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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 559 records · Page 31
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2004

Common Operating Picture: UAV Security Study

This initial communication security study is a top-level assessment of basic security issues related to the operation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in the National Airspace System (NAS). Security considerations will include information relating to the use of International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Aeronautical Telecommunications Network (ATN) protocols and applications identifying their maturity, as well as the use of IPV4 and a version of mobile IPV6. The purpose of this assessment is to provide an initial analysis of the security implications of introducing UAVs into the NAS.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2009

Developing a Standard Method for Link-Layer Security of CCSDS Space Communications

Communications security for space systems has been a specialized field generally far removed from considerations of mission interoperability and cross-support in fact, these considerations often have been viewed as intrinsically opposed to security objectives. The space communications protocols defined by the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) have a twenty-five year history of successful use in over 400 missions. While the CCSDS Telemetry, Telecommand, and Advancing Orbiting Systems protocols for use at OSI Layer 2 are operationally mature, there has been no direct support within these protocols for communications security techniques. Link-layer communications security has been successfully implemented in the past using mission-unique methods, but never before with an objective of facilitating cross-support and interoperability. This paper discusses the design of a standard method for cryptographic authentication, encryption, and replay protection at the data link layer that can be integrated into existing CCSDS protocols without disruption to legacy communications services. Integrating cryptographic operations into existing data structures and processing sequences requires a careful assessment of the potential impediments within spacecraft, ground stations, and operations centers. The objective of this work is to provide a sound method for cryptographic encapsulation of frame data that also facilitates Layer 2 virtual channel switching, such that a mission may procure data transport services as needed without involving third parties in the cryptographic processing, or split independent data streams for separate cryptographic processing.

Biggerstaff, Craig↗
NASA NTRS2011

L-Band Digital Aeronautical Communications System Engineering - Initial Safety and Security Risk Assessment and Mitigation

This document is being provided as part of ITT's NASA Glenn Research Center Aerospace Communication Systems Technical Support (ACSTS) contract NNC05CA85C, Task 7: "New ATM Requirements--Future Communications, C-Band and L-Band Communications Standard Development." ITT has completed a safety hazard analysis providing a preliminary safety assessment for the proposed L-band (960 to 1164 MHz) terrestrial en route communications system. The assessment was performed following the guidelines outlined in the Federal Aviation Administration Safety Risk Management Guidance for System Acquisitions document. The safety analysis did not identify any hazards with an unacceptable risk, though a number of hazards with a medium risk were documented. This effort represents a preliminary safety hazard analysis and notes the triggers for risk reassessment. A detailed safety hazards analysis is recommended as a follow-on activity to assess particular components of the L-band communication system after the technology is chosen and system rollout timing is determined. The security risk analysis resulted in identifying main security threats to the proposed system as well as noting additional threats recommended for a future security analysis conducted at a later stage in the system development process. The document discusses various security controls, including those suggested in the COCR Version 2.0.

Zelkin, Natalie↗
NASA NTRS2010

Anatomy of a Security Operations Center

Many agencies and corporations are either contemplating or in the process of building a cyber Security Operations Center (SOC). Those Agencies that have established SOCs are most likely working on major revisions or enhancements to existing capabilities. As principle developers of the NASA SOC; this Presenters' goals are to provide the GFIRST community with examples of some of the key building blocks of an Agency scale cyber Security Operations Center. This presentation viII include the inputs and outputs, the facilities or shell, as well as the internal components and the processes necessary to maintain the SOC's subsistence - in other words, the anatomy of a SOC. Details to be presented include the SOC architecture and its key components: Tier 1 Call Center, data entry, and incident triage; Tier 2 monitoring, incident handling and tracking; Tier 3 computer forensics, malware analysis, and reverse engineering; Incident Management System; Threat Management System; SOC Portal; Log Aggregation and Security Incident Management (SIM) systems; flow monitoring; IDS; etc. Specific processes and methodologies discussed include Incident States and associated Work Elements; the Incident Management Workflow Process; Cyber Threat Risk Assessment methodology; and Incident Taxonomy. The Evolution of the Cyber Security Operations Center viII be discussed; starting from reactive, to proactive, and finally to proactive. Finally, the resources necessary to establish an Agency scale SOC as well as the lessons learned in the process of standing up a SOC viII be presented.

