@conference {334, title = {Automatic Feedback Control for Graceful Degradation of Real-Time Services in the Face of an Attack}, booktitle = {2018 IEEE 4th International Conference on Collaboration and Internet Computing (CIC)}, year = {2018}, month = {Oct}, abstract = {

Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks continue to pose a serious threat to various businesses and consumers. With the growth in the number of devices connected to the internet, these attacks continue to grow in number. Despite the availability of security tools, the attacks continue to happen and are causing various businesses to sweat. These tools may take anywhere from a few hours to a few days to counter the attacks, which is unacceptable. In this paper, we put forth a novel feedback control mechanism to minimize the effect of volumetric attacks such as DDoS. During an attack, the feedback control model detects and reduces the impact of the attack by maintaining the service level agreements (SLA) of the network service. The controller makes intelligent decisions to ensure the quality of service (QoS) metrics are gracefully degraded by tuning the micro-firewall rules such as the committed information rate and burst size. A proportional Integral (PI) controller is used as a closed-loop feedback controller to maintain the stability of the network in spite of an attack. This proposed architecture is verified in a lab setup, and we observe that we are able to minimize the degradation of the real-time service so that the user{\textquoteright}s quality of experience (QoE) is preserved. We validate the proposed architecture with a model generated by using the system identification technique. Results from the setup show that the closed-loop feedback control model stabilizes the network in real-time.

}, keywords = {authorisation, automatic feedback control, closed loop systems, closed-loop feedback control model, Computer crime, computer network management, computer network security, DDoS, Distributed Denial of Service attacks, feedback control, Graceful Degradation, Internet, Mathematical model, network service, Packet loss, PI control, proportional Integral controller, QoE, QoS, quality of experience, quality of service, Real Time Services, real-time service, real-time systems, Resilient, service level agreements, service metrics, SLA, state space, Streaming media, System Identification, volumetric attacks}, doi = {10.1109/CIC.2018.00-37}, author = {Vempati, Jagannadh and Ram Dantu} } @conference {322, title = {A Decentralized Marketplace Application on the Ethereum Blockchain}, booktitle = {IEEE 4th International Conference on Collaboration and Internet Computing (CIC)}, year = {2018}, month = {10/2018}, publisher = {IEEE}, organization = {IEEE}, address = {Philadelphia, PA, USA}, abstract = {

Modern centralized online marketplaces such as eBay offer an alternative option for consumers to both sell and purchase goods with relative ease. However, drawbacks to these marketplaces include the platform{\textquoteright}s ability to block merchants at their own whim, the fees paid to the platform when listing a product and when selling a product, and the lack of privacy of users{\textquoteright} data. In this paper, we propose an application that remedies all three of these drawbacks through use of the Ethereum blockchain platform. The application was developed using the Truffle development framework. The application{\textquoteright}s functions were contained within an Ethereum smart contract, which was then migrated to the Ethereum network. The user{\textquoteright}s input was read through a web interface and sent to the Ethereum network via the web3.js API. Statistics about the application were gathered on the Rinkeby test network. The application was shown to have an average transaction runtime of 3.8 seconds, and an average gas consumption of 4.6 wei. Contract creation times for the application were shown to be less than a second. A cost analysis of the application was then conducted. The gas consumption of the transactions needed to both buy and sell a product was converted into US dollars, and the gas cost of the application was then compared to the cost to use an online auction marketplace such as eBay as well as an in-person auction house such as Sotheby{\textquoteright}s. The results showed that selling on the application is cheaper than existing online options as well as existing in-person options. These tests showed that our application was successful in addressing the drawbacks of current auction marketplaces.

}, keywords = {API, application program interfaces, auction marketplaces, average gas consumption, blockchain, centralized online marketplaces, Computer science, contract creation times, cost analysis, Cryptocurrency, decentralized, decentralized marketplace application, e-commerce, eBay, electronic commerce, Ethereum, Ethereum blockchain platform, Ethereum network, Ethereum smart contract, gas cost, human factors, in-person options, Internet, marketplace, Measurement, online auction marketplace, online options, peer-to-peer computing, Rinkeby test network, security of data, smart contract, Truffle development framework, user data, user interfaces, Web interface}, doi = {10.1109/CIC.2018.00023}, author = {Ranganthan, Vishnu Prasad and Ram Dantu and Paul, Aditya and Mears, Paula and Morozov, Kirill} } @conference {340, title = {Uninterrupted Video Surveillance in the Face of an Attack}, booktitle = {2018 17th IEEE International Conference On Trust, Security And Privacy In Computing And Communications/ 12th IEEE International Conference On Big Data Science And Engineering (TrustCom/BigDataSE)}, year = {2018}, month = {Aug}, abstract = {

Distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks continue to plague businesses and consumers alike, and due to an ever-growing digital landscape, these attacks are expected to grow in size and complexity. Current mitigation techniques ranging from hours to days are completely unacceptable given the cost and inconvenience these attacks place in our society. This paper puts forth three feedback control mechanisms to minimize the effects of DDoS attacks on real-time traffic. The first, called differentiated services code point (DSCP) Markdown, is a passive approach that uses micro firewall rules to lower the priority of out-of-profile packets while a second mechanism actively drops the out-of-profile packets based on rate and burst size parameters. The third technique uses parallel links when feedback is applied to stabilize the network after an attack has been detected. Results from all three techniques have shown to have a positive effect on real-time traffic. The first two approaches were able to stabilize network traffic in real-time, while the parallel links technique resulted in a slight delay. We validate the feedback mechanisms with our model that was generated using the system identification technique. Results show that the feedback architecture provides a fit accuracy with positive results.

