Cyber Warfare

A special issue of Future Internet (ISSN 1999-5903).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 August 2016) | Viewed by 44049

Special Issue Editors

School of Engineering and Information technology, University of New South Wales Canberra, Northcott Drive, Canberra, ACT 2610, Australia
Interests: biometrics; security; cybersecurity; bio-cryptography
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
School of Engineering and Information Technology, University of New South Wales Canberra, Northcott Drive, ACT 2610, Canberra, Australia
Interests: artificial intelligence; cognitive modelling; machine learning
School of Engineering and Information Technology, University of New South Wales Canberra, Northcott Drive, Canberra, ACT 2610, Australia
Interests: computational intelligence; decision analytics; cyber security

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Our increasing dependence on information and communication technologies (ICT) has escalated international concern for cyber-security in the face of politically, socially, and religiously motivated cyber-attacks. The explosion of smart devices in the home and industry is changing the definition of cyberspace, and leading to new types of threats and cyber-attack concepts including hactivism, cyber-terrorism and cyber-bullying.

Cyberspace is both information-rich and ICT dependent. It is well understood that possessing timely and accurate information can result in a competitive advantage, while tactics that interfere with the flow of information can challenge the well-being, success or survival of individuals and groups. Subsequently, important research directions are concerned with understanding the new nature of cyberspace, modelling and predicting the decision-making processes that will ensure information security in that space, as well as the developing novel technologies for preventing or mitigating cyber attacks.

In order to address these threats, this Special Issue intends to collect contributions describing current developments and future research directions in the area of “Cyber Warfare”. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Cyber/information warfare
  • Cyber/information security, network security, mobile and wireless communication security
  • Cyber espionage, attacks, and crime
  • Hacking, hactivism
  • access and identity management
  • Computational modelling in information/cyber warfare
  • Cyber/information warfare decision-analytics
  • Defensive and preventive mechanisms and techniques in information/cyber warfare, including intrusion detection and prevention systems, early warning systems, vulnerability assessment and penetration testing
  • Classification and taxonomy of concepts, approaches, methods and tools related to information/cyber warfare
  • Policy design in in information/ cyber warfare are welcome.

Prof. Dr. Jiankun Hu
Dr. Sherali Zeadally
Dr. Kathryn Merrick
Dr. Kamran Shafi
Guest Editors

Keywords

  • Cyber warfare
  • Information warfare
  • Cyber security
  • Cyber crime
  • Cyber bullying
  • Network security
  • Hacking
  • Hactivism
  • Information warfare modelling including game theory
  • Responding to and preventing information/cyber warfare
  • Intrusion detection systems

