Although the fifth generation (5G) wireless networks are yet to be fully investigated, the visionaries of the 6th generation (6G) echo systems have already come into the discussion. Therefore, in order to consolidate and solidify the security and privacy in 6G networks, we survey how security may impact the envisioned 6G wireless systems, possible challenges with different 6G technologies, and the potential solutions. We provide our vision on 6G security and security key performance indicators (KPIs) with the tentative threat landscape based on the foreseen 6G network architecture. Moreover, we discuss the security and privacy challenges that may encounter with the available 6G requirements and potential 6G applications. We also give the reader some insights into the standardization efforts and research-level projects relevant to 6G security. In particular, we discuss the security considerations with 6G enabling technologies such as distributed ledger technology (DLT), physical layer security, distributed AI/ML, visible light communication (VLC), THz, and quantum computing. All in all, this work intends to provide enlightening guidance for the subsequent research of 6G security and privacy at this initial phase of vision towards reality.

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The Roadmap to 6G Security and Privacy

Blockchain is a technology that has desirable features of decentralization, autonomy, integrity, immutability, verification, fault-tolerance, anonymity, auditability, and transparency. In this paper, we first carry out a deeper survey about blockchain technology, especially its history, consensus algorithms' quantitative comparisons, details of cryptography in terms of public key cryptography, Zero-Knowledge Proofs, and hash functions used in the blockchain, and the comprehensive list of blockchain applications. Further, the security of blockchain itself is a focus in this paper. In particular, we assess the blockchain security from risk analysis to derive comprehensive blockchain security risk categories, analyze the real attacks and bugs against blockchain, and summarize the recently developed security measures on blockchain. Finally, the challenges and research trends are presented to achieve more scalable and securer blockchain systems for the massive deployments. 

A Survey on Blockchain Technology and its security

Sharing of students’ credentials is a necessary and integral process of an education ecosystem that comprises various stakeholders like students, schools, companies, professors and the governmental authorities As of today, all these stakeholders have to put-in an enormous amount of efforts to ensure the authenticity and privacy of students’ credentials Despite these efforts, the process of sharing students’ credentials is complex, error-prone and not completely secure Our aim is to leverage blockchain technology to mitigate the existing security-related issues concerning the sharing of students’ credentials Thus, the paper proposes a tamper-proof, immutable, authentic, non-repudiable, privacy protected and easy to share blockchain-based architecture for secured sharing of students’ credentials To increase the scalability, the proposed system uses a secure off-chain storage mechanism The performance and viability of the proposed architecture is analyzed by using an Ethereum based prototypical implementation The test results imply that requests can be executed within few seconds (without block-time) and the system has stability to process up to 1000 simultaneous requests

Privacy Protected Blockchain Based Architecture and Implementation for Sharing of Students’ Credentials

Data breaches and cybersecurity incidents have been a major concern for companies in various sectors, including healthcare, financial, entertainment, business, education, and government. Maintaining and protecting these systems requires a workforce that is educated with the practical and technical skills needed by cybersecurity experts for information warfare and non-technical skills demanded by the industry. This paper describes the design and development of an undergraduate software and web security course using active learning strategies. It discusses the rationale in the course design on the selected cybersecurity knowledge and skills for a cybersecurity course developed at York College of the City University of New York (CUNY). Several active learning activities were used to promote both technical security and non-technical skills necessary to perform cybersecurity work, such as think-pair-share, buzz group, and roleplay. The results show that active learning help promote students' development in solving problems, proposing solutions, and explaining ideas through writing and discussion, essential cybersecurity skills. The paper may serve as an informative guide for other instructors to promote active learning in their cybersecurity courses. A course evaluation survey has suggested favorable results using active learning activities in the class. Students believe that it helped them to understand complex concepts and engage with the materials and activities.

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Howard Poston

Papers

Mapping the OWASP Top Ten to Blockchain