IJERI: International Journal of Educational Research and Innovation
The outbreak of novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19), reported initially in December 2019 by Ch... more The outbreak of novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19), reported initially in December 2019 by China, has caused disruption all over the world. To control the spreading of this virus all the countries around the world imposed strict lockdown leading to shutting down of all businesses, educational institutions, entertainment centers, etc. Higher Educational Institutions (HEI), across the world, switched to online mode of learning instantly to continue their degree programs. Following the trend, Higher Education Commission of Pakistan encouraged HEIs to begin online classes. Although, online learning seemed to be the best possible solution during indefinite closure of institutes, but the sudden change in teaching and learning paradigm was not well accepted and unprecedented challenges emerged. This study aims at identifying the barriers specific to students and teachers in this abrupt shift. Moreover, it examines the satisfaction level of undergraduate students regarding online educ...
International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning (iJET)
Augmented Reality (AR) tends to merge the computing world with the real world, giving way to an i... more Augmented Reality (AR) tends to merge the computing world with the real world, giving way to an incredible user experience. This field is not only limited to entertainment but has been utilized in various domains including healthcare, education and training. Realizing the potential of Augmented Reality in improving the learning experience, researchers have explored many ways of incorporating AR in the field education. Consequently, this research is focused on providing interactive and customized learning experience to book readers. We present a mobile application, Smart Learning Companion (SLAC), for physical books that provide a virtual content for a book. The virtual content include, 3D animations, Quizzes, explanation of content in native language and many other features. The virtual content is activated as soon as pages are scanned with a mobile phone or tablet. Smart Learning Companion explains animated educational content and provides an interactive user experience. The aim of...
: The trend of using mobile devices for the purpose of learning is gaining momentum. Apart from ... more : The trend of using mobile devices for the purpose of learning is gaining momentum. Apart from traditional education, various applications are being developed for religious learning. Pakistan is inhabited by around 98% of Muslims. Hence, the informal learning of Islam is essential for Muslim child development. This research presents a usability study of different Islamic learning mobile applications available on the android platform for children. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the usability of different Islamic learning mobile applications for children of diverse age groups in order to understand what design principles must be followed that increase the usability of the application. The main focus of this research is to observe and evaluate how easily children of different age groups respond to different applications, how effectively the children understand the core features of the applications and how easily they are able to use the application by themselves.
Mobile devices like Smartphones, tablets and PDAs have become an indispensable part of every pers... more Mobile devices like Smartphones, tablets and PDAs have become an indispensable part of every person’s day to day activities. The growth and propagation of the smartphones has created new opportunities for religious app developers to develop apps that will provide utilities and an easy accessibility to religious information. The purpose of this research is to conduct a survey and to classify Islamic apps that are available on Google Play Store. The user surveys were conducted to evaluate and investigate the usage pattern of the Islamic apps in everyday life of the Muslims. The results identify the need of authentication of the app content that gives rise to many critical issues and myths. Also, it stresses the need for a “Religion” category in Google Play Store. The benefit of this research is twofold, as it focuses on identifying which app features Muslim users are more interested in using and secondly, the Islamic apps/features that need to be developed.
The concept of smart city was born to provide improved quality of life to citizens. The key idea ... more The concept of smart city was born to provide improved quality of life to citizens. The key idea is to integrate information system services of each domain, such as health, education, transportation, power grid etc., of the city to provide public services to citizens efficiently and ubiquitously. These expectations induce massive challenges and requirements. This research is aimed to highlight key ICT (Information and Communication Technology) challenges related to adaptation of smart city. Realizing the significance of effective data collection, storage, retrieval, and efficient network resource provisioning, the research proposes a high level architecture for smart city. The proposed framework is based on a hierarchical model of data storage and defines how different stakeholders will be communicating and offering services to citizens. The architecture facilitates step by step implementation towards a smart city, integrating services, as they are developed in a timely manner.