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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2583 KiB  
Article
Network Forensics Method Based on Evidence Graph and Vulnerability Reasoning
by Jingsha He, Chengyue Chang, Peng He and Muhammad Salman Pathan
Future Internet 2016, 8(4), 54; https://doi.org/10.3390/fi8040054 - 10 Nov 2016
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 8314
Abstract
As the Internet becomes larger in scale, more complex in structure and more diversified in traffic, the number of crimes that utilize computer technologies is also increasing at a phenomenal rate. To react to the increasing number of computer crimes, the field of [...] Read more.
As the Internet becomes larger in scale, more complex in structure and more diversified in traffic, the number of crimes that utilize computer technologies is also increasing at a phenomenal rate. To react to the increasing number of computer crimes, the field of computer and network forensics has emerged. The general purpose of network forensics is to find malicious users or activities by gathering and dissecting firm evidences about computer crimes, e.g., hacking. However, due to the large volume of Internet traffic, not all the traffic captured and analyzed is valuable for investigation or confirmation. After analyzing some existing network forensics methods to identify common shortcomings, we propose in this paper a new network forensics method that uses a combination of network vulnerability and network evidence graph. In our proposed method, we use vulnerability evidence and reasoning algorithm to reconstruct attack scenarios and then backtrack the network packets to find the original evidences. Our proposed method can reconstruct attack scenarios effectively and then identify multi-staged attacks through evidential reasoning. Results of experiments show that the evidence graph constructed using our method is more complete and credible while possessing the reasoning capability. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Cyber Warfare)
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568 KiB  
Article
A Review on Hot-IP Finding Methods and Its Application in Early DDoS Target Detection
by Xuan Dau Hoang and Hong Ky Pham
Future Internet 2016, 8(4), 52; https://doi.org/10.3390/fi8040052 - 25 Oct 2016
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 6739
Abstract
On the high-speed connections of the Internet or computer networks, the IP (Internet Protocol) packet traffic passing through the network is extremely high, and that makes it difficult for network monitoring and attack detection applications. This paper reviews methods to find the high-occurrence-frequency [...] Read more.
On the high-speed connections of the Internet or computer networks, the IP (Internet Protocol) packet traffic passing through the network is extremely high, and that makes it difficult for network monitoring and attack detection applications. This paper reviews methods to find the high-occurrence-frequency elements in the data stream and applies the most efficient methods to find Hot-IPs that are high-frequency IP addresses of IP packets passing through the network. Fast finding of Hot-IPs in the IP packet stream can be effectively used in early detection of DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack targets and spreading sources of network worms. Research results show that the Count-Min method gives the best overall performance for Hot-IP detection thanks to its low computational complexity, low space requirement and fast processing speed. We also propose an early detection model of DDoS attack targets based on Hot-IP finding, which can be deployed on the target network routers. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Cyber Warfare)
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188 KiB  
Article
Cyber Conflicts as a New Global Threat
by Alexander Kosenkov
Future Internet 2016, 8(3), 45; https://doi.org/10.3390/fi8030045 - 09 Sep 2016
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 7851
Abstract
In this paper, an attempt is made to analyze the potential threats and consequences of cyber conflicts and, in particular, the risks of a global cyber conflict. The material is based on a comprehensive analysis of the nature of cyber conflict and its [...] Read more.
In this paper, an attempt is made to analyze the potential threats and consequences of cyber conflicts and, in particular, the risks of a global cyber conflict. The material is based on a comprehensive analysis of the nature of cyber conflict and its elements from both technical and societal points of view. The approach used in the paper considers the societal component as an essential part of cyber conflicts, allowing basics of cyber conflicts often disregarded by researchers and the public to be highlighted. Finally, the conclusion offers an opportunity to consider cyber conflict as the most advanced form of modern warfare, which imposes the most serious threat and whose effect could be comparable to weapons of mass destruction. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Cyber Warfare)
423 KiB  
Article
Windows Based Data Sets for Evaluation of Robustness of Host Based Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) to Zero-Day and Stealth Attacks
by Waqas Haider, Gideon Creech, Yi Xie and Jiankun Hu
Future Internet 2016, 8(3), 29; https://doi.org/10.3390/fi8030029 - 05 Jul 2016
Cited by 44 | Viewed by 8267
Abstract
The Windows Operating System (OS) is the most popular desktop OS in the world, as it has the majority market share of both servers and personal computing necessities. However, as its default signature-based security measures are ineffectual for detecting zero-day and stealth attacks, [...] Read more.
The Windows Operating System (OS) is the most popular desktop OS in the world, as it has the majority market share of both servers and personal computing necessities. However, as its default signature-based security measures are ineffectual for detecting zero-day and stealth attacks, it needs an intelligent Host-based Intrusion Detection System (HIDS). Unfortunately, a comprehensive data set that reflects the modern Windows OS’s normal and attack surfaces is not publicly available. To fill this gap, in this paper two open data sets generated by the cyber security department of the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA) are introduced, namely: Australian Defence Force Academy Windows Data Set (ADFA-WD); and Australian Defence Force Academy Windows Data Set with a Stealth Attacks Addendum (ADFA-WD: SAA). Statistical analysis results based on these data sets show that, due to the low foot prints of modern attacks and high similarity of normal and attacked data, both these data sets are complex, and highly intelligent Host based Anomaly Detection Systems (HADS) design will be required. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Cyber Warfare)
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760 KiB  
Review
A Survey of Game Theoretic Approaches to Modelling Decision-Making in Information Warfare Scenarios
by Kathryn Merrick, Medria Hardhienata, Kamran Shafi and Jiankun Hu
Future Internet 2016, 8(3), 34; https://doi.org/10.3390/fi8030034 - 22 Jul 2016
Cited by 24 | Viewed by 11570
Abstract
Our increasing dependence on information technologies and autonomous systems has escalated international concern for information- and cyber-security in the face of politically, socially and religiously motivated cyber-attacks. Information warfare tactics that interfere with the flow of information can challenge the survival of individuals [...] Read more.
Our increasing dependence on information technologies and autonomous systems has escalated international concern for information- and cyber-security in the face of politically, socially and religiously motivated cyber-attacks. Information warfare tactics that interfere with the flow of information can challenge the survival of individuals and groups. It is increasingly important that both humans and machines can make decisions that ensure the trustworthiness of information, communication and autonomous systems. Subsequently, an important research direction is concerned with modelling decision-making processes. One approach to this involves modelling decision-making scenarios as games using game theory. This paper presents a survey of information warfare literature, with the purpose of identifying games that model different types of information warfare operations. Our contribution is a systematic identification and classification of information warfare games, as a basis for modelling decision-making by humans and machines in such scenarios. We also present a taxonomy of games that map to information warfare and cyber crime problems as a precursor to future research on decision-making in such scenarios. We identify and discuss open research questions including the role of behavioural game theory in modelling human decision making and the role of machine decision-making in information warfare scenarios. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Cyber Warfare)
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