Optimization of Stealthwatch Network Security System for the Detection and Mitigation of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attack: Application to Smart Grid System

The Smart Grid is an enhancement of the traditional grid system and employs new technologies and sophisticated communication techniques for electrical power transmission and distribution. The Smart Grid’s communication network shares information about status of its several integrated IEDs (Intelligent Electronic Devices). However, the IEDs connected throughout the Smart Grid, open opportunities for attackers to interfere with the communications and utilities resources or take clients’ private data. This development has introduced new cyber-security challenges for the Smart Grid and is a very concerning issue because of emerging cyber-threats and security incidents that have occurred recently all over the world. The purpose of this research is to detect and mitigate Distributed Denial of Service [DDoS] with application to the Electrical Smart Grid System by deploying an optimized Stealthwatch Secure Network analytics tool. In this paper, the DDoS attack in the Smart Grid communication networks was modeled using Stealthwatch tool. The simulated network consisted of Secure Network Analytic tools virtual machines (VMs), electrical Grid network communication topology, attackers and Target VMs. Finally, the experiments and simulations were performed, and the research results showed that Stealthwatch analytic tool is very effective in detecting and mitigating DDoS attacks in the Smart Grid System without causing any blackout or shutdown of any internal systems as compared to other tools such as GNS3, NeSSi2, NISST Framework, OMNeT++, INET Framework, ReaSE, NS2, NS3, M5 Simulator, OPNET, PLC & TIA Portal management Software which do not have the capability to do so. Also, using Stealthwatch tool to create a security baseline for Smart Grid environment, contributes to risk mitigation and sound security hygiene.

Cyberattack Ramifications, The Hidden Cost of a Security Breach

In this in-depth exploration, I delve into the complex implications and costs of cybersecurity breaches. Venturing beyond just the immediate repercussions, the research unearths both the overt and concealed long-term consequences that businesses encounter. This study integrates findings from various research, including quantitative reports, drawing upon real-world incidents faced by both small and large enterprises. This investigation emphasizes the profound intangible costs, such as trade name devaluation and potential damage to brand reputation, which can persist long after the breach. By collating insights from industry experts and a myriad of research, the study provides a comprehensive perspective on the profound, multi-dimensional impacts of cybersecurity incidents. The overarching aim is to underscore the often-underestimated scope and depth of these breaches, emphasizing the entire timeline post-incident and the urgent need for fortified preventative and reactive measures in the digital domain.

The History, Trend, Types, and Mitigation of Distributed Denial of Service Attacks

Over time, the world has transformed digitally and there is total dependence on the internet. Many more gadgets are continuously interconnected in the internet ecosystem. This fact has made the Internet a global information source for every being. Despite all this, attacker knowledge by cybercriminals has advanced and resulted in different attack methodologies on the internet and its data stores. This paper will discuss the origin and significance of Denial of Service (DoS) and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS). These kinds of attacks remain the most effective methods used by the bad guys to cause substantial damage in terms of operational, reputational, and financial damage to organizations globally. These kinds of attacks have hindered network performance and availability. The victim’s network is flooded with massive illegal traffic hence, denying genuine traffic from passing through for authorized users. The paper will explore detection mechanisms, and mitigation techniques for this network threat.

A Machine Learning-Based Distributed Denial of Service Detection Approach for Early Warning in Internet Exchange Points

The Internet service provider(ISP)is the heart of any country’s Internet infrastructure and plays an important role in connecting to theWorld WideWeb.Internet exchange point(IXP)allows the interconnection of two or more separate network infrastructures.All Internet traffic entering a country should pass through its IXP.Thus,it is an ideal location for performing malicious traffic analysis.Distributed denial of service(DDoS)attacks are becoming a more serious daily threat.Malicious actors in DDoS attacks control numerous infected machines known as botnets.Botnets are used to send numerous fake requests to overwhelm the resources of victims and make them unavailable for some periods.To date,such attacks present a major devastating security threat on the Internet.This paper proposes an effective and efficient machine learning(ML)-based DDoS detection approach for the early warning and protection of the Saudi Arabia Internet exchange point(SAIXP)platform.The effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed approach are verified by selecting an accurate ML method with a small number of input features.A chi-square method is used for feature selection because it is easier to compute than other methods,and it does not require any assumption about feature distribution values.Several ML methods are assessed using holdout and 10-fold tests on a public large-size dataset.The experiments showed that the performance of the decision tree(DT)classifier achieved a high accuracy result(99.98%)with a small number of features(10 features).The experimental results confirmthe applicability of using DT and chi-square for DDoS detection and early warning in SAIXP.

