Gordon A. Manson

Integrating security and systems engineering: towards the modelling of secure information systems

Security is a crucial issue for information systems. Traditionally, security is considered after the definition of the system. However, this approach often leads to problems, which translate into security vulnerabilities. From the viewpoint of the traditional security paradigm, it should be possible to eliminate such problems through better integration of security and systems engineering. This paper argues for the need to develop a methodology that considers security as an integral part of the whole system development process. The paper contributes to the current state of the art by proposing an approach that considers security concerns as an integral part of the entire system development process and by relating this approach with existing work. The different stages of the approach are described with the aid of a case study; a health and social care information system.

When security meets software engineering: a case of modelling secure information systems

Although security is a crucial issue for information systems, traditionally, it is considered after the definition of the system. This approach often leads to problems, which most of the times translate into security vulnerabilities. From the viewpoint of the traditional security paradigm, it should be possible to eliminate such problems through better integration of security and software engineering. This paper firstly argues for the need to develop a methodology that considers security as an integral part of the whole system development process, and secondly it contributes to the current state of the art by proposing an approach that considers security concerns as an integral part of the entire system development process and by relating this approach with existing work. The different stages of the approach are described with the aid of a real-life case study; a health and social care information system.

Modelling secure multiagent systems

Security plays an important role in the development of multiagent systems. However, a careful analysis of software development processes shows that the definition of security requirements is, usually, considered after the design of the system. This is, mainly, due to the fact that agent oriented software engineering methodologies have not integrated security concerns throughout their developing stages. The integration of security concerns during the whole range of the development stages could help towards the development of more secure multiagent systems. In this paper we introduce extensions to the Tropos methodology to enable it to model security concerns throughout the whole development process. A description of the new concepts is given along with an explanation of how these concepts are integrated to the current stages of Tropos. An example from the health care sector is used to illustrate the above.

An Ontology for Modelling Security: The Tropos Approach

It has been argued that security concerns should inform all the stages of the development process of an agent-based system. However, this is not the case since current agent-oriented methodologies do not, usually, consider security concepts within their modelling ontology. In this paper we present extensions to the Tropos ontology to enable it to model security.

Parallel text searching in serial files using a processor farm

This paper discusses the implementation of a parallel text retrieval system using a microprocessor network. The system is designed to allow fast searching in document databases organised using the serial file structure, with a very rapid initial text signature search being followed by a more detailed, but more time-consuming, pattern matching search. The network is built from transputers, high performance microprocessors developed specifically for the construction of highly parallel computing systems, which are linked together in a processor farm. The paper discusses the design and implementation of processor farms, and then reports our initial studies of the efficiency of searching that can be achieved using this approach to text retrieval from serial files.

Multi-agent systems and security requirements analysis

Agent Oriented Software Engineering (AOSE) is a software paradigm that has grasped the attention of researchers the last few years. As a result, many different methods have been introduced to help developers in the development of multi-agent systems. However, so far, these methods have mainly neglected security requirements. The common approach towards the inclusion of security within a system is to identify security requirements after the definition of the system. However, this approach has provoked the emergence of computer systems afflicted with security vulnerabilities. In this paper we propose an analysis, based on the measures of criticality (how critical an actor of the system is) and complexity (represents the effort required by the actors of the system to achieve the requirements that have been imposed to them), which aims to identify possible bottlenecks of a multi-agent system with respect to security. An integrated agent-based health and social care information system is used as a case study throughout this paper.

Analysis and Design of the eSAP: An Integrated Health and Social Care Information System:

Health care information systems are becoming more and more computerized. A huge amount of health related information needs to be stored and analysed, and with the aid of computer systems this can be done faster and more efficiently. The Agent Oriented paradigm provides an alternative way of developing medical based systems. This article presents an initial exploration of the analysis and design of a multi-agent system to deliver the Single Assessment Process, an integrated health and social care information system for older people. The article concludes by making the following observations: Agent technology has the potential to support the development of medical and health and social care systems for older people. Nevertheless there are not many real-life agent based applications successfully applied in the health care sector. One of the main reasons is the limitation of the existing analysis and design methodologies. Thus, in order for the agent-technology to be widely accepted in the development of computer based medical information systems for older people (and in extent any medical system) it is necessary to develop a complete and mature analysis and design methodology to support the development of agent based medical systems.

Mobility Modeling in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks with Environment-Aware

Simulation is the most important and widely used method in the research of Mobile Ad hoc NETworks (MANET). The topology of MANET and the mobility of mobile nodes are the key factors that have an impact on the performance of protocols. However, most of the existing works are based on random movement and the fact that the network topology is highly related to the environment of MANET is overlooked. In this paper, we propose a novel Environment-Aware Mobility (EAM) model which models a more realistic movement of mobile nodes. Environment objects such as Route and Hotspot are introduced to represent the environment components which are rendered by Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). It is considered to be a complex model with a combination of existing conventional mobility models and network environments. This paper shows that various MANET environments can be modeled based on this work. A sample environment is also simulated and the results show that the intrinsic characteristics and properties of the environments have a significant influence on the performance of MANET protocols.

Transputer implementations of chemical substructure searching algorithms

Abstract Two chemical substructure searching algorithms, the relaxation algorithm and the set reduction algorithm, are introduced and described. Transputer based serial implementations of both are compared for performance; the relaxation algorithm is shown to be both more effective and more efficient. Strategies are discussed for multi-transputer implementations of the relaxation algorithm. Experimental results show that near-linear speedups are obtained with networks containing up to 21 transputers.

An intelligent approach to prevent distributed systems attacks

In today’s society, information and communications technology (ICT) is the force that drives prosperity and provides a higher standard of living. All other e‐services and infrastructures tend to play a major role in our daily life and global economy. The growing dependence on such systems, however, has increased their vulnerability to cyber attacks. Any failure to these systems typically would lead to a huge impact, not only on businesses, but also human life, that depends on such interconnected systems. The growing potential for telecommunications network infrastructures problems stems from their nature of openness. A successful attempt for a network attack to a particular organization’s network could have devastating effects on the security of the organisation. In this paper we propose an innovative way to counteract distributed protocols attacks such as distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks using intelligent fuzzy agents.