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Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Machine learning is of rising importance in cybersecurity. The primary objective of applying machine learning in cybersecurity is to make the process of malware detection more actionable, scalable and effective than traditional... more
Machine learning is of rising importance in cybersecurity. The primary objective of applying machine learning in cybersecurity is to make the process of malware detection more actionable, scalable and effective than traditional approaches, which require human intervention. The cybersecurity domain involves machine learning challenges that require efficient methodical and theoretical handling. Several machine learning and statistical methods, such as deep learning, support vector machines and Bayesian classification, among others, have proven effective in mitigating cyber-attacks. The detection of hidden trends and insights from network data and building of a corresponding data-driven machine learning model to prevent these attacks is vital to design intelligent security systems. In this survey, the focus is on the machine learning techniques that have been implemented on cybersecurity data to make these systems secure. Existing cybersecurity threats and how machine learning techniqu...
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With the increase in popularity of mobile devices for personal and business reasons, they have become even more attractive targets to malicious actors. There are many vulnerabilities with any mobile device, though some environments,... more
With the increase in popularity of mobile devices for personal and business reasons, they have become even more attractive targets to malicious actors. There are many vulnerabilities with any mobile device, though some environments, features, and operating systems are at higher risk than others for certain attacks. This paper discusses such vulnerabilities, including the elements that allow them, methods of exploiting them, and one might combat attacks on mobile devices.
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Ethical hacking education prepares future information security professionals with the tools and skills to fight and prevent cybersecurity threats. Businesses, schools, governments, and individuals have an increasing concern to keep their... more
Ethical hacking education prepares future information security professionals with the tools and skills to fight and prevent cybersecurity threats. Businesses, schools, governments, and individuals have an increasing concern to keep their systems, networks, and data secure from outside threats. Most information security technologies use a defensive approach to keep client’s data safe; however, ethical hacking provides one of the only proactive/aggressive methods for information security professionals to utilize. Teaching inexperienced information security professionals these aggressive tactics can be viewed as a double- edged sword. Since they are the same methods used by malicious hackers, educating new security professionals will undoubtedly educate more malicious hackers.
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A smart grid refers to a digitized and intelligently controlled electrical power system. Intelligent monitoring and communication of digital information can support two-way between consumers and providers. The work of this paper concerns... more
A smart grid refers to a digitized and intelligently controlled electrical power system. Intelligent monitoring and communication of digital information can support two-way between consumers and providers. The work of this paper concerns modeling of dynamic pricing, potentially helping to improve efficiency of electricity consumption and delivery. A simple variant of collaborative filtering is applied for dynamically predicting prices. Information on power consumption periods, and history of purchase levels and prices are used as input. The collaborative filtering approach is compared with a naïve forecasting method and the Winter method for incorporating seasonality. Actual price data is available for use in validating the models, which reveals that the collaborative filtering method provides the best results.
Computer security measures are applied to protect company data from unauthorized access. The aspects of such computer security, need to be known to the business professionals and owners. This paper proposes a new view of computer security... more
Computer security measures are applied to protect company data from unauthorized access. The aspects of such computer security, need to be known to the business professionals and owners. This paper proposes a new view of computer security in the business world by informing business professionals and owners about data breaches. The suggested methods are not very complex as they are meant to be used by companies who do not yet have a computer security team, though we highly recommend investing company money into professional computer security roles. This research is done while considering the rapid growth of both the tech industry and the everyday vulnerabilities that come along with any evolving sector of business. The results show that computer usage has only increased in the past 10 years. With this increase, data breaches have also increased. In the business world, research shows this could be very detrimental for most businesses. Investing in Computer Security and protecting your company from a data breach is ideal in the capitalist, technological we live in today.
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Anonymity is easy to accomplish on the internet through VPNs and onion routing. Anonymity can be good if you are trying to view pro-democracy content or western news in China, however, not all people are gaining internet anonymity for... more
Anonymity is easy to accomplish on the internet through VPNs and onion routing. Anonymity can be good if you are trying to view pro-democracy content or western news in China, however, not all people are gaining internet anonymity for altruistic reasons. Internet crime has been on the rise and web browsers like TOR are helping to facilitate internet crime. The dark web is helping create online marketplaces for illicit goods, and these web criminals are harder to catch and with globalization even harder to prosecute. Law enforcement has been struggling to curtail internet crime due to a knowledge barrier and further jurisdictional problems once perpetrators are apprehended. The goal of this paper is to analyze how the dark web works, secures anonymity, and how it helps protect criminals and allow illegal marketplaces. It also aims to discuss different strategies law enforcement has been adapting to crack down on internet crime.