Central Aggregator Intrusion Detection System for Denial of Service Attacks

Vehicle-to-grid technology is an emerging field that allows unused power from Electric Vehicles(EVs)to be used by the smart grid through the central aggregator.Since the central aggregator is connected to the smart grid through a wireless network,it is prone to cyber-attacks that can be detected and mitigated using an intrusion detection system.However,existing intrusion detection systems cannot be used in the vehicle-to-grid network because of the special requirements and characteristics of the vehicle-to-grid network.In this paper,the effect of denial-of-service attacks of malicious electric vehicles on the central aggregator of the vehicle-to-grid network is investigated and an intrusion detection system for the vehicle-to-grid network is proposed.The proposed system,central aggregator–intrusion detection system(CA-IDS),works as a security gateway for EVs to analyze andmonitor incoming traffic for possible DoS attacks.EVs are registered with a Central Aggregator(CAG)to exchange authenticated messages,and malicious EVs are added to a blacklist for violating a set of predefined policies to limit their interaction with the CAG.A denial of service(DoS)attack is simulated at CAG in a vehicle-to-grid(V2G)network manipulating various network parameters such as transmission overhead,receiving capacity of destination,average packet size,and channel availability.The proposed system is compared with existing intrusion detection systems using different parameters such as throughput,jitter,and accuracy.The analysis shows that the proposed system has a higher throughput,lower jitter,and higher accuracy as compared to the existing schemes.

Adaptive Butterfly Optimization Algorithm(ABOA)Based Feature Selection and Deep Neural Network(DNN)for Detection of Distributed Denial-of-Service(DDoS)Attacks in Cloud

Cloud computing technology provides flexible,on-demand,and completely controlled computing resources and services are highly desirable.Despite this,with its distributed and dynamic nature and shortcomings in virtualization deployment,the cloud environment is exposed to a wide variety of cyber-attacks and security difficulties.The Intrusion Detection System(IDS)is a specialized security tool that network professionals use for the safety and security of the networks against attacks launched from various sources.DDoS attacks are becoming more frequent and powerful,and their attack pathways are continually changing,which requiring the development of new detection methods.Here the purpose of the study is to improve detection accuracy.Feature Selection(FS)is critical.At the same time,the IDS’s computational problem is limited by focusing on the most relevant elements,and its performance and accuracy increase.In this research work,the suggested Adaptive butterfly optimization algorithm(ABOA)framework is used to assess the effectiveness of a reduced feature subset during the feature selection phase,that was motivated by this motive Candidates.Accurate classification is not compromised by using an ABOA technique.The design of Deep Neural Networks(DNN)has simplified the categorization of network traffic into normal and DDoS threat traffic.DNN’s parameters can be finetuned to detect DDoS attacks better using specially built algorithms.Reduced reconstruction error,no exploding or vanishing gradients,and reduced network are all benefits of the changes outlined in this paper.When it comes to performance criteria like accuracy,precision,recall,and F1-Score are the performance measures that show the suggested architecture outperforms the other existing approaches.Hence the proposed ABOA+DNN is an excellent method for obtaining accurate predictions,with an improved accuracy rate of 99.05%compared to other existing approaches.