Student Conference On Engineering, Sciences and Technology, 2004
Strong growth of both Internet and mobile communication leads to new promising mass-market end-us... more Strong growth of both Internet and mobile communication leads to new promising mass-market end-user applications. Telecommunications and computing industries are not only merging their main concepts, but working towards a similar goal, namely to have fully co-operative communication systems that help automate various everyday tasks or chores. Software agent technology provides benefit to both the network Manager and the end
International Journal Of Advanced Computer Science And Applications, 2017
Software Defined Networking (SDN) is an emerging network paradigm that provides central control o... more Software Defined Networking (SDN) is an emerging network paradigm that provides central control over the network. Although, this simplifies the network management and makes efficient use of network resources, it introduces new threats to network reliability and scalability. In fact, a single centralized controller is a single point of failure. Moreover, a single controller may become a performance bottleneck as processing overhead increases. Distributed SDN controller platforms improve the reliability and scalability to some extent, however they remain vulnerable to Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, specifically on control plane. We believe that there is a need for a distributed controller framework that is capable of providing service continuity without performance degradation in case of excessive network traffic or DDoS attacks on controller. In this paper, we aim to address the vulnerabilities of SDN control plane. We propose and implement an efficient and Resilient Controller for Software Defined Network (ReCSDN). This framework is capable of detecting and mitigating DDoS attacks timely and ensures the continuity of services without performance degradation. We created an experimental test bed using Mininet to conduct extensive experiments. We deployed ReCSDN on top of Open Network Operating System (ONOS) cluster to confirm the viability of our approach. The experiment results show that with ReCSDN, control plane is not only able to withstand excessive network load but will also continue to provide services in case of any controller failure.
International Journal Of Advanced Computer Science And Applications, 2017
Privacy is an ability to understand, choose, and regulate what personal data one shares, with who... more Privacy is an ability to understand, choose, and regulate what personal data one shares, with whom, for how long and under what context. Data owners must not lose the rights of ownership, once the data is shared. Privacy decisions have many components that include identity, access granularity, time and context. We propose an ontology based model for data privacy configuration in terms of producer and consumer. Producer is an IP entity who owns data, that is Data owner. Consumer is an IP entity with whom data is shared. We differentiate between consumer and data holder, also and IP entity, which may not have similar access rights as consumer. As we rely on Semantic Web technologies to enable these privacy preferences, our proposed vocabulary is platform independent and can thus be used by any system relying on these technologies. Ideally, producers can specify a set of attributes which consumers must satisfy in order to be granted access to the requested information. Privacy can be configured not only in terms of typical read and edit, but novel attributes like location and time are also included in the proposed ontology.
International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications, 2015
The concept of smart city was born to provide improved quality of life to citizens. The key idea ... more The concept of smart city was born to provide improved quality of life to citizens. The key idea is to integrate information system services of each domain, such as health, education, transportation, power grid etc., of the city to provide public services to citizens efficiently and ubiquitously. These expectations induce massive challenges and requirements. This research is aimed to highlight key ICT (Information and Communication Technology) challenges related to adaptation of smart city. Realizing the significance of effective data collection, storage, retrieval, and efficient network resource provisioning, the research proposes a high level architecture for smart city. The proposed framework is based on a hierarchical model of data storage and defines how different stakeholders will be communicating and offering services to citizens. The architecture facilitates step by step implementation towards a smart city, integrating services, as they are developed in a timely manner.
Journal of Engineering Science and Technology, 2019
Wide-scale popularity of Android devices has necessitated the need of having effective means for ... more Wide-scale popularity of Android devices has necessitated the need of having effective means for detection of malicious applications. Machine learning based classification of android applications require training and testing on a large dataset. Motivated by these needs, we provide extensive evaluation of Android applications for classification to either benign or malware applications. Using a 17-node Apache Spark cluster, we utilized seven different machine learning classifiers and applied them on the SherLock dataset-one of the largest available dataset for malware detection of Android applications. From the dataset of 83 attributes, we identified 29 suitable features of applications which are related in identifying a malware. Our analysis revealed that gradient boosted trees classification mechanism provides highest precision and accuracy and lowest false positive rate in detection of malware applications. We also applied our model to develop a real-time cloud based malware detection system. This research is novel and beneficial in providing extensive evaluation using large dataset.