}, keywords = {attack mitigation techniques, authorisation, autoregressive processes, burst size parameters, Computer crime, computer network security, DDoS, DDoS attacks, differentiated services code point markdown, DiffServ networks, distributed denial of service attack, DSCP, DSCP Markdown approach, feedback control, feedback mechanisms, Internet, IP networks, Jitter, Mathematical model, micro-firewall, out-of-profile packets, parallel links technique, QoS, quality of service, real-time services, real-time systems, Resilient, Streaming media, system identification technique, uninterrupted video surveillance, video surveillance}, doi = {10.1109/TrustCom/BigDataSE.2018.00121}, author = {Vempati, Jagannadh and Ram Dantu and Thompson, Mark} } @conference {107, title = {An opportunistic encryption extension for the DNS protocol}, booktitle = {Intelligence and Security Informatics (ISI), 2015 IEEE International Conference on}, year = {2015}, month = {May}, abstract = {

Confidentiality for DNS transactions has been a low-priority concern in DNS security for a long time due to performance requirements for the functionality of DNS and the fact that data in the DNS is considered public. However, the information carried in DNS transactions, if collected and analyzed, can pose real threats to personal privacy. This makes DNS a good target for passive eavesdropping to collect data for many purposes some of which may be malicious. The protocol described in this document is intended to facilitate an opportunistic negotiation of encryption in the DNS to provide confidentiality for the last mile of DNS resolution. It defines procedures to discover encryption-aware servers and how to establish a relationship with them with minimum overhead.

}, keywords = {computer network security, cryptographic protocols, DNS protocol, DNS security, DNS transactions, encryption, Internet, opportunistic encryption extension, passive eavesdropping, performance requirements, personal privacy, pose real threats, Privacy, Protocols, Public key, servers}, doi = {10.1109/ISI.2015.7165976}, author = {Bucuti, Theogene and Ram Dantu} } @conference {75, title = {Unveiling Hidden Patterns to Find Social Relevance}, booktitle = {Privacy, Security, Risk and Trust (PASSAT) and 2011 IEEE Third Inernational Conference on Social Computing (SocialCom), 2011 IEEE Third International Conference on}, year = {2011}, month = {Oct}, abstract = {

Twitter is both a useful social networking device and an incredible marketing tool. However, it is also a venue for dangerous stalkers and a sub-world of internet users that most people would intuitively avoid if seeing them in real life. It would improve Twitter{\textquoteright}s safety to have filters available which would allow users to select an audience for their status updates without being forced into changing their profiles to a private setting. The hypothetical filter, or model, studied in this paper was based on two particular attributes: activity correlations and vocabulary similarities between users and followers. If implemented, this model would restrict the availability of status updates to an automatically generated group of socially relevant followers. The result of this study shows that both of the attributes can be used to define social relevance, however, it was found that activity patterns have better predictive capabilities than correlating vocabulary usage between users and followers.

}, keywords = {activity correlations, Correlation, dangerous stalkers, data privacy, Facebook, hidden patterns, Internet, Internet users, marketing tool, Online Social Networks, Polynomials, Privacy, social networking (online), social networking device, social relevance, Twitter, Twitter safety, Vocabulary, vocabulary similarities}, doi = {10.1109/PASSAT/SocialCom.2011.103}, author = {Baatarjav, Enkh-Amgalan and Ram Dantu} } @conference {32, title = {Traffic Shaping of Spam Botnets}, booktitle = {2008 5th IEEE Consumer Communications and Networking Conference}, year = {2008}, month = {01/2008}, address = {Las Vegas, NV}, abstract = {

Compromised computers, known as bots, are the major source of spamming. Detecting them can help greatly improve control of unwanted traffic. In this paper, we develop a traffic control mechanism to detect and delay the traffic of suspicious senders and bots. By delaying spammer{\textquoteright}s traffic, it has been reported that 90\% of spam emails can be eliminated. In our proposed mechanism, we group spammers based on their behavior and transmission patterns. These patterns of spammers show high correlation between group members irrespective of geographic location, network ID, content, and kind of receivers. After identification of these botnet groups we applied traffic shaping techniques a pre-filtering analysis to avoid use of automated machines(bots) to spam a particular domain. Thus the source for majority of spam is blocked before reaching email servers. We also identify how randomly the botnets behave and how easy it is to capture a botnet behavior, based on Information theory. To our knowledge, there is no work reported on detecting and mitigating botnets based on their behavior and in particular transmission patterns.

}, keywords = {automated machine, compromised computer, E-mail server, Internet, prefiltering analysis, spam botnets, spammer traffic, spamming, suspicious senders, telecommunication network management, telecommunication traffic, traffic control mechanism, traffic shaping, unsolicited e-mail}, doi = {10.1109/ccnc08.2007.181}, author = {Husna, Husain and Phithakkitnukoon, Santi and Ram Dantu} }