Threshold-Based Software-Defined Networking(SDN)Solution for Healthcare Systems against Intrusion Attacks

The healthcare sector holds valuable and sensitive data.The amount of this data and the need to handle,exchange,and protect it,has been increasing at a fast pace.Due to their nature,software-defined networks(SDNs)are widely used in healthcare systems,as they ensure effective resource utilization,safety,great network management,and monitoring.In this sector,due to the value of thedata,SDNs faceamajor challengeposed byawide range of attacks,such as distributed denial of service(DDoS)and probe attacks.These attacks reduce network performance,causing the degradation of different key performance indicators(KPIs)or,in the worst cases,a network failure which can threaten human lives.This can be significant,especially with the current expansion of portable healthcare that supports mobile and wireless devices for what is called mobile health,or m-health.In this study,we examine the effectiveness of using SDNs for defense against DDoS,as well as their effects on different network KPIs under various scenarios.We propose a threshold-based DDoS classifier(TBDC)technique to classify DDoS attacks in healthcare SDNs,aiming to block traffic considered a hazard in the form of a DDoS attack.We then evaluate the accuracy and performance of the proposed TBDC approach.Our technique shows outstanding performance,increasing the mean throughput by 190.3%,reducing the mean delay by 95%,and reducing packet loss by 99.7%relative to normal,with DDoS attack traffic.

Internet of Things Enabled DDoS Attack Detection Using Pigeon Inspired Optimization Algorithm with Deep Learning Approach

Internet of Things(IoTs)provides better solutions in various fields,namely healthcare,smart transportation,home,etc.Recognizing Denial of Service(DoS)outbreaks in IoT platforms is significant in certifying the accessibility and integrity of IoT systems.Deep learning(DL)models outperform in detecting complex,non-linear relationships,allowing them to effectually severe slight deviations fromnormal IoT activities that may designate a DoS outbreak.The uninterrupted observation and real-time detection actions of DL participate in accurate and rapid detection,permitting proactive reduction events to be executed,hence securing the IoT network’s safety and functionality.Subsequently,this study presents pigeon-inspired optimization with a DL-based attack detection and classification(PIODL-ADC)approach in an IoT environment.The PIODL-ADC approach implements a hyperparameter-tuned DL method for Distributed Denial-of-Service(DDoS)attack detection in an IoT platform.Initially,the PIODL-ADC model utilizes Z-score normalization to scale input data into a uniformformat.For handling the convolutional and adaptive behaviors of IoT,the PIODL-ADCmodel employs the pigeon-inspired optimization(PIO)method for feature selection to detect the related features,considerably enhancing the recognition’s accuracy.Also,the Elman Recurrent Neural Network(ERNN)model is utilized to recognize and classify DDoS attacks.Moreover,reptile search algorithm(RSA)based hyperparameter tuning is employed to improve the precision and robustness of the ERNN method.A series of investigational validations is made to ensure the accomplishment of the PIODL-ADC method.The experimental outcome exhibited that the PIODL-ADC method shows greater accomplishment when related to existing models,with a maximum accuracy of 99.81%.

Reckoning with COVID-19 denial: Brazil's exemplary model for global response

In the aftermath of the coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19)pandemic in Brazil,accountability is crucial for those who denied the severity of the virus,spreading false information and causing harm.Some individuals have already faced legal proceedings against them,revealing economic motivations behind their actions.It is equally important to hold doctors accountable for prescribing ineffective treatments,putting the population at risk.The leaders of the denial movement and the federal government,who mishandled the pandemic,should be held accountable for the high death toll.Seeking justice from the legislative and executive branches is necessary,along with exemplary measures for those who spread misinformation about COVID-19.

A Novel Formal Theory for Security Protocol Analysis of Denial of Service Based on Extended Strand Space Model

Denial of Service Distributed Denial of Service （DOS） attack, especially （DDoS） attack, is one of the greatest threats to Internet. Much research has been done for it by now, however, it is always concentrated in the behaviors of the network and can not deal with the problem exactly. In this paper, we start from the security of the protocol, then we propose a novel theory for security protocol analysis of Denial of Service in order to deal with the DoS attack. We first introduce the conception of weighted graph to extend the strand space model, then we extend the penetrator model and define the goal of anti-DoS attack through the conception of the DoS-stop protocol, finally we propose two kinds of DoS test model and erect the novel formal theory for security protocol analysis of Denial of Service. Our new formal theory is applied in two example protocols. It is proved that the Internet key exchange （IKE） easily suffers from the DoS attacks, and the efficient DoS- resistant secure key exchange protocol （JFK） is resistant against DoS attack for the server, respectively.