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When surfing the internet, your input data can be put into one website, but do we have any concrete idea that who can see it. The hacking community lies within the bottom layers of the internet and can be fishing for people's data... more
When surfing the internet, your input data can be put into one website, but do we have any concrete idea that who can see it. The hacking community lies within the bottom layers of the internet and can be fishing for people's data with intentions to fix the security flaw or to steal the person's data for financial gain. It is important to classify these hackers and figure out where the line is between good and bad to further create restrictions and stop hackers from harming people's data.
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When inquiring about a new computer, the deciding factor is usually which computer is the best for a user's specific needs. It all comes down to the operating system and system specifications and what the computer can and cannot... more
When inquiring about a new computer, the deciding factor is usually which computer is the best for a user's specific needs. It all comes down to the operating system and system specifications and what the computer can and cannot support. It is also important to highlight what features each Operating System must suit the user's specific computing needs. These results will demonstrate the pros and cons of each major Operating System and will provide information that will help the user decide which Operating System fits their criteria the closest.
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The Internet of Things is becoming a topic of conversation more and more in the realm of computer security. Broadband internet is widely more available now and the cost of connecting is steadily going down. Tools like Shodan.io have... more
The Internet of Things is becoming a topic of conversation more and more in the realm of computer security. Broadband internet is widely more available now and the cost of connecting is steadily going down. Tools like Shodan.io have highlighted the enormity of both the Internet of Things landscape and the many Internet of Things problems now facing security professionals. In this paper, the well-known methods of Internet of Things security assessment and infrastructure hardening, are explored. This paper also explained the new impacts of Shodan.io and its fascinating ability to easily identify and probe internet connected Internet Connection Sharing devices and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition devices today. Example attacks as well as an in depth analysis of device hardening techniques is included with instruction. The goal is to assess the tools available and empower security professionals and teams facing these new large scale challenges into the future.
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Utilization of sandboxing is wide known within the computer security field. The main issue many encounter in this sphere is how prohibitive the cost can be to emulate the network of large companies with massive infrastructures. As the... more
Utilization of sandboxing is wide known within the computer security field. The main issue many encounter in this sphere is how prohibitive the cost can be to emulate the network of large companies with massive infrastructures. As the cost to setup clones of these networks would just be cost prohibitive. However, the solution may be already within our grasp as we have more budget friendly devices like the Raspberry Pi. It is possible to install OSes like Kali Linux to perform penetration testing on Pis. Hence, we can utilize Pis in a manner that enable a more sophisticated network for learning while keeping a similar budget to that of the current methods for cyber security research labs.
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Machine learning algorithms are becoming very efficient in intrusion detection systems with their real time response and adaptive learning process. A robust machine learning model can be deployed for anomaly detection by using a... more
Machine learning algorithms are becoming very efficient in intrusion detection systems with their real time response and adaptive learning process. A robust machine learning model can be deployed for anomaly detection by using a comprehensive dataset with multiple attack types. Nowadays datasets contain many attributes. Such high dimensionality of datasets poses a significant challenge to information extraction in terms of time and space complexity. Moreover, having so many attributes may be a hindrance towards creation of a decision boundary due to noise in the dataset. Large scale data with redundant or insignificant features increases the computational time and often decreases goodness of fit which is a critical issue in cybersecurity. In this research, we have proposed and implemented an efficient feature selection algorithm to filter insignificant variables. Our proposed Dynamic Feature Selector (DFS) uses statistical analysis and feature importance tests to reduce model comple...
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Mobile devices are used almost every day by a large population of the world. If your device is not running Apple's operating system, it is most likely running Google's Android operating system. We see Android OS in phones,... more
Mobile devices are used almost every day by a large population of the world. If your device is not running Apple's operating system, it is most likely running Google's Android operating system. We see Android OS in phones, tablets, and e-readers. Since Android OS is so popular, it comes with a lot of security issues, being open source comes with a lot of threats from malicious users that have access to the software. Due to this, Android users must take extra precautions when it comes to protecting their devices. This paper will discuss what these threats to Android devices are and how someone would go about protecting their devices.
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Linux is used in a large variety of situations, from private homes on personal machines to businesses storing personal data on servers. This operating system is often seen as more secure than Windows or Mac OS X, but this does not mean... more
Linux is used in a large variety of situations, from private homes on personal machines to businesses storing personal data on servers. This operating system is often seen as more secure than Windows or Mac OS X, but this does not mean that there are no security concerns to be had when running it. Attackers can crack simple passwords over a network, vulnerabilities can be exploited if firewalls do not close enough ports, and malware can be downloaded and run on a Linux system. In addition, sensitive information can be accessed through physical or network access if proper permissions are not set on the files or directories containing it. However, most of these attacks can be prevented by keeping a system up to date, maintaining a secure firewall, using an antivirus, making complex passwords, and setting strong file permissions. This paper presents a list of methods for securing a Linux system from both external and internal threats.
