is given. And this study proposed a multiobjective risk dynamic assessment model based on network availability, network utilization impact and the possibility of vulnerability attacks. The example demonstrates the effectiveness of the method in addressing network security risks.
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Faten Fakhfakh, Mohamed Tounsi and Mohamed Mosbah
Nowadays, connected vehicles are becoming quite complex systems which are made up of different devices. In such a vehicle, there are several electronic control units (ECUs) that…
Abstract
Purpose
Nowadays, connected vehicles are becoming quite complex systems which are made up of different devices. In such a vehicle, there are several electronic control units (ECUs) that represent basic units of computation. These ECUs communicate with each other over the Controller Area Network (CAN) bus protocol which ensures a high communication rate. Even though it is an efficient standard which provides communication for in-vehicle networks, it is prone to various cybersecurity attacks. This paper aims to present a systematic literature review (SLR) which focuses on potential attacks on CAN bus networks. Then, it surveys the solutions proposed to overcome these attacks. In addition, it investigates the validation strategies aiming to check their accuracy and correctness.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors have adopted the SLR methodology to summarize existing research papers that focus on the potential attacks on CAN bus networks. In addition, they compare the selected papers by classifying them according to the adopted validation strategies. They identify also gaps in the existing literature and provide a set of open challenges that can significantly improve the existing works.
Findings
The study showed that most of the examined papers adopted the simulation as a validation strategy to imitate the system behavior and evaluate a set of performance criteria. Nevertheless, a little consideration has been given to the formal verification of the proposed systems.
Originality/value
Unlike the existing surveys, this paper presents the first SLR that identifies local and remote security attacks that can compromise in-vehicle and inter-vehicle communications. Moreover, it compares the reviewed papers while focusing on the used validation strategies.
Details
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Derrick Boakye, David Sarpong, Dirk Meissner and George Ofosu
Cyber-attacks that generate technical disruptions in organisational operations and damage the reputation of organisations have become all too common in the contemporary…
Abstract
Purpose
Cyber-attacks that generate technical disruptions in organisational operations and damage the reputation of organisations have become all too common in the contemporary organisation. This paper explores the reputation repair strategies undertaken by organisations in the event of becoming victims of cyber-attacks.
Design/methodology/approach
For developing the authors’ contribution in the context of the Internet service providers' industry, the authors draw on a qualitative case study of TalkTalk, a British telecommunications company providing business to business (B2B) and business to customer (B2C) Internet services, which was a victim of a “significant and sustained” cyber-attack in October 2015. Data for the enquiry is sourced from publicly available archival documents such as newspaper articles, press releases, podcasts and parliamentary hearings on the TalkTalk cyber-attack.
Findings
The findings suggest a dynamic interplay of technical and rhetorical responses in dealing with cyber-attacks. This plays out in the form of marshalling communication and mortification techniques, bolstering image and riding on leader reputation, which serially combine to strategically orchestrate reputational repair and stigma erasure in the event of a cyber-attack.
Originality/value
Analysing a prototypical case of an organisation in dire straits following a cyber-attack, the paper provides a systematic characterisation of the setting-in-motion of strategic responses to manage, revamp and ameliorate damaged reputation during cyber-attacks, which tend to negatively shape the evaluative perceptions of the organisation's salient audience.
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Ever since Mark Weiser coined the term “ubiquitous computing” (ubicomp) in 1988, there has been a general interest in proposing various solutions that would support his vision…
Abstract
Purpose
Ever since Mark Weiser coined the term “ubiquitous computing” (ubicomp) in 1988, there has been a general interest in proposing various solutions that would support his vision. However, attacks targeting devices and services of a ubicomp environment have demonstrated not only different privacy issues, but also a risk of endangering user’s life (e.g. by modifying medical sensor readings). Thus, the aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive overview of security challenges of ubicomp environments and the corresponding countermeasures proposed over the past decade.
Design/methodology/approach
The results of this paper are based on a literature review method originally used in evidence-based medicine called systematic literature review (SLR), which identifies, filters, classifies and summarizes the findings.
Findings
Starting from the bibliometric results that clearly show an increasing interest in the topic of ubicomp security worldwide, the findings reveal specific types of attacks and vulnerabilities that have motivated the research over the past decade. This review describes most commonly proposed countermeasures – context-aware access control and authentication mechanisms, cryptographic protocols that account for device’s resource constraints, privacy-preserving mechanisms, and trust mechanisms for wireless ad hoc and sensor networks.
Originality/value
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first SLR on security challenges in ubicomp. The findings should serve as a reference to an extensive list of scientific contributions, as well as a guiding point for the researchers’ novel to the security research in ubicomp.
Details