Game-theoretical Model for Dynamic Defense Resource Allocation in Cyber-physical Power Systems Under Distributed Denial of Service Attacks

Electric power grids are evolving into complex cyber-physical power systems(CPPSs)that integrate advanced information and communication technologies(ICTs)but face increasing cyberspace threats and attacks.This study considers CPPS cyberspace security under distributed denial of service(DDoS)attacks and proposes a nonzero-sum game-theoretical model with incomplete information for appropriate allocation of defense resources based on the availability of limited resources.Task time delay is applied to quantify the expected utility as CPPSs have high time requirements and incur massive damage DDoS attacks.Different resource allocation strategies are adopted by attackers and defenders under the three cases of attack-free,failed attack,and successful attack,which lead to a corresponding consumption of resources.A multidimensional node value analysis is designed to introduce physical and cybersecurity indices.Simulation experiments and numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model for the appropriate allocation of defense resources in CPPSs under limited resource availability.

Dialogic Function of Denial Resource in Political Commentaries: A Perspective of Appraisal

Appraisal is a major kind of discourse semantic resources construing interpersonal meaning, which includes three subsystems: attitude, engagement and graduation. Engagement resources are linguistic resources of inter- subjective positioning,through which writers or speakers open up or close down dialogic space for putative reader and try to align or disalign readers on the ground of solidarity. This study applies engagement system to analyze political commentaries. It focuses on the denial resources in detail. In political commentaries, by using denial resources, the commentator invokes, and then directly rejects different opinions or beliefs the putative readers may have. Through strategy of dialogic resources, commentators try to make up for disalignments caused by denial and form the grounds for solidarity.

The detection method of low-rate DoS attack based on multi-feature fusion

As a new type of Denial of Service(DoS)attacks,the Low-rate Denial of Service(LDoS)attacks make the traditional method of detecting Distributed Denial of Service Attack(DDoS)attacks useless due to the characteristics of a low average rate and concealment.With features extracted from the network traffic,a new detection approach based on multi-feature fusion is proposed to solve the problem in this paper.An attack feature set containing the Acknowledge character(ACK)sequence number,the packet size,and the queue length is used to classify normal and LDoS attack traffics.Each feature is digitalized and preprocessed to fit the input of the K-Nearest Neighbor(KNN)classifier separately,and to obtain the decision contour matrix.Then a posteriori probability in the matrix is fused,and the fusion decision index D is used as the basis of detecting the LDoS attacks.Experiments proved that the detection rate of the multi-feature fusion algorithm is higher than those of the single-based detection method and other algorithms.

Formalized Description of Distributed Denial of Service Attack

The distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack is one of the dangers in intrusion modes. It's difficult to defense and can cause serious damage to the system. Based on a careful study of the attack principles and characteristics, an object-oriented formalized description is presented, which contains a three-level framework and offers full specifications of all kinds of DDoS modes and their features and the relations between one another. Its greatest merit lies in that it contributes to analyzing, checking and judging DDoS. Now this formalized description has been used in a special IDS and it works very effectively.(

Denial of Service Due to Direct and Indirect ARP Storm Attacks in LAN Environment

ARP-based Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks due to ARP-storms can happen in local area networks where many computer systems are infected by worms such as Code Red or by DDoS agents. In ARP attack, the DDoS agents constantly send a barrage of ARP requests to the gateway, or to a victim computer within the same sub-network, and tie up the resource of attacked gateway or host. In this paper, we set to measure the impact of ARP-attack on resource exhaustion of computers in a local area network. Based on attack experiments, we measure the exhaustion of processing and memory resources of a victim computer and also other computers, which are located on the same network as the victim computer. Interestingly enough, it is observed that an ARP-attack not only exhausts resource of the victim computer but also significantly exhausts processing resource of other non-victim computers, which happen to be located on the same local area network as the victim computer.

Paradox of Denials in All My Sons

Arthur Miller,who was one of the greatest American playwrights of the 20th century.In All My Sons,different sorts of denials lead to the family’s collapse and Keller’s death.Paradoxically,the very denial that is designed to protect him from prosecution and incarceration is followed by a chain of events that lead to Keller’s own self-imprisonment and self-imposed execution.Denial also exists in the history of some countries,such as Germany,Japan and America and so on.My paper aims to explore the paradox of denial both in our history and in literature works.My paper will demonstrate that denial has some negative effects both on the outer-world and the inner-world through thorough analysis on the characters in All My Sons.

