This paper investigates whether security headers are enforced to mitigate cyber-attacks in web-based systems in cyberspace. The security headers examined include X-Content-Type-Options, X-Frame-Options, Strict-Transpo...This paper investigates whether security headers are enforced to mitigate cyber-attacks in web-based systems in cyberspace. The security headers examined include X-Content-Type-Options, X-Frame-Options, Strict-Transport-Security, Referrer-Policy, Content-Security-Policy, and Permissions-Policy. The study employed a controlled experiment using a security header analysis tool. The web-based applications (websites) were analyzed to determine whether security headers have been correctly implemented. The experiment was iterated for 100 universities in Africa which are ranked high. The purposive sampling technique was employed to understand the status quo of the security headers implementations. The results revealed that 70% of the web-based applications in Africa have not enforced security headers in web-based applications. The study proposes a secure system architecture design for addressing web-based applications’ misconfiguration and insecure design. It presents security techniques for securing web-based applications through hardening security headers using automated threat modelling techniques. Furthermore, it recommends adopting the security headers in web-based applications using the proposed secure system architecture design.展开更多
Providing reliable compositions of Web Services is a challenging issue since the workflow architect often has only a limited control over the reliability of the composed services. The architect can instead achieve rel...Providing reliable compositions of Web Services is a challenging issue since the workflow architect often has only a limited control over the reliability of the composed services. The architect can instead achieve reliability by properly planning the workflow architecture. To this end he must be able to evaluate and compare the reliability of multiple architectural solutions. In this paper we present a useful tool which allows to conduct reliability analysis on planned workflows, as well as to compare the reliability of alternative solutions in a what-if analysis. The tool is implemented as a plug-in for the widely adopted Active BPEL Designer and exploits the concept of reliability pattern to evaluate the reliability formula of the workflow. The effectiveness of the approach and the operation of the tool are demonstrated with respect to a case study of a business security infrastructure realized by orchestrating simple security services.展开更多
This study describes the development of a simple biometric facial recognition system, BFMT, which is designed for use in identifying individuals within a given population. The system is based on digital signatures der...This study describes the development of a simple biometric facial recognition system, BFMT, which is designed for use in identifying individuals within a given population. The system is based on digital signatures derived from facial images of human subjects. The results of the study demonstrate that a particular set of facial features from a simple two-dimensional image can yield a unique digital signature which can be used to identify a subject from a limited population within a controlled environment. The simplicity of the model upon which the system is based can result in commercial facial recognition systems that are more cost-effective to develop than those currently on the market.展开更多
The recent growth of the World Wide Web has sparked new research into using the Internet for novel types of group communication, like multiparty videoconferencing and real-time streaming. Multicast has the potential t...The recent growth of the World Wide Web has sparked new research into using the Internet for novel types of group communication, like multiparty videoconferencing and real-time streaming. Multicast has the potential to be very useful, but it suffers from many problems like security. To achieve secure multicast communications with the dynamic aspect of group applications due to free membership joins and leaves in addition to member's mobility, key management is one of the most critical problems. So far, a lot of multicast key management schemes have been proposed and most of them are centralized, which have the problem of 'one point failure' and that the group controller is the bottleneck of the group. In order to solve these two problems, we propose a Key Management Scheme, using cluster-based End-System Multicast (ESM). The group management is between both 1) the main controller (MRP, Main Rendezvous Point) and the second controllers (CRP, Cluster RP), and 2) the second controllers (CRPs) and its members. So, ESM simplifies the implementation of group communication and is efficient ways to deliver a secure message to a group of recipients in a network as a practical alternative to overcome the difficulty of large scale deployment of traditional IP multicast. In this paper, we analyze different key management schemes and propose a new scheme, namely Advanced Transition/Cluster Key management Scheme (ATCKS) and find it has appropriate performance in security.展开更多
文摘This paper investigates whether security headers are enforced to mitigate cyber-attacks in web-based systems in cyberspace. The security headers examined include X-Content-Type-Options, X-Frame-Options, Strict-Transport-Security, Referrer-Policy, Content-Security-Policy, and Permissions-Policy. The study employed a controlled experiment using a security header analysis tool. The web-based applications (websites) were analyzed to determine whether security headers have been correctly implemented. The experiment was iterated for 100 universities in Africa which are ranked high. The purposive sampling technique was employed to understand the status quo of the security headers implementations. The results revealed that 70% of the web-based applications in Africa have not enforced security headers in web-based applications. The study proposes a secure system architecture design for addressing web-based applications’ misconfiguration and insecure design. It presents security techniques for securing web-based applications through hardening security headers using automated threat modelling techniques. Furthermore, it recommends adopting the security headers in web-based applications using the proposed secure system architecture design.
文摘Providing reliable compositions of Web Services is a challenging issue since the workflow architect often has only a limited control over the reliability of the composed services. The architect can instead achieve reliability by properly planning the workflow architecture. To this end he must be able to evaluate and compare the reliability of multiple architectural solutions. In this paper we present a useful tool which allows to conduct reliability analysis on planned workflows, as well as to compare the reliability of alternative solutions in a what-if analysis. The tool is implemented as a plug-in for the widely adopted Active BPEL Designer and exploits the concept of reliability pattern to evaluate the reliability formula of the workflow. The effectiveness of the approach and the operation of the tool are demonstrated with respect to a case study of a business security infrastructure realized by orchestrating simple security services.
文摘This study describes the development of a simple biometric facial recognition system, BFMT, which is designed for use in identifying individuals within a given population. The system is based on digital signatures derived from facial images of human subjects. The results of the study demonstrate that a particular set of facial features from a simple two-dimensional image can yield a unique digital signature which can be used to identify a subject from a limited population within a controlled environment. The simplicity of the model upon which the system is based can result in commercial facial recognition systems that are more cost-effective to develop than those currently on the market.
文摘The recent growth of the World Wide Web has sparked new research into using the Internet for novel types of group communication, like multiparty videoconferencing and real-time streaming. Multicast has the potential to be very useful, but it suffers from many problems like security. To achieve secure multicast communications with the dynamic aspect of group applications due to free membership joins and leaves in addition to member's mobility, key management is one of the most critical problems. So far, a lot of multicast key management schemes have been proposed and most of them are centralized, which have the problem of 'one point failure' and that the group controller is the bottleneck of the group. In order to solve these two problems, we propose a Key Management Scheme, using cluster-based End-System Multicast (ESM). The group management is between both 1) the main controller (MRP, Main Rendezvous Point) and the second controllers (CRP, Cluster RP), and 2) the second controllers (CRPs) and its members. So, ESM simplifies the implementation of group communication and is efficient ways to deliver a secure message to a group of recipients in a network as a practical alternative to overcome the difficulty of large scale deployment of traditional IP multicast. In this paper, we analyze different key management schemes and propose a new scheme, namely Advanced Transition/Cluster Key management Scheme (ATCKS) and find it has appropriate performance in security.
