Blockchain-Enabled Cybersecurity Provision for Scalable Heterogeneous Network:A Comprehensive Survey

Blockchain-enabled cybersecurity system to ensure and strengthen decentralized digital transaction is gradually gaining popularity in the digital era for various areas like finance,transportation,healthcare,education,and supply chain management.Blockchain interactions in the heterogeneous network have fascinated more attention due to the authentication of their digital application exchanges.However,the exponential development of storage space capabilities across the blockchain-based heterogeneous network has become an important issue in preventing blockchain distribution and the extension of blockchain nodes.There is the biggest challenge of data integrity and scalability,including significant computing complexity and inapplicable latency on regional network diversity,operating system diversity,bandwidth diversity,node diversity,etc.,for decision-making of data transactions across blockchain-based heterogeneous networks.Data security and privacy have also become the main concerns across the heterogeneous network to build smart IoT ecosystems.To address these issues,today’s researchers have explored the potential solutions of the capability of heterogeneous network devices to perform data transactions where the system stimulates their integration reliably and securely with blockchain.The key goal of this paper is to conduct a state-of-the-art and comprehensive survey on cybersecurity enhancement using blockchain in the heterogeneous network.This paper proposes a full-fledged taxonomy to identify the main obstacles,research gaps,future research directions,effective solutions,andmost relevant blockchain-enabled cybersecurity systems.In addition,Blockchain based heterogeneous network framework with cybersecurity is proposed in this paper tomeet the goal of maintaining optimal performance data transactions among organizations.Overall,this paper provides an in-depth description based on the critical analysis to overcome the existing work gaps for future research where it presents a potential cybersecurity design with key requirements of blockchain across a heterogeneous network.

Enhancing Cybersecurity through Cloud Computing Solutions in the United States

This study investigates how cybersecurity can be enhanced through cloud computing solutions in the United States. The motive for this study is due to the rampant loss of data, breaches, and unauthorized access of internet criminals in the United States. The study adopted a survey research design, collecting data from 890 cloud professionals with relevant knowledge of cybersecurity and cloud computing. A machine learning approach was adopted, specifically a random forest classifier, an ensemble, and a decision tree model. Out of the features in the data, ten important features were selected using random forest feature importance, which helps to achieve the objective of the study. The study’s purpose is to enable organizations to develop suitable techniques to prevent cybercrime using random forest predictions as they relate to cloud services in the United States. The effectiveness of the models used is evaluated by utilizing validation matrices that include recall values, accuracy, and precision, in addition to F1 scores and confusion matrices. Based on evaluation scores (accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 scores) of 81.9%, 82.6%, and 82.1%, the results demonstrated the effectiveness of the random forest model. It showed the importance of machine learning algorithms in preventing cybercrime and boosting security in the cloud environment. It recommends that other machine learning models be adopted to see how to improve cybersecurity through cloud computing.

A Hybrid Cybersecurity Algorithm for Digital Image Transmission over Advanced Communication Channel Models