Wang, John↗
NASA NTRS2003

Software To Secure Distributed Propulsion Simulations

Distributed-object computing systems are presented with many security threats, including network eavesdropping, message tampering, and communications middleware masquerading. NASA Glenn Research Center, and its industry partners, has taken an active role in mitigating the security threats associated with developing and operating their proprietary aerospace propulsion simulations. In particular, they are developing a collaborative Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) Security (CORBASec) test bed to secure their distributed aerospace propulsion simulations. Glenn has been working with its aerospace propulsion industry partners to deploy the Numerical Propulsion System Simulation (NPSS) object-based technology. NPSS is a program focused on reducing the cost and time in developing aerospace propulsion engines

Blaser, Tammy M.↗
NASA NTRS2017

Cyber Safety and Security for Reduced Crew Operations (RCO)

NASA and the Aviation Industry is looking into reduced crew operations (RCO) that would cut today's required two-person flight crews down to a single pilot with support from ground-based crews. Shared responsibility across air and ground personnel will require highly reliable and secure data communication and supporting automation, which will be safety-critical for passenger and cargo aircraft. This paper looks at the different types and degrees of authority delegation given from the air to the ground and the ramifications of each, including the safety and security hazards introduced, the mitigation mechanisms for these hazards, and other demands on an RCO system architecture which would be highly invasive into (almost) all safety-critical avionics. The adjacent fields of unmanned aerial systems and autonomous ground vehicles are viewed to find problems that RCO may face and related aviation accident scenarios are described. The paper explores possible data communication architectures to meet stringent performance and information security (INFOSEC) requirements of RCO. Subsequently, potential challenges for RCO data communication authentication, encryption and non-repudiation are identified. The approach includes a comprehensive safety-hazard analysis of the RCO system to determine top level INFOSEC requirements for RCO and proposes an option for effective RCO implementation. This paper concludes with questioning the economic viability of RCO in light of the expense of overcoming the operational safety and security hazards it would introduce.

Aircraft Communication↗
NASA NTRS2018

Transboundary Water: Improving Methodologies and Developing Integrated Tools to Support Water Security

River basins for which transboundary coordination and governance is a factor are of concern to US national security, yet there is often a lack of sufficient data-driven information available at the needed time horizons to inform transboundary water decision-making for the intelligence, defense, and foreign policy communities. To address this need, a two-day workshop entitled Transboundary Water: Improving Methodologies and Developing Integrated Tools to Support Global Water Security was held in August 2017 in Maryland. The committee that organized and convened the workshop (the Organizing Committee) included representatives from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the US Army Corps of Engineers Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC), and the US Air Force. The primary goal of the workshop was to advance knowledge on the current US Government and partners' technical information needs and gaps to support national security interests in relation to transboundary water. The workshop also aimed to identify avenues for greater communication and collaboration among the scientific, intelligence, defense, and foreign policy communities. The discussion around transboundary water was considered in the context of the greater global water challenges facing US national security.

Hakimdavar, Raha↗
NASA NTRS2018

Identification of Security related Bug Reports via Text Mining using Supervised and Unsupervised Classification

This paper is focused on automated classification of software bug reports to security and non-security related, using both supervised and unsupervised approaches. For both approaches, three types of feature vectors are used. For supervised learning, we experiment with multiple learning algorithms and training sets with different sizes. Furthermore, we propose a novel unsupervised approach based on anomaly detection. The evaluated is based on three NASA datasets. The results show that supervised classification is affected more by the learning algorithms than by feature vectors and using only 25% of the data for training provides as good results as if 90% of data are used for training. Both supervised and unsupervised learning can be used for identification of security bug reports; the former slightly outperforms the latter at the expense of labeling the testing set. In general, the performance differs across datasets, mainly due to the different amounts of security related information.