The decision-making of treatment and outcome in elderly Chinese patients with severe aortic stenosis

Objective There is a consensus that intervention should be advised in patients with severe,symptomatic aortic stenosis(AS).Decision to operate raises specific problems in the elderly because of the increasing operative comorbidity and mortality.However,little is known regarding the proportion of Chinese patients who denied to receive intervention and the reasons leading to the denial.This study is designed to analyze factors associated with decision-making and prognosis in elderly patients with severe,symptomatic AS.

A Solution for Fighting Spammer's Resources and Minimizing the Impact of Spam

Spam or unsolicited emails constitute a major threat to the Internet, the corporations, and the end-users. Statistics show that about 70% - 80% of the emails are spam. There are several techniques that have been implemented to react to the spam on its arrival. These techniques consist in filtering the emails and placing them in the Junk or Spam folders of the users. Regardless of the accuracy of these techniques, they are all passive. In other words, they are like someone is hitting you and you are trying by all the means to protect yourself from these hits without fighting your opponent. As we know the proverbs 'The best defense is a good offense' or 'Attack is the best form of defense'. Thus, we believe that attacking the spammers is the best way to minimize their impact. Spammers send millions of emails to the users for several reasons and usually they include some links or images that direct the user to some web pages or simply to track the users. The proposed idea of attacking the spammers is by building some software to collect these links from the Spam and Junk folders of the users. Then, the software periodically and actively visit these links and the subsequent redirect links as if a user clicks on these links or as if the user open the email containing the tracking link. If this software is used by millions of users (included in the major email providers), then this will act as a storm of Distributed Denial of Service attack on the spammers servers and there bandwidth will be completely consumed by this act. In this case, no human can visit their sites because they will be unavailable. In this paper, we describe this approach and show its effectiveness. In addition, we present an application we have developed that can be used for this reason.

Linguistic Planning and the Status of Official Languages in Kosova During the Years 1999-2009

The issue of linguistic planning, choice of variant for increasing in standard norm, the determination of official status of appropriate language in certain countries, has been a concern, as it was also the orientation of different linguistic studies. In this work, we will try to treat the process of linguistic planning and of the official status of languages in Kosova during 1999-2009. In this context we do not intend to exhaust of handling with this problem, but we will try to present some issues and problems in which languages in Kosova have passed through. This issue is interesting for studies in sociolinguistic field in general and particularly in Albanian language.

Experimental Evaluation of Cisco ASA-5510 Intrusion Prevention System against Denial of Service Attacks

Cyber attacks are continuing to hamper working of Internet services despite increase in the use of network security systems such as, firewalls and Intrusion protection systems (IPS). Recent Denial of Service (DoS) attack on Independence Day weekend, on July 4th, 2009 launched to debilitate the US and South Korean governments’ websites is indicative of the fact that the security systems may not have been adequately deployed to counteract such attacks. IPS is a vital security device which is commonly used as a front line defense mechanism to defend against such DoS attacks. Before deploying a firewall or an IPS device for network protection, in many deployments, the performance of firewalls is seldom evaluated for their effectiveness. Many times, these IPS’s can become bottleneck to the network performance and they may not be effective in stopping DoS attacks. In this paper, we intend to drive the point that deploying IPS may not always be effective in stopping harmful effects of DoS attacks. It is important to evaluate the capability of IPS before they are deployed to protect a network or a server against DoS attacks. In this paper, we evaluate performance of a commercial grade IPS Cisco ASA-5510 IPS to measure its effectiveness in stopping a DoS attacks namely TCP-SYN, UDP Flood, Ping Flood and ICMP Land Attacks. This IPS comes with features to counteract and provide security against these attacks. Performance of the IPS is measured under these attacks protection and compared with its performance when these protection features were not available (i.e. disabled). It was found that the IPS was unable to provide satisfactory protection despite the availability of the protection features against these flooding attacks. It is important for the network managers to measure the actual capabilities of an IPS system before its deployment to protect critical information infrastructure.