The efficient transmission of images,which plays a large role inwireless communication systems,poses a significant challenge in the growth of multimedia technology.High-quality images require well-tuned communication standards.The Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiple Access(SC-FDMA)is adopted for broadband wireless communications,because of its low sensitivity to carrier frequency offsets and low Peak-to-Average Power Ratio(PAPR).Data transmission through open-channel networks requires much concentration on security,reliability,and integrity.The data need a space away fromunauthorized access,modification,or deletion.These requirements are to be fulfilled by digital image watermarking and encryption.This paper ismainly concerned with secure image communication over the wireless SC-FDMA systemas an adopted communication standard.It introduces a robust image communication framework over SC-FDMA that comprises digital image watermarking and encryption to improve image security,while maintaining a high-quality reconstruction of images at the receiver side.The proposed framework allows image watermarking based on the Discrete Cosine Transform(DCT)merged with the Singular Value Decomposition(SVD)in the so-called DCT-SVD watermarking.In addition,image encryption is implemented based on chaos and DNA encoding.The encrypted watermarked images are then transmitted through the wireless SC-FDMA system.The linearMinimumMean Square Error(MMSE)equalizer is investigated in this paper to mitigate the effect of channel fading and noise on the transmitted images.Two subcarrier mapping schemes,namely localized and interleaved schemes,are compared in this paper.The study depends on different channelmodels,namely PedestrianAandVehicularA,with a modulation technique namedQuadratureAmplitude Modulation(QAM).Extensive simulation experiments are conducted and introduced in this paper for efficient transmission of encrypted watermarked images.In addition,different variants of SC-FDMA based on the Discrete Wavelet Transform(DWT),Discrete Cosine Transform(DCT),and Fast Fourier Transform(FFT)are considered and compared for the image communication task.The simulation results and comparison demonstrate clearly that DWT-SC-FDMAis better suited to the transmission of the digital images in the case of PedestrianAchannels,while the DCT-SC-FDMA is better suited to the transmission of the digital images in the case of Vehicular A channels.

Network Traffic Synthesis and Simulation Framework for Cybersecurity Exercise Systems

In the rapidly evolving field of cybersecurity,the challenge of providing realistic exercise scenarios that accurately mimic real-world threats has become increasingly critical.Traditional methods often fall short in capturing the dynamic and complex nature of modern cyber threats.To address this gap,we propose a comprehensive framework designed to create authentic network environments tailored for cybersecurity exercise systems.Our framework leverages advanced simulation techniques to generate scenarios that mirror actual network conditions faced by professionals in the field.The cornerstone of our approach is the use of a conditional tabular generative adversarial network(CTGAN),a sophisticated tool that synthesizes realistic synthetic network traffic by learning fromreal data patterns.This technology allows us to handle technical components and sensitive information with high fidelity,ensuring that the synthetic data maintains statistical characteristics similar to those observed in real network environments.By meticulously analyzing the data collected from various network layers and translating these into structured tabular formats,our framework can generate network traffic that closely resembles that found in actual scenarios.An integral part of our process involves deploying this synthetic data within a simulated network environment,structured on software-defined networking(SDN)principles,to test and refine the traffic patterns.This simulation not only facilitates a direct comparison between the synthetic and real traffic but also enables us to identify discrepancies and refine the accuracy of our simulations.Our initial findings indicate an error rate of approximately 29.28%between the synthetic and real traffic data,highlighting areas for further improvement and adjustment.By providing a diverse array of network scenarios through our framework,we aim to enhance the exercise systems used by cybersecurity professionals.This not only improves their ability to respond to actual cyber threats but also ensures that the exercise is cost-effective and efficient.

Enable Excel-Based Basic Cybersecurity Features for End Users by Using Python-Excel Integration

In the digital age, the global character of the Internet has significantly improved our daily lives by providing access to large amounts of knowledge and allowing for seamless connections. However, this enormously interconnected world is not without its risks. Malicious URLs are a powerful menace, masquerading as legitimate links while holding the intent to hack computer systems or steal sensitive personal information. As the sophistication and frequency of cyberattacks increase, identifying bad URLs has emerged as a critical aspect of cybersecurity. This study presents a new approach that enables the average end-user to check URL safety using Microsoft Excel. Using the powerful VirusTotal API for URL inspections, this study creates an Excel add-in that integrates Python and Excel to deliver a seamless, user-friendly interface. Furthermore, the study improves Excel’s capabilities by allowing users to encrypt and decrypt text communications directly in the spreadsheet. Users may easily encrypt their conversations by simply typing a key and the required text into predefined cells, enhancing their personal cybersecurity with a layer of cryptographic secrecy. This strategy democratizes access to advanced cybersecurity solutions, making attentive digital integrity a feature rather than a daunting burden.