Goseva-Popstojanova, Katerina↗
NASA NTRS2019

Ensuring Flexibility and Security in SDN-Based Spacecraft Communication Networks Through Risk Assessment

Software-defined networking (SDN) has enabled elastic networking and resource distribution in cloud computing. The centralization and separation of the Control Plane also offers a high degree of network configurability and management, which can be used to mitigate and manage threats to the network. Space communication networks have historically been restricted and circuit switching in these networks has been a manual process. This study evaluates the potential role of SDN in space communication networks from a networking security standpoint. The evaluation covers the networking security needs of spacecraft missions and their associated assets. The results from the evaluation lead to a risk assessment that identifies vulnerabilities in an SDN-based communications architecture. Security challenges introduced into the network from integrating SDN are also considered. A risk register summarizes the severity of the attack outcomes, as well as occurrence likelihood. The study identifies Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks as a new threat (presently unmitigated by existing security controls) that would be prevalent in an SDN-based space communication environment. A Mininet-based emulation testbed is built to demonstrate the susceptibility of spacecraft flight software to a flooding DoS attack when on an interconnected SDN-managed network. This type of attack would be highly consequential to mission assets, and therefore SDN-based space communications would need to be resilient to such attacks. Future work will need to be performed to fully characterize DoS attack methods that can apply to the space communication scenario, as well as to devise a comprehensive DoS-resilient solution.

Baker, Dylan Z.↗
DOE OSTI2013

Secure multi-party communication with quantum key distribution managed by trusted authority

Techniques and tools for implementing protocols for secure multi-party communication after quantum key distribution ("QKD") are described herein. In example implementations, a trusted authority facilitates secure communication between multiple user devices. The trusted authority distributes different quantum keys by QKD under trust relationships with different users. The trusted authority determines combination keys using the quantum keys and makes the combination keys available for distribution (e.g., for non-secret distribution over a public channel). The combination keys facilitate secure communication between two user devices even in the absence of QKD between the two user devices. With the protocols, benefits of QKD are extended to multi-party communication scenarios. In addition, the protocols can retain benefit of QKD even when a trusted authority is offline or a large group seeks to establish secure communication within the group.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2014

Intrusion detection using secure signatures

A method and device for intrusion detection using secure signatures comprising capturing network data. A search hash value, value employing at least one one-way function, is generated from the captured network data using a first hash function. The presence of a search hash value match in a secure signature table comprising search hash values and an encrypted rule is determined. After determining a search hash value match, a decryption key is generated from the captured network data using a second hash function, a hash function different form the first hash function. One or more of the encrypted rules of the secure signatures table having a hash value equal to the generated search hash value are then decrypted using the generated decryption key. The one or more decrypted secure signature rules are then processed for a match and one or more user notifications are deployed if a match is identified.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2015

Secure multi-party communication with quantum key distribution managed by trusted authority

Techniques and tools for implementing protocols for secure multi-party communication after quantum key distribution ("QKD") are described herein. In example implementations, a trusted authority facilitates secure communication between multiple user devices. The trusted authority distributes different quantum keys by QKD under trust relationships with different users. The trusted authority determines combination keys using the quantum keys and makes the combination keys available for distribution (e.g., for non-secret distribution over a public channel). The combination keys facilitate secure communication between two user devices even in the absence of QKD between the two user devices. With the protocols, benefits of QKD are extended to multi-party communication scenarios. In addition, the protocols can retain benefit of QKD even when a trusted authority is offline or a large group seeks to establish secure communication within the group.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2016

Method and device for detecting impact events on a security barrier which includes a hollow rebar allowing insertion and removal of an optical fiber

A method and device for the detection of impact events on a security barrier. A hollow rebar is farmed within a security barrier, whereby the hollow rebar is completely surrounded by the security barrier. An optical fiber passes through the interior of the hollow rebar. An optical transmitter and an optical receiver are both optically connected to the optical fiber and connected to optical electronics. The optical electronics are configured to provide notification upon the detection of an impact event at the security barrier based on the detection of disturbances within the optical fiber.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2015

Exploring Operational Safeguards, Safety, and Security by Design to Address Real Time Threats in Nuclear Facilities

Over the last few years, significant attention has been paid to both encourage application and provide domestic and international guidance for designing in safeguards and security in new facilities.1,2,3 However, once a facility is operational, safeguards, security, and safety often operate as separate entities that support facility operations. This separation is potentially a serious weakness should insider or outsider threats become a reality.Situations may arise where safeguards detects a possible loss of material in a facility. Will they notify security so they can, for example, check perimeter doors for tampering? Not doing so might give the advantage to an insider who has already, or is about to, move nuclear material outside the facility building. If outsiders break into a facility, the availability of any information to coordinate the facility’s response through segregated alarm stations or a failure to include all available radiation sensors, such as safety’s criticality monitors can give the advantage to the adversary who might know to disable camera systems, but would most likely be unaware of other highly relevant sensors in a nuclear facility.This paper will briefly explore operational safeguards, safety, and security by design (3S) at a high level for domestic and State facilities, identify possible weaknesses, and propose future administrative and technical methods, to strengthen the facility system’s response to threats.

