Maurizio Aiello | Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (CNR) (original) (raw)

Papers by Maurizio Aiello

Security of the Internet of Things is a crucial topic, due to the criticality of the networks and... more Security of the Internet of Things is a crucial topic, due to the criticality of the networks and the sensitivity of exchanged data. In this paper, we evaluate the adoption of IoT devices to execute cyber-threats by using a specific Wi-Fi module called ESP8266. This module may implement custom user applications, but it could also be adopted for malicious purposes, as to perpetrate cyber-attacks. In particular, we implemented a social engineering attack to steal sensitive information and a slow denial of service attack to saturate the resources of a web service based on an Apache2 server. Obtained results report that the ESP8266 module is able to perform both attacks successfully. Hence, we demonstrate that even a simple and cheap module is able to execute critical cyber-attacks.

This document is aimed at providing an input for the development of the security of the MHMD plat... more This document is aimed at providing an input for the development of the security of the MHMD platform, by providing relevant security aspects to consider and guidelines and approaches to adopt in order to guarantee protection of the system. The document may also represent an input for the hacking challenge activities executed in MHMD WP9, relatively to the (allowed) intrusion of the system by external entities, with the aim at identifying security and privacy breaches. The document goal is to define the MHMD Security Infrastructure, including a set of security guidelines and aspects to consider during the development of the project. Such result is achieved by considering three different aspects: the current version of the MHMD architecture, its components and how they interact; a deep study of state-of-the-art attacks and protection systems and approaches for the different contexts characterizing the MHMD architecture; the ...

In the darknet security topic, it is important to analyze the threats that characterize the netwo... more In the darknet security topic, it is important to analyze the threats that characterize the network. This paper deeply investigates the literature of attacks against the Tor network, presenting the most relevant threats in this context. In order to provide an important tool for the research community, we propose an exhaustive taxonomy based on the target of the attack. Such taxonomy represents a characterization scheme to identify cyber-attacks related to darknet environments and better understand their functioning. The proposed work should therefore be considered an important step forward in the darknet security field.

Figure S1: Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) images of FeHAs (a, b) at two different magnifi... more Figure S1: Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) images of FeHAs (a, b) at two different magnifications and HAs (c); Figure S2: Hydrodynamic diameter distributions of FeHA and HA in HEPES buffer 0.1 M, pH 7.4.; Table S1: Technical data of each component of the MEBD; Figure S3: Adsorption kinetics of IBU on (▪) FeHAs and (▫) HAs.; Figure S4: Adsorption isotherms of IBU on (▪) FeHAs and (▫) HAs. Separate points are the experimental data; dotted lines indicate Sips fits of isotherm data.

Online trackers personalize ads campaigns, exponentially increasing their efficacy compared to tr... more Online trackers personalize ads campaigns, exponentially increasing their efficacy compared to traditional channels. The downside of this is that thousands of mostly unknown systems own our profiles and violate our privacy without our awareness. IPPO turns the table and re-empower users of their data, through anonymised data publishing via a Blockchain-based Decentralized Data Marketplace. We also propose a service based on machine learning and big data analytics to automatically identify web trackers and build Privacy Labels (PLs), based on the nutrition labels concept. This paper describes the motivation, the vision, the architecture and the research challenges related to IPPO.

Alternative drug delivery approaches to treat cardiovascular diseases are currently under intense... more Alternative drug delivery approaches to treat cardiovascular diseases are currently under intense investigation. In this domain, the possibility to target the heart and tailor the amount of drug dose by using a combination of magnetic nanoparticles (NPs) and electromagnetic devices is a fascinating approach. Here, an electromagnetic device based on Helmholtz coils was generated for the application of low-frequency magnetic stimulations to manage drug release from biocompatible superparamagnetic Fe-hydroxyapatite NPs (FeHAs). Integrated with a fluidic circuit mimicking the flow of the cardiovascular environment, the device was efficient to trigger the release of a model drug (ibuprofen) from FeHAs as a function of the applied frequencies. Furthermore, the biological effects on the cardiac system of the identified electromagnetic exposure were assessed in vitro and in vivo by acute stimulation of isolated adult cardiomyocytes and in an animal mode...