Closing the Gap: Boosting Women’s Representation in Cybersecurity Leadership

The research consistently highlights the gender disparity in cybersecurity leadership roles, necessitating targeted interventions. Biased recruitment practices, limited STEM education opportunities for girls, and workplace culture contribute to this gap. Proposed solutions include addressing biased recruitment through gender-neutral language and blind processes, promoting STEM education for girls to increase qualified female candidates, and fostering inclusive workplace cultures with mentorship and sponsorship programs. Gender parity is crucial for the industry’s success, as embracing diversity enables the cybersecurity sector to leverage various perspectives, drive innovation, and effectively combat cyber threats. Achieving this balance is not just about fairness but also a strategic imperative. By embracing concerted efforts towards gender parity, we can create a more resilient and impactful cybersecurity landscape, benefiting industry and society.

Artificial Intelligence Adoption for Cybersecurity in Africa

Legacy-based threat detection systems have not been able to keep up with the exponential growth in scope, frequency, and effect of cybersecurity threats. Artificial intelligence is being used as a result to help with the issue. This paper’s primary goal is to examine how African nations are utilizing artificial intelligence to defend their infrastructure against cyberattacks. Artificial intelligence (AI) systems will make decisions that impact Africa’s future. The lack of technical expertise, the labor pool, financial resources, data limitations, uncertainty, lack of structured data, absence of government policies, ethics, user attitudes, insufficient investment in research and development, and the requirement for more adaptable and dynamic regulatory systems all pose obstacles to the adoption of AI technologies in Africa. The paper discusses how African countries are adopting artificial intelligence solutions for cybersecurity. And it shows the impact of AI to identify shadow data, monitor for abnormalities in data access and alert cyber security professionals about potential threats by anyone accessing the data or sensitive information saving valuable time in detecting and remediating issues in real-time. The study finds that 69.16% of African companies are implementing information security strategies and of these, 45% said they use technologies based on AI algorithms. This study finds that a large number of African businesses use tools that can track and analyze user behaviour in designated areas and spot anomalies, such as new users, strange IP addresses and login activity, changes to permissions on files, folders, and other resources, and the copying or erasure of massive amounts of data. Thus, we discover that just 18.18% of the target has no national cybersecurity strategy or policy. The study proposes using big data security analytics to integrate AI. Adopting it would be beneficial for all African nations, as it provides a range of cyberattack defense techniques.

Cybersecurity Challenge in Nigeria Deposit Money Banks

The study investigates cybersecurity challenges in Nigerian deposit money banks (DMBs) with a focus on proactive measures taken by banks and customers to overcome these challenges. The research design employs a descriptive approach and census sampling, with data collected from staff of selected DMBs using questionnaires. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS, and findings indicate that the major challenges confronting cybersecurity in banks were pharming, identity theft, SIM Swap fraud, Skimming/Website cloning and Smishing/Vishing. The major factors responsible were found to include loopholes in the banks’ internal control system, insider abuse by bank staff, ignorance and lack of security consciousness among the banking customers etc. it was found that banks implement measures such as encryption, password changes, and blocking unsolicited messages to mitigate cybersecurity risks. The study concludes with recommendations for continuous security updates, internal control reviews, and customer education campaigns. While the study addresses an important topic, there are areas where clarity, depth, and methodological rigor could be strengthened for a more robust contribution to the field.

A Review of Cybersecurity Challenges in Small Business: The Imperative for a Future Governance Framework

Technological shifts—coupled with infrastructure, techniques, and applications for big data—have created many new opportunities, business models, and industry expansion that benefit entrepreneurs. At the same time, however, entrepreneurs are often unprepared for cybersecurity needs—and the policymakers, industry, and nonprofit groups that support them also face technological and knowledge constraints in keeping up with their needs. To improve the ability of entrepreneurship research to understand, identify, and ultimately help address cybersecurity challenges, we conduct a literature review on the state of cybersecurity. The research highlights the necessity for additional investigation to aid small businesses in securing their confidential data and client information from cyber threats, thereby preventing the potential shutdown of the business.