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Mobile devices are being used more frequently and for more activities in daily life. Cell phones, for example are no longer being used only for communication. They have also become primary tools for business and financial use. Mobile... more
Mobile devices are being used more frequently and for more activities in daily life. Cell phones, for example are no longer being used only for communication. They have also become primary tools for business and financial use. Mobile devices are now a major target for attack and many users are unaware that they are even vulnerable. With these devices being used for more tasks involving sensitive information, it is important for users to be aware of these vulnerabilities. This paper aims to identify common attacks on these devices and describe methods to combat them. Bluetooth attacks will have a more in-depth examination covering various attacks on Bluetooth devices and the solutions, if any, to stop them.
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Mobile devices have exploded in popularity in the past decades due to their ability to function in both people’s personal lives as well as the business world. Having a computer in your pocket that can let you connect with people around... more
Mobile devices have exploded in popularity in the past decades due to their ability to function in both people’s personal lives as well as the business world. Having a computer in your pocket that can let you connect with people around the world and give you access to any information with a few taps presents both good and bad possibilities. While people are more accustomed to facing computer viruses, mobile devices are not immune to the everlooming threat of hackers and in some cases may be even more vulernable. Given how common "Bring Your Own Device" policies are becoming in the business worlds, one simple user clicking a phising link in an email they think is legitimate can lead to massive network hacks. Devices can only have so much security built into them, which means that the user must be knowledgeable of what usage habits will allow for not only them but others who may be on the same network to have secure usage.
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The immune system of the human body follows a process that is adaptive and learns via experience. Some algorithms are designed to take advantage of this process to determine solutions for complex problem domains. The collection of these... more
The immune system of the human body follows a process that is adaptive and learns via experience. Some algorithms are designed to take advantage of this process to determine solutions for complex problem domains. The collection of these algorithms is known as Artificial Immune Systems. Among this collection, one important algorithm is "The Danger Theory." In this thesis, an application of the algorithm has been implemented to solve an electrical grid problem. This problem of interest is the automatic detection of faulty and failure conditions in the electrical grid. A novel application of the Artificial Immune System algorithm is presented to solve this problem (i.e., to find faults in electrical-grid data in an automated fashion). The methodology treats streams of electrical-grid data as artificial antigens, and uses artificial antibodies to identify and locate potentially harmful conditions in the grid. The results demonstrate that the approach is promising. I believe this approach has a good contribution for the emerging field of Smart Grids.NDSU Computer Science Departmen
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Research Interests:
Research Interests:
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PurposeThe problem of protecting information and data flows has existed from the very first day of information exchange. Various approaches have been devised to protect and transfer such information securely. However, as technology and... more
PurposeThe problem of protecting information and data flows has existed from the very first day of information exchange. Various approaches have been devised to protect and transfer such information securely. However, as technology and communications advance and information management systems become more and more powerful and distributed, the problem has taken on new and more complex dimensions and has become a major challenge. The widespread use of wired and wireless communication networks, internet, web applications and computing has increased the gravity of the problem. Organizations are totally dependent on reliable, secure and fault‐tolerant systems, communications, applications and information bases. Unfortunately, serious security and privacy breaches still occur every day, creating an absolute necessity to provide secure and safe information security systems through the use of firewalls, intrusion detection and prevention systems (ID/PSs), encryption, authentication and othe...
Research Interests: Information Systems, Computer Science, Information Security, Information Management, Machine Learning, and 15 moreData Mining, Arsenic, Computer Security, Autonomic Computing, Risk Analysis, Intrusion Detection, Data Security, Information Exchange, Artificial Intelligent, Design Methodology, Intrusion Detection System, Information Management System, Data Flow Diagram, Computer, and Data Format
The emergence of cloud computing has allowed for a more efficient use of system and business resources for many users and organizations. The market of the cloud computing business has grown worldwide. The reason for this rapid adoption... more
The emergence of cloud computing has allowed for a more efficient use of system and business resources for many users and organizations. The market of the cloud computing business has grown worldwide. The reason for this rapid adoption rate is related to the many advantages of moving to the cloud as opposed to hosting computing resources internally in a privately owned cloud datacenter. However, there is one glaring drawback to cloud computing: the housing of your data is in the hands of an outside entity. In this paper, we will expand on publicly known cloud data breaches, how they were carried out, where the implemented security controls failed, and the effects of the breaches. By this paper’s end, we look to inform the reader of the recent data breaches related to cloud datacenters and their technology, and how future computer security analysts can work with the cloud infrastructure to optimize cloud resources while implementing strong security controls.