Anthropomorphizing malware, bots, and servers with human-like images and dialogues: the emotional design effects in a multimedia learning environment

Emotional design refers to imbuing a multimedia learning environment with design attributes that promote learners’ positive affect and motivation to enhance learning. One such feature is anthropomorphism, in which human-like attributes are infused into learning elements in a multimedia learning environment. This study examines the affective, motivational, and cognitive effects of incorporating cute and funny human-like images and dialogues into learning objects depicting malware, bots, and servers in an animation conveying a lesson on how a distributed denial-of-service attack occurs. A between-subjects online experiment was conducted in which undergraduates from a large Asian university (n = 70) engaged with either the anthropomorphized or non-anthropomorphized multimedia lesson. The findings partially supported the anthropomorphism effects on learners’ affective-motivational states insofar as the anthropomorphized multimedia lesson evoked a significantly greater change of positive affect but did not differently affect intrinsic motivation and learning outcome than the non-anthropomorphized version. Concerning cognitive load, anthropomorphism led to significantly lower perceived difficulty regarding the learning topic (intrinsic load), which conforms with most emotional design findings. There was a marginal trend in which learners engaged longer with the anthropomorphized than the non-anthropomorphized multimedia lesson. This study offers insights on anthropomorphism in multimedia learning that extends to cultural factors unique to Asian learners and information technology subject domain. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed through the lens of cognitive-affective theory of learning with media, integrated cognitive affective model of learning with multimedia, and cognitive load theory. Future directions concerning anthropomorphism research in the multimedia learning context are addressed in this paper.

Attempt TCP ACK-Storm Based Virtual Network Attacks and Defence Solutions

The rapid development of the digital age has been pushing people to access a mobile working environment when handsets are becoming more diverse and convenient with the help of Virtualization Technology. The speed and usability of Virtualization Technology are astounding for saving initial investment costs and optimizing IT infrastructure. Such Virtualization Technology is what businesses are interested in and makes the virtual server market growing strongly, especially for businesses that have many branches. However, virtual systems (hypervisors) are more vulnerable than traditional servers according due to many network attacks from curious users. Therefore, it's necessary to prepare for the worst circumstances, understand clearly, and research for new threats that can break down the virtual system. In this paper, we attempt to demonstrate the TCP ACK storm based DoS (Denial of Service) attack on virtual and Docker networks to show the threats that easily are happen on services deploying on virtual networks. Based on such consequence, we propose some solutions to prevent our virtual system from potential risks.

An approach for slow distributed denial of service attack detection and alleviation in software defined networks

Over the last few years, the need for programmable networks has captured the interest of industrialists and academicians. It has led to the development of a paradigm called software defined network (SDN). It separates the network intelligence into the control plane and forwarding logic into the data plane. This architecture gives scope to various security issues of which denial of service (DoS) is the most common and challenging to detect. This paper focuses on the detection and mitigation of a slow DoS attack called Slowloris on Apache2 server in SDN based networks. The proposed solution is called Slowloris detection and mitigation mechanism (SDMM). Mininet, an emulator, and SimpleHTTPServer are used for simulation and the same is implemented using Zodiac FX OpenFlow switch, Ryu controller and Apache2 server. SDMM algorithm detects and mitigates prolonged Slowloris attack in typical networks as well as in slow networks with low bandwidth and high delay in 240-280s with an accuracy of 100% and 98% respectively. It uses expectation of burst size as a key factor for detection.

SECURITY STUDY OF ROUTING ATTACKS IN VEHICULAR AD-HOC NETWORKS (AUTONOMOUS CAR)

For the past twenty years, the automotive industry and research organizations have been aiming to put fully autonomous cars on the road. These cars which can be driven without the intervention of a driver, use several sensors and artificial intelligence technologies simultaneously, which allow them to detect the environment in order to merge the information obtained to analyze it, decide on an action, and to implement it. Thus, we are at the dawn of a revolution in the world of transport and mobility, which leads us to ensure the movement of the autonomous car in a safe manner. In this paper, we examine certain attacks on autonomous cars such as the denial of service attack, as well as the impact of these attacks on the last two levels of vehicle autonomy.