Navigating AI Cybersecurity: Evolving Landscape and Challenges

The rapid integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into critical sectors has revealed a complex landscape of cybersecurity challenges that are unique to these advanced technologies. AI systems, with their extensive data dependencies and algorithmic complexities, are susceptible to a broad spectrum of cyber threats that can undermine their functionality and compromise their integrity. This paper provides a detailed analysis of these threats, which include data poisoning, adversarial attacks, and systemic vulnerabilities that arise from the AI’s operational and infrastructural frameworks. This paper critically examines the effectiveness of existing defensive mechanisms, such as adversarial training and threat modeling, that aim to fortify AI systems against such vulnerabilities. In response to the limitations of current approaches, this paper explores a comprehensive framework for the design and implementation of robust AI systems. This framework emphasizes the development of dynamic, adaptive security measures that can evolve in response to new and emerging cyber threats, thereby enhancing the resilience of AI systems. Furthermore, the paper addresses the ethical dimensions of AI cybersecurity, highlighting the need for strategies that not only protect systems but also preserve user privacy and ensure fairness across all operations. In addition to current strategies and ethical concerns, this paper explores future directions in AI cybersecurity.

Scale, Complexity, and Cybersecurity Risk Management

Elementary information theory is used to model cybersecurity complexity, where the model assumes that security risk management is a binomial stochastic process. Complexity is shown to increase exponentially with the number of vulnerabilities in combination with security risk management entropy. However, vulnerabilities can be either local or non-local, where the former is confined to networked elements and the latter results from interactions between elements. Furthermore, interactions involve multiple methods of communication, where each method can contain vulnerabilities specific to that method. Importantly, the number of possible interactions scales quadratically with the number of elements in standard network topologies. Minimizing these interactions can significantly reduce the number of vulnerabilities and the accompanying complexity. Two network configurations that yield sub-quadratic and linear scaling relations are presented.

Enhancing Cybersecurity through AI and ML: Strategies, Challenges, and Future Directions

The landscape of cybersecurity is rapidly evolving due to the advancement and integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML). This paper explores the crucial role of AI and ML in enhancing cybersecurity defenses against increasingly sophisticated cyber threats, while also highlighting the new vulnerabilities introduced by these technologies. Through a comprehensive analysis that includes historical trends, technological evaluations, and predictive modeling, the dual-edged nature of AI and ML in cybersecurity is examined. Significant challenges such as data privacy, continuous training of AI models, manipulation risks, and ethical concerns are addressed. The paper emphasizes a balanced approach that leverages technological innovation alongside rigorous ethical standards and robust cybersecurity practices. This approach facilitates collaboration among various stakeholders to develop guidelines that ensure responsible and effective use of AI in cybersecurity, aiming to enhance system integrity and privacy without compromising security.

AssessITS: Integrating Procedural Guidelines and Practical Evaluation Metrics for Organizational IT and Cybersecurity Risk Assessment

In today’s digitally driven landscape, robust Information Technology (IT) risk assessment practices are essential for safeguarding systems, digital communication, and data. This paper introduces “AssessITS,” an actionable method designed to provide organizations with comprehensive guidelines for conducting IT and cybersecurity risk assessments. Drawing extensively from NIST 800-30 Rev 1, COBIT 5, and ISO 31000, “AssessITS” bridges the gap between high-level theoretical standards and practical implementation challenges. The paper outlines a step-by-step methodology that organizations can simply adopt to systematically identify, analyze, and mitigate IT risks. By simplifying complex principles into actionable procedures, this framework equips practitioners with the tools needed to perform risk assessments independently, without too much reliance on external vendors. The guidelines are developed to be straightforward, integrating practical evaluation metrics that allow for the precise quantification of asset values, threat levels, vulnerabilities, and impacts on confidentiality, integrity, and availability. This approach ensures that the risk assessment process is not only comprehensive but also accessible, enabling decision-makers to implement effective risk mitigation strategies customized to their unique operational contexts. “AssessITS” aims to enable organizations to enhance their IT security strength through practical, actionable guidance based on internationally recognized standards.