Schanfein, Mark J.↗
DOE OSTI2017

Secure multi-party communication with quantum key distribution managed by trusted authority

Techniques and tools for implementing protocols for secure multi-party communication after quantum key distribution ("QKD") are described herein. In example implementations, a trusted authority facilitates secure communication between multiple user devices. The trusted authority distributes different quantum keys by QKD under trust relationships with different users. The trusted authority determines combination keys using the quantum keys and makes the combination keys available for distribution (e.g., for non-secret distribution over a public channel). The combination keys facilitate secure communication between two user devices even in the absence of QKD between the two user devices. With the protocols, benefits of QKD are extended to multi-party communication scenarios. In addition, the protocols can retain benefit of QKD even when a trusted authority is offline or a large group seeks to establish secure communication within the group.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2018

Securing your Site in Development and Beyond

Why wait until production deployment, or even staging and testing deployment to identify security vulnerabilities? Using tools like Burp Suite, you can find security vulnerabilities before they creep up on you. Prevent cross-site scripting attacks, and establish a firmer trust between your website and your client. Verify that Apache/Nginx have the correct SSL Ciphers set. We explore using these tools and more to validate proper Apache/Nginx configurations, and to be compliant with modern configuration standards as part of the development cycle. Your clients can use tools like https://securityheaders.io and https://ssllabs.com to get a graded report on your level of compliance with OWASP Secure Headers Project and SSLLabs recommendations. Likewise, you should always use the same sites to validate your configurations. Burp Suite will find common misconfigurations and will also perform more thorough security testing of your applications. In this session you will see examples of vulnerabilities that were detected early on, as well has how to integrate these practices into your daily workflow.

Akopov, Mikhail S.↗
DOE OSTI2017

Method for Determining the Sensitivity of a Physical Security System.

Modern systems, such as physical security systems, are often designed to involve complex interactions of technological and human elements. Evaluation of the performance of these systems often overlooks the human element. A method is proposed here to expand the concept of sensitivity—as denoted by d’—from signal detection theory (Green & Swets 1966; Macmillan & Creelman 2005), which came out of the field of psychophysics, to cover not only human threat detection but also other human functions plus the performance of technical systems in a physical security system, thereby including humans in the overall evaluation of system performance. New in this method is the idea that probabilities of hits (accurate identification of threats) and false alarms (saying “threat” when there is not one), which are used to calculate d’ of the system, can be applied to technologies and, furthermore, to different functions in the system beyond simple yes-no threat detection. At the most succinct level, the method returns a single number that represents the effectiveness of a physical security system; specifically, the balance between the handling of actual threats and the distraction of false alarms. The method can be automated, and the constituent parts revealed, such that given an interaction graph that indicates the functional associations of system elements and the individual probabilities of hits and false alarms for those elements, it will return the d’ of the entire system as well as d’ values for individual parts. The method can also return a measure of the response bias* of the system. One finding of this work is that the d’ for a physical security system can be relatively poor in spite of having excellent d’s for each of its individual functional elements.

98 NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT, SAFEGUARDS, AND PHYSICAL P↗
DOE OSTI2020

Quantifying Human Behavior and Decision Errors in Security Screening Operations

The potential for human errors in conducting security related screening operations can lead to inadvertent and adverse decision outcomes. This paper overviews an initial mathematical framework designed to model and quantify the various human factors and decision outcomes that may occur in conducting security screening operations, such as U.S. port of entry radiological and nuclear (rad/nuc) security screening. This framework is based on the Human Error Assessment and Reduction (HEART) technique. As applied here, the framework incorporates a set of rules for human engagement, including a prescribed concept of operations (CONOPS) and deviations that may occur from this established CONOPS due to inadvertent personnel decision errors. We also review some of the various factors that may adversely influence such decisions by security screening personnel. Some of these factors include current workload, environmental conditions, training, and various other intangible factors. Using the HEART methodology, we translate each of these factors into error producing conditions, their effects on error, an assessed proportion of effects, and finally the overall probability of human error at each stage of the screening process. We then include a small scale example to demonstrate the methodology and results based on an assumed set of input conditions at a notional port of entry.

Brigantic, Robert T.↗