Abstract. Internet e-mail has become one of the most important ways for people and enterprises to... more Abstract. Internet e-mail has become one of the most important ways for people and enterprises to communicate with each other. However, this system, in some cases, is used for malicious purposes. A great problem is the worm and spam spreading. A smart e-mail content checking system can help to detect these kinds of threats. We propose a way to capture, store and display e-mails transactions through SMTP packet sniffing. We worked on pcap files dumped by a packet sniffer containing SMTP traffic packets of a real network. After reassembling the TCP streams and SMTP commands, we store the captured e-mails on a database: for privacy reasons, only e-mails headers are stored. Having a tool for clear understanding and monitoring SMTP transaction may help in manager security tasks.

Abstract:- Demographic change and ageing of the population is one of the socioeconomic challenges... more Abstract:- Demographic change and ageing of the population is one of the socioeconomic challenges European societies have to face in the 21 st century. Loneliness and fear are common among elderly people. Both variables seem to be related to each other and were both found to be "threats " to a good life in old age. The automation of a domotic house shouldn’t risk to take away the few social contacts an old user still has with human beings. This paper proposes a network architecture oriented to improve the quality of life of elderly people and their caregivers. The final goal is facilitating an independent and not isolated social life, inside one’s home as long as possible. Contextually this architecture tries to facilitate the job of the caregivers allowing the communication with the elders and supplying the attendance with a smaller workload. A Virtual Call Centre (VC2) and a Village Network can give human support helpful for both user and caregiver.

Theory and Practice of Mathematics and Computer Science Vol. 8

Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security, 2020

Low-rate denial of service attacks are considered a serious threat for network systems. In this p... more Low-rate denial of service attacks are considered a serious threat for network systems. In this paper, we investigate such topic, by proposing a novel anomaly-based intrusion detection system. We validate the proposed system and report the weaknesses we have found. By working from the attacker's perspective, we also try to elude the proposed algorithm. Results show that in order to avoid detection, the attacker would require high-bandwidth to perpetrate the attack. The proposed method should therefore be considered an efficient method to detect running Slow DoS Attacks.

Cyber-Physical Security for Critical Infrastructures Protection, 2020

Cyber-physical security of financial institutions is a critical and sensitive topic. In this cont... more Cyber-physical security of financial institutions is a critical and sensitive topic. In this context, the FINSEC project aims to design and build a reference architecture for the integrated physical and cyber security of financial institutions. To make feasible, the interactions among the different services of the FINSEC platform, a proper data model defining the exchanged information semantic is fundamental. One of the objectives of the FINSEC project is to integrate cyber and physical security measures in the financial services industry. To do so, the data model must consider both cyber and physical systems. In this paper, the authors present FINSTIX, namely the data model adopted in the FINSEC platform. In particular, they extended the Structured Threat Information eXpression (STIX) standard creating custom objects to describe the financial organization’s infrastructure and then to integrate cyber and physical security measures. The paper also reports an example of the use of FIN...

Internet of Things is a widely adopted and pervasive technology, but also one of the most relevan... more Internet of Things is a widely adopted and pervasive technology, but also one of the most relevant in cyber-security, given the volume and sensitivity of shared data and the availability of affordable but insecure products. In this paper, we propose a novel cyber-threat exploiting the Message Queue Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol to implement a tunneling attack. In IoT networks, sensitive and critical information are exchanged between devices or external systems to perform data analysis. For this reason, a tunneling threat could be adopted by a malicious user to steal information. In this context, a tunneling system based on MQTT can be considered since this communication protocol could be allowed to pass through enterprise firewalls because it is widely adopted in this IoT world. An attacker can exploit the MQTT protocol for various purposes such as steal information or access to not-allowed websites/servers. In particular in this work, we contribute in two main points: initial...