Journal of Network and Computer Applications , 2019
Evolution of smart cities induces critical challenges related to cyber and network security. The ... more Evolution of smart cities induces critical challenges related to cyber and network security. The increased reliance of a smart city on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) infrastructure improves automation, efficiency, and sustainability of city services. However, it also poses enormous challenges for ensuring continued operations and services at all times and especially under cyber-attacks. Any lapse in cyber security can lead to critical disaster across the city. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are considered to be the most predominant and prevalent cyber-attacks. We believe that smart city could consist of numerous applications with varying level of network and security requirements. Therefore, providing an adaptive mechanism against DDoS attacks for all applications in a smart city is a key challenge. Further, considering the wide-scale requirements of a smart city, developing an adaptive and flexible solution is a key requirement. Considering these requirements, this paper presents SEAL (SEcure and AgiLe) – a novel Software Defined Networking (SDN) based adaptive framework for protecting smart city applications against DDoS attacks. The SEAL framework leverages key characteristics of SDN such as the global visibility, centralized control, and programmability to enhance the security and resilience. SEAL is capable of effectively detecting and mitigating DDoS attacks not only on application servers but also on network resources. SEAL is also unique in this regard that it provides application specific DDoS attack security solution instead of static threshold mechanism. Moreover, inherently distributed architecture of the SEAL framework ensures fault tolerance, scalability and reliability of the smart city. The SEAL framework comprises three modules, namely D-Defense, A-Defense and C-Defense. These modules collectively provide a mechanism to detect and mitigate DDoS attack on smart city applications and the network infrastructure. Adaptability in SEAL is achieved through implementing customized version of estimated-weighted moving average (EWMA) filters. Three types of filters, Proactive Filter, Active Filter, and Passive Filter are proposed and implemented to compute the dynamic threshold in real time for various types of applications. Experimental evaluation of the SEAL framework has been conducted to establish the efficacy of the framework and its components in detecting and mitigating DDoS attacks. The results prove that SEAL is able to detect and mitigate DDoS attacks effectively. The focus of the SEAL framework is to protect smart city applications, however, the SEAL framework can potentially be utilized in a wide range of systems.
— Continuous growth and wide-scale popularity of big data systems have highlighted the need of ef... more — Continuous growth and wide-scale popularity of big data systems have highlighted the need of effective incorporation of big data in Computer Science at the undergraduate level. This need has also been inspired by the increasing demand from the industry. This paper is aimed to address this need by proposing a comprehensive elective course on big data systems. Our proposed course has strong emphasis on developing both theoretical as well as practical skills. The course has wide-scale coverage of significant topics related to big data systems. These include platform-related topics such as Hadoop and Spark, batch and stream processing, machine learning and iterative systems. Supported through weekly labs and course projects, the course also encouraged students to apply concepts in solving real-world problems. This paper describes design and structure of the course and explain course contents and students' evaluations. The paper is useful for the community members who would like to strengthen big data curriculum at the undergraduate level.
Smart city brings enormous opportunities and exciting challenges. In a smart city, operations and... more Smart city brings enormous opportunities and exciting challenges. In a smart city, operations and services such as traffic, transport, electric power, and water distribution are monitored, operated, and controlled through ICT based infrastructure, smartly. This allows efficient management of resources and facilitates smooth access to services. However, it also induces stringent requirements and challenges for uninterrupted operation and execution of ICT-based monitoring and controlled infrastructure. Cybersecurity is one of the foremost challenges in a smart city network. That is, protecting the smart city application services from cyber-attacks and ensuring continuity of services is utmost desirable. As smart city services typically comprised of web based applications, application level distributed denial of service (AL-DDoS) attack is a major cybersecurity threat that can have catastrophic impact on an extremely critical smart city network. This paper presents an efficient framework for AL-DDoS attack detection and mitigation for a smart city network. The proposed framework utilizes Software Defined Networking (SDN) paradigm to implement resilient design that ensures continuity of smart city application services. The framework integrates a sound mechanism that distinguishes AL-DDoS attack from legitimate flash crowd. This is a novel framework that addresses the flash crowd attack detection and mitigation in a smart city environment using SDN.
Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks have become a weapon of choice for hackers, cyber ex... more Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks have become a weapon of choice for hackers, cyber extor-tionists, and cyber terrorists. These attacks can swiftly incapacitate a victim, causing huge revenue losses. Despite the large number of traditional mitigation solutions that exists today, DDoS attacks continue to grow in frequency, volume , and severity. This calls for a new network paradigm to address the requirements of today's challenging security threats. Software-defined networking (SDN) is an emerging network paradigm which has gained significant traction by many researchers to address the requirement of today's data centers. Inspired by the capabilities of SDN, we present a comprehensive survey of existing SDN-based DDoS attack detection and mitigation solutions. We classify solutions based on DDoS attack detection techniques and identify requirements of an effective solution. Based on our findings, we propose a novel framework for detection and mitigation of DDoS attacks in a large-scale network which comprises a smart city built on SDN infrastructure. Our proposed framework is capable of meeting application-specific DDoS attack detection and mitigation requirements. The primary contribution of this paper is twofold. First, we provide an in-depth survey and discussion of SDN-based DDoS attack detection and mitigation mechanisms, and we classify them with respect to the detection techniques. Second, leveraging the characteristics of SDN for network security, we propose and present an SDN-based proactive DDoS Defense Framework (ProDefense). We show how this framework can be utilized to secure applications built for smart cities. Moreover, the paper highlights open research challenges, future research directions , and recommendations related to SDN-based DDoS detection and mitigation.
IJERI: International Journal of Educational Research and Innovation
The outbreak of novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19), reported initially in December 2019 by Ch... more The outbreak of novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19), reported initially in December 2019 by China, has caused disruption all over the world. To control the spreading of this virus all the countries around the world imposed strict lockdown leading to shutting down of all businesses, educational institutions, entertainment centers, etc. Higher Educational Institutions (HEI), across the world, switched to online mode of learning instantly to continue their degree programs. Following the trend, Higher Education Commission of Pakistan encouraged HEIs to begin online classes. Although, online learning seemed to be the best possible solution during indefinite closure of institutes, but the sudden change in teaching and learning paradigm was not well accepted and unprecedented challenges emerged. This study aims at identifying the barriers specific to students and teachers in this abrupt shift. Moreover, it examines the satisfaction level of undergraduate students regarding online educ...
International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning (iJET)
Augmented Reality (AR) tends to merge the computing world with the real world, giving way to an i... more Augmented Reality (AR) tends to merge the computing world with the real world, giving way to an incredible user experience. This field is not only limited to entertainment but has been utilized in various domains including healthcare, education and training. Realizing the potential of Augmented Reality in improving the learning experience, researchers have explored many ways of incorporating AR in the field education. Consequently, this research is focused on providing interactive and customized learning experience to book readers. We present a mobile application, Smart Learning Companion (SLAC), for physical books that provide a virtual content for a book. The virtual content include, 3D animations, Quizzes, explanation of content in native language and many other features. The virtual content is activated as soon as pages are scanned with a mobile phone or tablet. Smart Learning Companion explains animated educational content and provides an interactive user experience. The aim of...
: The trend of using mobile devices for the purpose of learning is gaining momentum. Apart from ... more : The trend of using mobile devices for the purpose of learning is gaining momentum. Apart from traditional education, various applications are being developed for religious learning. Pakistan is inhabited by around 98% of Muslims. Hence, the informal learning of Islam is essential for Muslim child development. This research presents a usability study of different Islamic learning mobile applications available on the android platform for children. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the usability of different Islamic learning mobile applications for children of diverse age groups in order to understand what design principles must be followed that increase the usability of the application. The main focus of this research is to observe and evaluate how easily children of different age groups respond to different applications, how effectively the children understand the core features of the applications and how easily they are able to use the application by themselves.
