# Security Measurements of Cyber Networks

Authors: Zheng Yan; Yuqing Zhang; Kim-Kwang Raymond Choo; Yang Xiang
Journal: Security and Communication Networks
 (2018)

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## Body

## 1. Intrusion Detection and Network Security Measurement

In the survey entitled “Data Fusion for Network Intrusion Detection: A Review”, G. Li et al. conducted a comprehensive review on massively high dimensional data fusion techniques for network intrusion detection in order to accurately detect complex or synthetic network attacks.Based on attack prediction, L. Yin et al. proposed a method of security measurement in their paper entitled “Security Measurement for Unknown Threats Based on Attack Preferences”. They computed optimal attack timing from the perspective of attackers. They used a long-term game to estimate the risk of being found in terms of choosing optimal timing according to risk and profit. On the basis of game theoretical analysis, the likelihood of being attacked for each node is estimated as a security metric result.Z. Liu et al. attempted to build a malicious domains detection model oriented to imbalanced data. They proposed an imbalanced malicious domain detection method based on passive DNS traffic analysis in the paper entitled “An Imbalanced Malicious Domains Detection Method Based on Passive DNS Traffic Analysis”. It can deal with not only between-class imbalance problem but also within-class imbalance problem.In the paper entitled “Uncovering Tor: An Examination of the Network Structure”, B. Monk et al. used social network analysis to examine hyperlink connections and the structure of website communities they form on Tor and how characteristics of these communities could have implications for criminal activity on Tor as understood through the lens of social disorganization theory.In the paper entitled “An Approach for Internal Network Security Metric Based on Attack Probability”, C. Shan et al. proposed an internal network security metric based on attack probability. It simplifies network attack graph for a large-scale network and assists network security detection.


## 2. Software Fault Location and Maintenance

In the paper entitled “Security Feature Measurement for Frequent Dynamic Execution Paths in Software System”, Q. Wang et al. proposed a security feature measurement algorithm of frequent dynamic execution paths in software to provide a basis for improving the security and reliability of software. By using a complex network model and a sequence model and combining them with the invocation and dependency relationships between function nodes, the authors can analyze fault cumulative effect and spread effect. The function node security features of the software complex network are also defined and measured. In addition, frequent software execution paths are mined and weighted in order to obtain security metrics of the frequent paths.For understanding software design patterns and controlling their development and maintenance process, H. He et al. proposed an approach to define node importance for mining influential software nodes based on invoking dependency relationships among the nodes in the paper entitled “Analysis on Influential Functions in the Weighted Software Network”. The authors constructed a weighted software network to represent software execution dependency structure and proposed an algorithm to evaluate node importance to further obtain the most influential nodes in the software network based on it.In the paper entitled “OFFDTAN: A New Approach of Offline Dynamic Taint Analysis for Binaries”, X. Wang et al. proposed an approach to offline dynamic taint analysis for binaries through four stages: dynamic information acquisition, vulnerability modeling, offline analysis, and backtrace analysis.


## 3. Network Security Countermeasures

In the paper entitled “A Dynamic Hidden Forwarding Path Planning Method Based on Improved Q-Learning in SDN Environments”, Y. Chen et al. proposed an improved Q-learning algorithm to automatically plan an optimal attack path. They adopted Software-Defined Network (SDN) to adjust routing paths and dynamically create hidden forwarding paths to filter vicious attack requests.F. Shan et al. proposed a hybrid access control model (HAC) that leverages attributes and relationships to control access to resources in the paper entitled “HAC: Hybrid Access Control for Online Social Networks”. They designed a new policy specification language to express both the relationships and attributes of users and proposed a path checking algorithm to figure out if a path between two users can satisfy with a hybrid policy.H. Wang et al. studied graphical password (GPW) used in information communications in the paper entitled “A New Type of Graphical Passwords Based on Odd-Elegant Labelled Graphs”. The authors designed new Topsnut-GPWs by means of a graph labelling, called odd-elegant labelling. The new Topsnut-GPWs are constructed using Topsnut-GPWs (a type of GPWs) with smaller vertex numbers and more robust to deciphering attacks, compared with traditional Topsnut-GPWs.


## 4. Summary

Editing this special issue has been an invaluable experience for us. We hope this special issue will provide a useful reference to its readers and contribute to advances in network security, as well as stimulate additional innovation.



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