Deep Learning Based Attack Detection for Cyber-Physical System Cybersecurity:A Survey

With the booming of cyber attacks and cyber criminals against cyber-physical systems(CPSs),detecting these attacks remains challenging.It might be the worst of times,but it might be the best of times because of opportunities brought by machine learning(ML),in particular deep learning(DL).In general,DL delivers superior performance to ML because of its layered setting and its effective algorithm for extract useful information from training data.DL models are adopted quickly to cyber attacks against CPS systems.In this survey,a holistic view of recently proposed DL solutions is provided to cyber attack detection in the CPS context.A six-step DL driven methodology is provided to summarize and analyze the surveyed literature for applying DL methods to detect cyber attacks against CPS systems.The methodology includes CPS scenario analysis,cyber attack identification,ML problem formulation,DL model customization,data acquisition for training,and performance evaluation.The reviewed works indicate great potential to detect cyber attacks against CPS through DL modules.Moreover,excellent performance is achieved partly because of several highquality datasets that are readily available for public use.Furthermore,challenges,opportunities,and research trends are pointed out for future research.

A Practical Approach to Constructing a Knowledge Graph for Cybersecurity

Cyberattack forms are complex and varied, and the detection and prediction of dynamic types of attack are always challenging tasks. Research on knowledge graphs is becoming increasingly mature in many fields. At present, it is very significant that certain scholars have combined the concept of the knowledge graph with cybersecurity in order to construct a cybersecurity knowledge base. This paper presents a cybersecurity knowledge base and deduction rules based on a quintuple model. Using machine learning, we extract entities and build ontology to obtain a cybersecurity knowledge base. New rules are then deduced by calculating formulas and using the path-ranking algorithm. The Stanford named entity rec- ognizer （NER） is also used to train an extractor to extract useful information. Experimental results show that the Stanford NER provides many features and the useGazettes parameter may be used to train a rec- ognizer in the cybersecurity domain in preparation for future work.

Using Event-Based Method to Estimate Cybersecurity Equilibrium

Estimating the global state of a networked system is an important problem in many application domains.The classical approach to tackling this problem is the periodic(observation)method,which is inefficient because it often observes states at a very high frequency.This inefficiency has motivated the idea of event-based method,which leverages the evolution dynamics in question and makes observations only when some rules are triggered(i.e.,only when certain conditions hold).This paper initiates the investigation of using the event-based method to estimate the equilibrium in the new application domain of cybersecurity,where equilibrium is an important metric that has no closed-form solutions.More specifically,the paper presents an event-based method for estimating cybersecurity equilibrium in the preventive and reactive cyber defense dynamics,which has been proven globally convergent.The presented study proves that the estimated equilibrium from our trigger rule i)indeed converges to the equilibrium of the dynamics and ii)is Zeno-free,which assures the usefulness of the event-based method.Numerical examples show that the event-based method can reduce 98%of the observation cost incurred by the periodic method.In order to use the event-based method in practice,this paper investigates how to bridge the gap between i)the continuous state in the dynamics model,which is dubbed probability-state because it measures the probability that a node is in the secure or compromised state,and ii)the discrete state that is often encountered in practice,dubbed sample-state because it is sampled from some nodes.This bridge may be of independent value because probability-state models have been widely used to approximate exponentially-many discrete state systems.

