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Software security vulnerabilities are significant for the software development industry. Exploration is conducted for software development industry landscape, software development eco-system landscape, and software system customer landscape. The focus is to explore the data sources that can provide the software development team with insights to act upon the security vulnerabilities proactively. Across these modules of software landscape, customer landscape, and industry landscape, data sources are leveraged using artificial intelligence approaches to identify the security insights. The focus is also on building a smart knowledge management system that integrates the information processed across modules into a central system. This central intelligence system can be further leveraged to manage software development activities proactively. In this exploration, machine learning and deep learning approaches are devised to model the data and learn from across the modules. Architecture for all the modules and their integration is also proposed. Work helps to envision a smart system for Artificial Intelligence-based knowledge management for managing software security vulnerabilities.

The increased dependency on technology brings national security to the forefront of concerns of the 21st century. It creates many challenges to developing and developed nations in their effort to counter cyber threats and adds to the inherent risk factors associated with technology. The failure to securely protect data would potentially give rise to far-reaching catastrophic consequences. Therefore, it is crucially important to have national, regional, and global data protection policies and regulations to penalise those engaged in unethical use of technology and abuse the system vulnerabilities of technology. This research paper aims to analyse GDPR inspired Bills in the South Asian Region and to identify their appropriateness for developing a global level data protection mechanism, given that Asian nations are far more diverse than those of the European nations. Against that background, the objectives of this paper are to identify GDPR inspired Bills in the South Asian Region, identify the similarities and disparities, and the barriers to developing a regional level data protection mechanism, thereby fulfilling the need for developing a global level mechanism. This research is qualitative in nature, and with that in mind, the researcher conducted an extensive literature survey of previous research papers, journal articles, previous survey reports and government publications on the above content. Taking account of the findings of the survey, the researcher critically analysed the important parameters identified in the literature review. The key findings of this research indicate that many countries in the South Asian region are in the process of reviewing their current data protection mechanisms, in line with GDPR. In concluding, the researcher emphasised the need to develop adequate data protection mechanisms and believed that going forward it would be the appropriate and practical way to develop a consensus-based regional mechanism that would ultimately enable to develop a lasting global level data protection mechanism.

In recent years, due to the rapid growth in network technology, numerous types of intrusions have been uncovered that differ from the existing ones, and the conventional firewalls with specific rule sets and policies are incapable of identifying those intrusions in real-time. Therefore, that demands the requirement of a real-time intrusion detection system (RT-IDS). The ultimate purpose of this research is to construct an RT-IDS capable of identifying intrusions by analysing the inbound and outbound network data in real-time. The proposed system consists of a deep neural network (DNN) trained using 28 features of the NSL-KDD dataset. In addition, it contains the machine learning (ML) pipeline with sequential components for categorical data encoding and feature scaling, which is used before transmitting the real-time data to the trained DNN model to make predictions. Moreover, a real-time feature extractor, which is a C++ program that sniffs data from the real-time network traffic and derives relevant data related to the features of the NSL-KDD dataset using the sniffed data, is deployed between the gateway router and the local area network (LAN). Together with the trained DNN model, the ML pipeline is hosted in a server that can be accessed via a representational state transfer application programming interface (REST API). The DNN has revealed outstanding testing performance results achieving 81%, 96%, 70% and 81% for accuracy, precision, recall and f1-score accordingly. This research comprises a comprehensive technical explanation concerning the implementation and functionality of the complete system. Moreover, leveraging the extensive explanations provided in this paper, advanced IDSs capable of identifying modern intrusions can be constructed.

Threat modelling Cyber-Physical System built on cloud infrastructure to monitor and manage the window cleaning operation using Window Cleaning Warehouse as a case study. Focusing on IoT data collection and cloud infrastructure security and the connections with the Cyber-Physical System. External dependencies and trust levels are defined before using trust boundaries and data flow diagrams to highlight attack surfaces. Expected scenarios from the data flow diagrams are discussed to identify violated intended use of the system using STRIDE threat classification. A risk assessment of assets that may be of interest to an adversary aid the discovery of more security risks that are then prioritised using the DREAD methodology. The results of the research present a comprehensive breakdown of vulnerabilities associated with IoT data security for route optimisation ranging from GPS spoofing, to Firestore vulnerabilities in the real-time database to Bluetooth Low Energy vulnerabilities in the IoT hardware, all of which could be common risks in cyber-physical systems designed by SME businesses. The research concludes various security risks applicable to SME businesses adopting industry 4.0 to alleviate the risk of new security breaches to the business through this adoption, increasing the likelihood of successful adoption of industry 4.0.

In this paper, we identify and review key challenges to bridge the knowledge-gap between SME’s, companies, organisations, businesses, government institutions and the general public in adopting, promoting and utilising Blockchain technology. The challenges indicated are Cybersecurity and Data privacy in this instance. Additional challenges are set out supported by literature, in researching data security management systems and legal frameworks to ascertaining the types and varieties of valid encryption, data acquisition, policy and outcomes under ISO 27001 and the General Data Protection Regulations. Blockchain, a revolutionary method of storage and immutability, provides a robust storage strategy, and when coupled with a Smart Contract, gives users the ability to form partnerships, share information and consent via a legally-based system of carrying out business transactions in a secure digital domain. Globally, ethical and legal challenges significantly differ; consent and trust in the public and private sectors in deploying such defensive data management strategies, is directly related to the accountability and transparency systems in place to deliver certainty and justice. Therefore, investment and research in these areas is crucial to establishing a dialogue between nations to include health, finance and market strategies that should encompass all levels of society. A framework is proposed with elements to include Big Data, Machine Learning and Visualisation methods and techniques. Through the literature we identify a system necessary in carrying out experiments to detect, capture, process and store data. This includes isolating packet data to inform levels of Cybersecurity and privacy-related activities, and ensuring transparency demonstrated in a secure, smart and effective manner.