Impact of Denial-of-Service Attack on Directional Compact Geographic Forwarding Routing Protocol in Wireless Sensor Networks

Directional Compact Geographic Forwarding (DCGF) routing protocol promises a minimal overhead generation by utilizing a smart antenna and Quality of Service (QoS) aware aggregation. However, DCGF was tested only in the attack-free scenario without involving the security elements. Therefore, an investigation was conducted to examine the routing protocol algorithm whether it is secure against attack-based networks in the presence of Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack. This analysis on DoS attack was carried out using a single optimal attacker, A1, to investigate the impact of DoS attack on DCGF in a communication link. The study showed that DCGF does not perform efficiently in terms of packet delivery ratio and energy consumption even on a single attacker.

A Novel Model for Distributed Denial of Service Attack Analysis and Interactivity

A Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack is a type of cybercrime that renders a target service unavailable by overwhelming it with traffic from several sources (attack nodes). In this paper, we focus on DDoS attacks on a computer network by spreading bots throughout the network. A mathematical differential equation model is proposed to represent the dynamism of nodes at different compartments of the model. The model considers two levels of security, with the assumption that the recovered nodes do not return to the same security level. In previous models, the recovered nodes are returned to be suspect on the same security level, which is an unrealistic assumption. Moreover, it is assumed that the attacker can use the infected target nodes to attack again. With such epidemic-like assumptions of infection, different cases are presented and discussed, and the stability of the model is analyzed as well; reversing the symmetry transformation of attacking nodes population is also proven. The proposed model has many parameters in order to precisely describe the infection movement and propagation. Numerical simulation methods are used to solve the developed system of equations using MATLAB, with the intention of finding the best counteraction to control DDoS spread throughout a network.

Method for assessing the operating quality of a switching node in a technological transmission network data in the context of DDoS attacks by an intruder

The purpose of this study is to develop a mechanism to account for the effects of a distributed denial of service attack on a switching node, as well as to assess the quality of its functioning under destructive effects. Relevance stems from the possibility of disruption of regional economic complex management due to the impact on the elements of the technological network of data transmission attacker type “distributed denial of service”. Based on the mathematical apparatus of GERT-networks the authors propose an approach to assess the quality of switching nodes. The essence lies in the representation of the data flow service node switching network data transmission under attack by an intruder in the form of a stochastic network, setting the type of partial distributions, the definition of the equivalent function, followed by determining the distribution function delay time packets. The model proposed by the authors allows to evaluate the quality of switching nodes operation under the conditions of “distributed denial of service” intruder attacks, both when transmitting stationary Poisson and self-similar traffic, represented by the Weibull and Pareto flow models. The results obtained are in good agreement with the data given in previously published works. The model allows to analyze and develop directions to improve the quality of functioning of switching nodes of technological network of data transmission under conditions of destructive information impact of the intruder.

Distributed reflection denial of service attack: A critical review

As the world becomes increasingly connected and the number of users grows exponentially and “things” go online, the prospect of cyberspace becoming a significant target for cybercriminals is a reality. Any host or device that is exposed on the internet is a prime target for cyberattacks. A denial-of-service (DoS) attack is accountable for the majority of these cyberattacks. Although various solutions have been proposed by researchers to mitigate this issue, cybercriminals always adapt their attack approach to circumvent countermeasures. One of the modified DoS attacks is known as distributed reflection denial-of-service attack (DRDoS). This type of attack is considered to be a more severe variant of the DoS attack and can be conducted in transmission control protocol (TCP) and user datagram protocol (UDP). However, this attack is not effective in the TCP protocol due to the three-way handshake approach that prevents this type of attack from passing through the network layer to the upper layers in the network stack. On the other hand, UDP is a connectionless protocol, so most of these DRDoS attacks pass through UDP. This study aims to examine and identify the differences between TCP-based and UDP-based DRDoS attacks.