Mobile devices like Smartphones, tablets and PDAs have become an indispensable part of every pers... more Mobile devices like Smartphones, tablets and PDAs have become an indispensable part of every person’s day to day activities. The growth and propagation of the smartphones has created new opportunities for religious app developers to develop apps that will provide utilities and an easy accessibility to religious information. The purpose of this research is to conduct a survey and to classify Islamic apps that are available on Google Play Store. The user surveys were conducted to evaluate and investigate the usage pattern of the Islamic apps in everyday life of the Muslims. The results identify the need of authentication of the app content that gives rise to many critical issues and myths. Also, it stresses the need for a “Religion” category in Google Play Store. The benefit of this research is twofold, as it focuses on identifying which app features Muslim users are more interested in using and secondly, the Islamic apps/features that need to be developed.
The concept of smart city was born to provide improved quality of life to citizens. The key idea ... more The concept of smart city was born to provide improved quality of life to citizens. The key idea is to integrate information system services of each domain, such as health, education, transportation, power grid etc., of the city to provide public services to citizens efficiently and ubiquitously. These expectations induce massive challenges and requirements. This research is aimed to highlight key ICT (Information and Communication Technology) challenges related to adaptation of smart city. Realizing the significance of effective data collection, storage, retrieval, and efficient network resource provisioning, the research proposes a high level architecture for smart city. The proposed framework is based on a hierarchical model of data storage and defines how different stakeholders will be communicating and offering services to citizens. The architecture facilitates step by step implementation towards a smart city, integrating services, as they are developed in a timely manner.
Student Conference On Engineering, Sciences and Technology, 2004
Strong growth of both Internet and mobile communication leads to new promising mass-market end-us... more Strong growth of both Internet and mobile communication leads to new promising mass-market end-user applications. Telecommunications and computing industries are not only merging their main concepts, but working towards a similar goal, namely to have fully co-operative communication systems that help automate various everyday tasks or chores. Software agent technology provides benefit to both the network Manager and the end
International Journal Of Advanced Computer Science And Applications, 2017
Software Defined Networking (SDN) is an emerging network paradigm that provides central control o... more Software Defined Networking (SDN) is an emerging network paradigm that provides central control over the network. Although, this simplifies the network management and makes efficient use of network resources, it introduces new threats to network reliability and scalability. In fact, a single centralized controller is a single point of failure. Moreover, a single controller may become a performance bottleneck as processing overhead increases. Distributed SDN controller platforms improve the reliability and scalability to some extent, however they remain vulnerable to Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, specifically on control plane. We believe that there is a need for a distributed controller framework that is capable of providing service continuity without performance degradation in case of excessive network traffic or DDoS attacks on controller. In this paper, we aim to address the vulnerabilities of SDN control plane. We propose and implement an efficient and Resilient Controller for Software Defined Network (ReCSDN). This framework is capable of detecting and mitigating DDoS attacks timely and ensures the continuity of services without performance degradation. We created an experimental test bed using Mininet to conduct extensive experiments. We deployed ReCSDN on top of Open Network Operating System (ONOS) cluster to confirm the viability of our approach. The experiment results show that with ReCSDN, control plane is not only able to withstand excessive network load but will also continue to provide services in case of any controller failure.
