Hasmukh Morarji

A Model for Computer Profiling

This paper discusses the use of models in automatic computer forensic analysis, and proposes and elaborates on a novel model for use in computer profiling, the computer profiling object model. The computer profiling object model is an information model which models a computer as objects with various attributes and inter-relationships. These together provide the information necessary for a human investigator or an automated reasoning engine to make judgments as to the probable usage and evidentiary value of a computer system. The computer profiling object model can be implemented so as to support automated analysis to provide an investigator with the information needed to decide whether manual analysis is required.

Undergraduate, graduate and professional education in software engineering in the '90's: a case study

The demands for graduate education in software engineering were clearly established in the late 1980s. Now, several years later, the practical imperative has emerged that information technology graduates are increasingly required in their first positions to work in large teams, to use new and quite complex tools and environments, and to be able to communicate effectively in their work environments. There is therefore a need for significant studies in software engineering at the undergraduate level. The paper describes recent developments in software engineering education at the Queensland University of Technology at undergraduate, postgraduate and professional levels and examines the alignment of the undergraduate and postgraduate curricula with those proposed by the ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Curriculum Task Force and the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University.<<ETX>>

Risk Modelling the Transition of SCADA System to IPv6

SCADA is one of a set of manufacturing-and-control systems that are used to monitor and control critical infrastructure. Such systems extensively utilise communications network protocols such as TCP/IP to interconnect a diverse array of components. A major forthcoming change within TCP/IP is the adoption of the IPv6 protocol and inevitably this change will affect SCADA systems. However IPv6 introduces its own set of vulnerabilities. Hence, given the scale and complexity of current SCADA systems, there is a need for organisations to be able to model and review the risks emanating from the propagation of identifiable vulnerabilities in IPv6 prior to actual operational deployment. This work shows how the required tools can be constructed by complementing the Information Security Management (ISM) risk modelling tool with the formal technique of Coloured Petri Nets (CPN). The results of the application of the tools in a case study confirm the utility of the approach.

The CASS Shell

The goal of the Computer Architecture for Secure Systems (CASS) project [1] is to develop an architecture and tools to ensure the security and integrity of software in distributed systems. CASS makes use of various cryptographic techniques at the operating system kernel level to authenticate software integrity. The CASS shell, the work described in this paper, is on the other hand a secure shell implemented on top of UNIX1 System V Release 4.2 (UNIX SVR4.2) to achieve the same purpose but in an operating system independent manner. The CASS shell carries out cryptographic authentication of executable files based on the MD5 Message-Digest algorithm [2] and presents a closed computing environment in which system utilities are safeguarded against unauthorised alteration and users are prevented from executing unsafe commands. In order to provide cryptographic authentication and other cryptographic functions such as public-key based signatures, in hardware, the work has also involved the incorporation of an encryption hardware sub-system into SVR4.2 operating on an Intel 80×86 hardware platform. The paper describes the structure and features of the CASS shell and the development and performance of both the hardware and software implementations of the cryptographic functions it uses.