In the cyber-security context, tunneling systems are exploited to bypass network restrictions to ... more In the cyber-security context, tunneling systems are exploited to bypass network restrictions to communicate outside of the targeted perimeter, without being detected. Such attacks represent a serious threat for the victim network, as they exploit legitimate protocols, encapsulating malicious payloads. In this paper, we design a tunneling architecture based on Short-Message-Service (SMS) and evaluate the possibility to adopt such communication medium for tunneling purposes. In order to evaluate the feasibility to set up an efficient SMS tunneling system, we perform some simulations, by varying both the payload size (from 10 Bytes to 1 MegaByte) and the SMS sending rate (up to 60 SMSs per minute). Results allow us to model the performance of a tunneling system, in terms of sending time. We derive indeed the underlying reference model through a mathematical analysis on the collected data. Results show that overall performance increases for an SMS sending rate greater or equal to 10 SMSs per minute, regardless of the message size.

Information

The security of Internet of Things environments is a critical and trending topic, due to the natu... more The security of Internet of Things environments is a critical and trending topic, due to the nature of the networks and the sensitivity of the exchanged information. In this paper, we investigate the security of the Message Queue Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol, widely adopted in IoT infrastructures. We exploit two specific weaknesses of MQTT, identified during our research activities, allowing the client to configure the KeepAlive parameter and MQTT packets to execute an innovative cyber threat against the MQTT broker. In order to validate the exploitation of such vulnerabilities, we propose SlowTT, a novel “Slow” denial of service attack aimed at targeting MQTT through low-rate techniques, characterized by minimum attack bandwidth and computational power requirements. We validate SlowTT against real MQTT services, by considering both plaintext and encrypted communications and by comparing the effects of the attack when targeting different application daemons and protocol versi...

Sensors

IoT networks are increasingly popular nowadays to monitor critical environments of different natu... more IoT networks are increasingly popular nowadays to monitor critical environments of different nature, significantly increasing the amount of data exchanged. Due to the huge number of connected IoT devices, security of such networks and devices is therefore a critical issue. Detection systems assume a crucial role in the cyber-security field: based on innovative algorithms such as machine learning, they are able to identify or predict cyber-attacks, hence to protect the underlying system. Nevertheless, specific datasets are required to train detection models. In this work we present MQTTset, a dataset focused on the MQTT protocol, widely adopted in IoT networks. We present the creation of the dataset, also validating it through the definition of a hypothetical detection system, by combining the legitimate dataset with cyber-attacks against the MQTT network. Obtained results demonstrate how MQTTset can be used to train machine learning models to implement detection systems able to prot...

Sensors

Security of the Internet of Things is a crucial topic, due to the criticality of the networks and... more Security of the Internet of Things is a crucial topic, due to the criticality of the networks and the sensitivity of exchanged data. In this paper, we target the Message Queue Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol used in IoT environments for communication between IoT devices. We exploit a specific weakness of MQTT which was identified during our research, allowing the client to configure the behavior of the server. In order to validate the possibility to exploit such vulnerability, we propose SlowITe, a novel low-rate denial of service attack aimed to target MQTT through low-rate techniques. We validate SlowITe against real MQTT services, considering both plain text and encrypted communications and comparing the effects of the threat when targeting different daemons. Results show that the attack is successful and it is able to exploit the identified vulnerability to lead a DoS on the victim with limited attack resources.

Journal of Information Security and Applications

Internet transformed itself from a useful tool for communicating information to a pervasive and n... more Internet transformed itself from a useful tool for communicating information to a pervasive and necessary infrastructure for modern economy. Accordingly, due to economic motivations, it became an arena for cyberwarfare and cybercrime. In this paper, we present the novel threat called SlowComm and we analyze that it can successfully lead a DoS on a targeted system using a low amount of attack bandwidth. We also analyze that the proposed attack is not bounded to a specific protocol and should be considered a protocol independent attack, proving the ability it has to affect different Internet services.