International Journal Of Advanced Computer Science And Applications, 2017
Privacy is an ability to understand, choose, and regulate what personal data one shares, with who... more Privacy is an ability to understand, choose, and regulate what personal data one shares, with whom, for how long and under what context. Data owners must not lose the rights of ownership, once the data is shared. Privacy decisions have many components that include identity, access granularity, time and context. We propose an ontology based model for data privacy configuration in terms of producer and consumer. Producer is an IP entity who owns data, that is Data owner. Consumer is an IP entity with whom data is shared. We differentiate between consumer and data holder, also and IP entity, which may not have similar access rights as consumer. As we rely on Semantic Web technologies to enable these privacy preferences, our proposed vocabulary is platform independent and can thus be used by any system relying on these technologies. Ideally, producers can specify a set of attributes which consumers must satisfy in order to be granted access to the requested information. Privacy can be configured not only in terms of typical read and edit, but novel attributes like location and time are also included in the proposed ontology.
International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications, 2015
The concept of smart city was born to provide improved quality of life to citizens. The key idea ... more The concept of smart city was born to provide improved quality of life to citizens. The key idea is to integrate information system services of each domain, such as health, education, transportation, power grid etc., of the city to provide public services to citizens efficiently and ubiquitously. These expectations induce massive challenges and requirements. This research is aimed to highlight key ICT (Information and Communication Technology) challenges related to adaptation of smart city. Realizing the significance of effective data collection, storage, retrieval, and efficient network resource provisioning, the research proposes a high level architecture for smart city. The proposed framework is based on a hierarchical model of data storage and defines how different stakeholders will be communicating and offering services to citizens. The architecture facilitates step by step implementation towards a smart city, integrating services, as they are developed in a timely manner.
Journal of Engineering Science and Technology, 2019
Wide-scale popularity of Android devices has necessitated the need of having effective means for ... more Wide-scale popularity of Android devices has necessitated the need of having effective means for detection of malicious applications. Machine learning based classification of android applications require training and testing on a large dataset. Motivated by these needs, we provide extensive evaluation of Android applications for classification to either benign or malware applications. Using a 17-node Apache Spark cluster, we utilized seven different machine learning classifiers and applied them on the SherLock dataset-one of the largest available dataset for malware detection of Android applications. From the dataset of 83 attributes, we identified 29 suitable features of applications which are related in identifying a malware. Our analysis revealed that gradient boosted trees classification mechanism provides highest precision and accuracy and lowest false positive rate in detection of malware applications. We also applied our model to develop a real-time cloud based malware detection system. This research is novel and beneficial in providing extensive evaluation using large dataset.
Journal of Network and Computer Applications , 2019
Evolution of smart cities induces critical challenges related to cyber and network security. The ... more Evolution of smart cities induces critical challenges related to cyber and network security. The increased reliance of a smart city on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) infrastructure improves automation, efficiency, and sustainability of city services. However, it also poses enormous challenges for ensuring continued operations and services at all times and especially under cyber-attacks. Any lapse in cyber security can lead to critical disaster across the city. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are considered to be the most predominant and prevalent cyber-attacks. We believe that smart city could consist of numerous applications with varying level of network and security requirements. Therefore, providing an adaptive mechanism against DDoS attacks for all applications in a smart city is a key challenge. Further, considering the wide-scale requirements of a smart city, developing an adaptive and flexible solution is a key requirement. Considering these requirements, this paper presents SEAL (SEcure and AgiLe) – a novel Software Defined Networking (SDN) based adaptive framework for protecting smart city applications against DDoS attacks. The SEAL framework leverages key characteristics of SDN such as the global visibility, centralized control, and programmability to enhance the security and resilience. SEAL is capable of effectively detecting and mitigating DDoS attacks not only on application servers but also on network resources. SEAL is also unique in this regard that it provides application specific DDoS attack security solution instead of static threshold mechanism. Moreover, inherently distributed architecture of the SEAL framework ensures fault tolerance, scalability and reliability of the smart city. The SEAL framework comprises three modules, namely D-Defense, A-Defense and C-Defense. These modules collectively provide a mechanism to detect and mitigate DDoS attack on smart city applications and the network infrastructure. Adaptability in SEAL is achieved through implementing customized version of estimated-weighted moving average (EWMA) filters. Three types of filters, Proactive Filter, Active Filter, and Passive Filter are proposed and implemented to compute the dynamic threshold in real time for various types of applications. Experimental evaluation of the SEAL framework has been conducted to establish the efficacy of the framework and its components in detecting and mitigating DDoS attacks. The results prove that SEAL is able to detect and mitigate DDoS attacks effectively. The focus of the SEAL framework is to protect smart city applications, however, the SEAL framework can potentially be utilized in a wide range of systems.
