The amalgamation of Medical Internet of Things (MIoT) devices into everyday life is influencing the landscape of modern medicine. The implementation of these devices potentially alleviates the pressures and physical demands of healthcare systems through the remote monitoring of patients. However, there are concerns that the emergence of MIoT ecosystems is introducing an assortment of security and privacy challenges. While previous research has shown that multiple vulnerabilities exist within MIoT devices, minimal research investigates potential data leakage from MIoT devices through hijacking attacks. The research contribution of this paper is twofold. First, it provides a proof of concept that certain MIoT devices and their accompanying smartphone applications are vulnerable to hijacking attacks. Second, it highlights the effectiveness of using digital forensics tools as a lens to identify patient and medical device information on a hijacker's smartphone.
24 March 2025 in International Conference on Cyber Warfare and Security
As various technologies are integrated and implemented into the food and agricultural industry, it is increasingly important for stakeholders throughout the sector to identify and reduce cybersecurity vulnerabilities and risks associated with these technologies. However, numerous industry and government reports suggest that many farmers and agricultural equipment manufacturers do not fully understand the cyber threats posed by modern agricultural technologies, including CAN bus-driven farming equipment. This paper addresses this knowledge gap by attempting to quantify the cybersecurity risks associated with cyberattacks on farming equipment that utilize CAN bus technology. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, it presents a hypothetical case study, using real-world data, to illustrate the specific and wider impacts of a cyberattack on a CAN bus-driven fertilizer applicator employed in row-crop farming. Second, it establishes a foundation for future research on quantifying cybersecurity risks related to agricultural machinery.
28 February 2023 in International Conference on Cyber Warfare and Security
This paper presents the results of a new method for interleaving CPU instructions in x86-64 machine code, such that one can hide executable code within other valid instructions. The aim is to make it more difficult to reverse-engineer software at a machine code level – to obfuscate instructions. A result is a hidden execution path within a visible main instruction path. While previous methods for this instruction obfuscation exist, we present a new method which builds upon past work, and which allows a greater flexibility in the selection of main instruction path instructions. The result of this new approach is to provide a methodology for instruction concealment which is free of restrictions present in prior work.
The increased frequency and severity of cybersecurity incidents impacting healthcare organizations has prompted the publication of suggested best practices for these organizations, when attempting to respond to incidents in their respective settings. While these best practices provide a wealth of information on how to respond to a cybersecurity incident impacting medical devices, minimal information is provided related to the forensics investigation of the devices themselves. A growing appetite for digital evidence from medical devices, coupled with limited practical guidance from industry best practices prompts an investigation into identifying tools and techniques to assist digital forensic investigators with device disassembly, data acquisition, and preservation of evidence in medical devices. This paper presents the results of a detailed exploratory case study involving the digital forensic investigation of a General Electric MAC 800 electrocardiogram medical device. The contributions of this research are threefold. First, it provides an empirical demonstration of practical techniques for acquiring and examining residual data from the electrocardiogram medical device. Second, the research documents the artifacts that can be recovered from the medical device, which could be used as potential evidence. Third, it provides the foundation for future investigations regarding the tools and processes suitable for examining additional medical devices.This article is categorized under: Digital and Multimedia Science > Cybercrime Investigation Digital and Multimedia Science > IoT Forensics
28 February 2023 in International Conference on Cyber Warfare and Security
A storage device may contain data that an individual is legally or morally not allowed to possess. Or, a disgruntled company employee may intentionally destroy corporate files, assuming once deleted the information is lost forever. The data could take the form of a database owned by a competitor, illegal images, or videos, or trade secrets or confidential business information. Fragments of the data may very well still be present on the disk drive, for example, and forensic tools may be capable of recovering some of the confidential information. This paper introduces Search and CompAre Reverse (SCAR), inspired from tools used in the bioinformatics community. The contribution is an initial empirical investigation into the use of this bioinformatics-inspired approach to deduce the partial existence of patterns in cases where traditional digital forensics tools cannot detect the type of the file due to overwriting the file signature portion of the file.