Deep Learning Empowered Cybersecurity Spam Bot Detection for Online Social Networks

Cybersecurity encompasses various elements such as strategies,policies,processes,and techniques to accomplish availability,confidentiality,and integrity of resource processing,network,software,and data from attacks.In this scenario,the rising popularity of Online Social Networks(OSN)is under threat from spammers for which effective spam bot detection approaches should be developed.Earlier studies have developed different approaches for the detection of spam bots in OSN.But those techniques primarily concentrated on hand-crafted features to capture the features of malicious users while the application of Deep Learning(DL)models needs to be explored.With this motivation,the current research article proposes a Spam Bot Detection technique using Hybrid DL model abbreviated as SBDHDL.The proposed SBD-HDL technique focuses on the detection of spam bots that exist in OSNs.The technique has different stages of operations such as pre-processing,classification,and parameter optimization.Besides,SBD-HDL technique hybridizes Graph Convolutional Network(GCN)with Recurrent Neural Network(RNN)model for spam bot classification process.In order to enhance the detection performance of GCN-RNN model,hyperparameters are tuned using Lion Optimization Algorithm(LOA).Both hybridization of GCN-RNN and LOA-based hyperparameter tuning process make the current work,a first-of-its-kind in this domain.The experimental validation of the proposed SBD-HDL technique,conducted upon benchmark dataset,established the supremacy of the technique since it was validated under different measures.

The New Frontiers of Cybersecurity

Security technology is a special kind of companion technology that is developed for the underlying applications it serves. It is becoming increasingly critical in today＇s society, as these underlying applications become more and more interconnected, pervasive, and intelligent. In recent years, we have witnessed the prolifera- tion of cutting-edge computing and information technologies in a wide range of emerging areas, such as cloud computing.

An Analysis of Cybersecurity Attacks against Internet of Things and Security Solutions

Internet of Things (IoT) has become a prevalent topic in the world of technology. It helps billion of devices to connect to the internet so that they can exchange data with each other. Nowadays, the IoT can be applied in anything, from cellphones, coffee makers, cars, body sensors to smart surveillance, water distribution, energy management system, and environmental monitoring. However, the rapid growth of IoT has brought new and critical threats to the security and privacy of the users. Due to the millions of insecure IoT devices, an adversary can easily break into an application to make it unstable and steal sensitive user information and data. This paper provides an overview of different kinds of cybersecurity attacks against IoT devices as well as an analysis of IoT architecture. It then discusses the security solutions we can take to protect IoT devices against different kinds of security attacks. The main goal of this research is to enhance the development of IoT research by highlighting the different kinds of security challenges that IoT is facing nowadays, and the existing security solutions we can implement to make IoT devices more secure. In this study, we analyze the security solutions of IoT in three forms: secure authentication, secure communications, and application security to find suitable security solutions for protecting IoT devices.

Intelligent Deep Learning Based Cybersecurity Phishing Email Detection and Classification

Phishing is a type of cybercrime in which cyber-attackers pose themselves as authorized persons or entities and hack the victims’sensitive data.E-mails,instant messages and phone calls are some of the common modes used in cyberattacks.Though the security models are continuously upgraded to prevent cyberattacks,hackers find innovative ways to target the victims.In this background,there is a drastic increase observed in the number of phishing emails sent to potential targets.This scenario necessitates the importance of designing an effective classification model.Though numerous conventional models are available in the literature for proficient classification of phishing emails,the Machine Learning(ML)techniques and the Deep Learning(DL)models have been employed in the literature.The current study presents an Intelligent Cuckoo Search(CS)Optimization Algorithm with a Deep Learning-based Phishing Email Detection and Classification(ICSOA-DLPEC)model.The aim of the proposed ICSOA-DLPEC model is to effectually distinguish the emails as either legitimate or phishing ones.At the initial stage,the pre-processing is performed through three stages such as email cleaning,tokenization and stop-word elimination.Then,the N-gram approach is;moreover,the CS algorithm is applied to extract the useful feature vectors.Moreover,the CS algorithm is employed with the Gated Recurrent Unit(GRU)model to detect and classify phishing emails.Furthermore,the CS algorithm is used to fine-tune the parameters involved in the GRU model.The performance of the proposed ICSOA-DLPEC model was experimentally validated using a benchmark dataset,and the results were assessed under several dimensions.Extensive comparative studies were conducted,and the results confirmed the superior performance of the proposed ICSOA-DLPEC model over other existing approaches.The proposed model achieved a maximum accuracy of 99.72%.