— Continuous growth and wide-scale popularity of big data systems have highlighted the need of ef... more — Continuous growth and wide-scale popularity of big data systems have highlighted the need of effective incorporation of big data in Computer Science at the undergraduate level. This need has also been inspired by the increasing demand from the industry. This paper is aimed to address this need by proposing a comprehensive elective course on big data systems. Our proposed course has strong emphasis on developing both theoretical as well as practical skills. The course has wide-scale coverage of significant topics related to big data systems. These include platform-related topics such as Hadoop and Spark, batch and stream processing, machine learning and iterative systems. Supported through weekly labs and course projects, the course also encouraged students to apply concepts in solving real-world problems. This paper describes design and structure of the course and explain course contents and students' evaluations. The paper is useful for the community members who would like to strengthen big data curriculum at the undergraduate level.
Smart city brings enormous opportunities and exciting challenges. In a smart city, operations and... more Smart city brings enormous opportunities and exciting challenges. In a smart city, operations and services such as traffic, transport, electric power, and water distribution are monitored, operated, and controlled through ICT based infrastructure, smartly. This allows efficient management of resources and facilitates smooth access to services. However, it also induces stringent requirements and challenges for uninterrupted operation and execution of ICT-based monitoring and controlled infrastructure. Cybersecurity is one of the foremost challenges in a smart city network. That is, protecting the smart city application services from cyber-attacks and ensuring continuity of services is utmost desirable. As smart city services typically comprised of web based applications, application level distributed denial of service (AL-DDoS) attack is a major cybersecurity threat that can have catastrophic impact on an extremely critical smart city network. This paper presents an efficient framework for AL-DDoS attack detection and mitigation for a smart city network. The proposed framework utilizes Software Defined Networking (SDN) paradigm to implement resilient design that ensures continuity of smart city application services. The framework integrates a sound mechanism that distinguishes AL-DDoS attack from legitimate flash crowd. This is a novel framework that addresses the flash crowd attack detection and mitigation in a smart city environment using SDN.
Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks have become a weapon of choice for hackers, cyber ex... more Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks have become a weapon of choice for hackers, cyber extor-tionists, and cyber terrorists. These attacks can swiftly incapacitate a victim, causing huge revenue losses. Despite the large number of traditional mitigation solutions that exists today, DDoS attacks continue to grow in frequency, volume , and severity. This calls for a new network paradigm to address the requirements of today's challenging security threats. Software-defined networking (SDN) is an emerging network paradigm which has gained significant traction by many researchers to address the requirement of today's data centers. Inspired by the capabilities of SDN, we present a comprehensive survey of existing SDN-based DDoS attack detection and mitigation solutions. We classify solutions based on DDoS attack detection techniques and identify requirements of an effective solution. Based on our findings, we propose a novel framework for detection and mitigation of DDoS attacks in a large-scale network which comprises a smart city built on SDN infrastructure. Our proposed framework is capable of meeting application-specific DDoS attack detection and mitigation requirements. The primary contribution of this paper is twofold. First, we provide an in-depth survey and discussion of SDN-based DDoS attack detection and mitigation mechanisms, and we classify them with respect to the detection techniques. Second, leveraging the characteristics of SDN for network security, we propose and present an SDN-based proactive DDoS Defense Framework (ProDefense). We show how this framework can be utilized to secure applications built for smart cities. Moreover, the paper highlights open research challenges, future research directions , and recommendations related to SDN-based DDoS detection and mitigation.