Internet Technology Letters

The paper deals with k-means clustering and Logic Learning Machine (LLM) for the detection of DNS... more The paper deals with k-means clustering and Logic Learning Machine (LLM) for the detection of DNS tunneling. As the LLM shows more versatility in rule generation and classification precision with respect to traditional Decision Trees, the approach reveals to be robust to a large set of system conditions. The detection algorithm is designed to be applied over streaming data, without accurate tuning of algorithm' parameters. An extensive performance evaluation is provided with respect to different tunnelling tools and applications; silent intruders are considered. Results show robustness on a test set that exhibits a different behavior from training.

Journal of the Royal Society, Interface, 2018

Alternative drug delivery approaches to treat cardiovascular diseases are currently under intense... more Alternative drug delivery approaches to treat cardiovascular diseases are currently under intense investigation. In this domain, the possibility to target the heart and tailor the amount of drug dose by using a combination of magnetic nanoparticles (NPs) and electromagnetic devices is a fascinating approach. Here, an electromagnetic device based on Helmholtz coils was generated for the application of low-frequency magnetic stimulations to manage drug release from biocompatible superparamagnetic Fe-hydroxyapatite NPs (FeHAs). Integrated with a fluidic circuit mimicking the flow of the cardiovascular environment, the device was efficient to trigger the release of a model drug (ibuprofen) from FeHAs as a function of the applied frequencies. Furthermore, the biological effects on the cardiac system of the identified electromagnetic exposure were assessed and by acute stimulation of isolated adult cardiomyocytes and in an animal model. The cardio-compatibility of FeHAs was also assessed ...

Logic Journal of IGPL, 2016

Theory and Practice of Mathematics and Computer Science Vol. 8

Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security, 2020

Cyber-Physical Security for Critical Infrastructures Protection, 2020

Information

Sensors

Security of the Internet of Things is a crucial topic, due to the criticality of the networks and... more Security of the Internet of Things is a crucial topic, due to the criticality of the networks and the sensitivity of exchanged data. In this paper, we target the Message Queue Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol used in IoT environments for communication between IoT devices. We exploit a specific weakness of MQTT which was identified during our research, allowing the client to configure the behavior of the server. In order to validate the possibility to exploit such vulnerability, we propose SlowITe, a novel low-rate denial of service attack aimed to target MQTT through low-rate techniques. We validate SlowITe against real MQTT services, considering both plain text and encrypted communications and comparing the effects of the threat when targeting different daemons. Results show that the attack is successful and it is able to exploit the identified vulnerability to lead a DoS on the victim with limited attack resources.

Journal of Information Security and Applications

Internet Technology Letters

Journal of the Royal Society, Interface, 2018

Alternative drug delivery approaches to treat cardiovascular diseases are currently under intense... more Alternative drug delivery approaches to treat cardiovascular diseases are currently under intense investigation. In this domain, the possibility to target the heart and tailor the amount of drug dose by using a combination of magnetic nanoparticles (NPs) and electromagnetic devices is a fascinating approach. Here, an electromagnetic device based on Helmholtz coils was generated for the application of low-frequency magnetic stimulations to manage drug release from biocompatible superparamagnetic Fe-hydroxyapatite NPs (FeHAs). Integrated with a fluidic circuit mimicking the flow of the cardiovascular environment, the device was efficient to trigger the release of a model drug (ibuprofen) from FeHAs as a function of the applied frequencies. Furthermore, the biological effects on the cardiac system of the identified electromagnetic exposure were assessed and by acute stimulation of isolated adult cardiomyocytes and in an animal model. The cardio-compatibility of FeHAs was also assessed ...

Logic Journal of IGPL, 2016