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Papers by Narmeen Zakaria Bawany
of a smart city on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) infrastructure improves automation, efficiency,
and sustainability of city services. However, it also poses enormous challenges for ensuring continued
operations and services at all times and especially under cyber-attacks. Any lapse in cyber security can lead to
critical disaster across the city. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are considered to be the most predominant
and prevalent cyber-attacks. We believe that smart city could consist of numerous applications with
varying level of network and security requirements. Therefore, providing an adaptive mechanism against DDoS
attacks for all applications in a smart city is a key challenge. Further, considering the wide-scale requirements of a
smart city, developing an adaptive and flexible solution is a key requirement. Considering these requirements, this
paper presents SEAL (SEcure and AgiLe) – a novel Software Defined Networking (SDN) based adaptive framework
for protecting smart city applications against DDoS attacks. The SEAL framework leverages key characteristics of
SDN such as the global visibility, centralized control, and programmability to enhance the security and resilience.
SEAL is capable of effectively detecting and mitigating DDoS attacks not only on application servers but also on
network resources. SEAL is also unique in this regard that it provides application specific DDoS attack security
solution instead of static threshold mechanism. Moreover, inherently distributed architecture of the SEAL
framework ensures fault tolerance, scalability and reliability of the smart city. The SEAL framework comprises
three modules, namely D-Defense, A-Defense and C-Defense. These modules collectively provide a mechanism to
detect and mitigate DDoS attack on smart city applications and the network infrastructure. Adaptability in SEAL is
achieved through implementing customized version of estimated-weighted moving average (EWMA) filters. Three
types of filters, Proactive Filter, Active Filter, and Passive Filter are proposed and implemented to compute the
dynamic threshold in real time for various types of applications. Experimental evaluation of the SEAL framework
has been conducted to establish the efficacy of the framework and its components in detecting and mitigating
DDoS attacks. The results prove that SEAL is able to detect and mitigate DDoS attacks effectively. The focus of the
SEAL framework is to protect smart city applications, however, the SEAL framework can potentially be utilized in
a wide range of systems.
of a smart city on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) infrastructure improves automation, efficiency,
and sustainability of city services. However, it also poses enormous challenges for ensuring continued
operations and services at all times and especially under cyber-attacks. Any lapse in cyber security can lead to
critical disaster across the city. Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are considered to be the most predominant
and prevalent cyber-attacks. We believe that smart city could consist of numerous applications with
varying level of network and security requirements. Therefore, providing an adaptive mechanism against DDoS
attacks for all applications in a smart city is a key challenge. Further, considering the wide-scale requirements of a
smart city, developing an adaptive and flexible solution is a key requirement. Considering these requirements, this
paper presents SEAL (SEcure and AgiLe) – a novel Software Defined Networking (SDN) based adaptive framework
for protecting smart city applications against DDoS attacks. The SEAL framework leverages key characteristics of
SDN such as the global visibility, centralized control, and programmability to enhance the security and resilience.
SEAL is capable of effectively detecting and mitigating DDoS attacks not only on application servers but also on
network resources. SEAL is also unique in this regard that it provides application specific DDoS attack security
solution instead of static threshold mechanism. Moreover, inherently distributed architecture of the SEAL
framework ensures fault tolerance, scalability and reliability of the smart city. The SEAL framework comprises
three modules, namely D-Defense, A-Defense and C-Defense. These modules collectively provide a mechanism to
detect and mitigate DDoS attack on smart city applications and the network infrastructure. Adaptability in SEAL is
achieved through implementing customized version of estimated-weighted moving average (EWMA) filters. Three
types of filters, Proactive Filter, Active Filter, and Passive Filter are proposed and implemented to compute the
dynamic threshold in real time for various types of applications. Experimental evaluation of the SEAL framework
has been conducted to establish the efficacy of the framework and its components in detecting and mitigating
DDoS attacks. The results prove that SEAL is able to detect and mitigate DDoS attacks effectively. The focus of the
SEAL framework is to protect smart city applications, however, the SEAL framework can potentially be utilized in
a wide range of systems.