Open Access

Semi-structured regression models enable the joint modeling of interpretable structured and complex unstructured feature effects. The structured model part is inspired by statistical models and can be used to infer the input-output relationship for features of particular importance. The complex unstructured part defines an arbitrary deep neural network and thereby provides enough flexibility to achieve competitive prediction performance. While these models can also account for aleatoric uncertainty, there is still a lack of work on accounting for epistemic uncertainty. In this paper, we address this problem by presenting a Bayesian approximation for semi-structured regression models using subspace inference. To this end, we extend subspace inference for joint posterior sampling from a full parameter space for structured effects and a subspace for unstructured effects. Apart from this hybrid sampling scheme, our method allows for tunable complexity of the subspace and can capture multiple minima in the loss landscape. Numerical experiments validate our approach’s efficacy in recovering structured effect parameter posteriors in semi-structured models and approaching the full-space posterior distribution of MCMC for increasing subspace dimension. Further, our approach exhibits competitive predictive performance across simulated and real-world datasets

This thesis emphasizes problems that reports generated by vulnerability scanners impose on the process of vulnerability management, which are a. an overwhelming amount of data and b. an insufficient prioritization of the scan results. To assist the process of developing means to counteract those problems and to allow for quantitative evaluation of their solutions, two metrics are proposed for their effectiveness and efficiency. These metrics imply a focus on higher severity vulnerabilities and can be applied to any simplification process of vulnerability scan results, given it relies on a severity score and time of remediation estimation for each vulnerability. A priority score is introduced which aims to improve the widely used Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) base score of each vulnerability dependent on a vulnerability’s ease of exploit, estimated probability of exploitation and probability of its existence. Patterns within the reports generated by the Open Vulnerability Assessment System (OpenVAS) vulnerability scanner between vulnerabilities are discovered which identify criteria by which they can be categorized from a remediation actor standpoint. These categories lay the groundwork of a final simplified report and consist of updates that need to be installed on a host, severe vulnerabilities, vulnerabilities that occur on multiple hosts and vulnerabilities that will take a lot of time for remediation. The highest potential time savings are found to exist within frequently occurring vulnerabilities, minor- and major suggested updates. Processing of the results provided by the vulnerability scanner and creation of the report is realized in the form of a python script. The resulting reports are short, straight to the point and provide a top down remediation process which should theoretically allow to minimize the institutions attack surface as fast as possible. Evaluation of the practicality must follow as the reports are yet to be introduced into the Information Security Management Lifecycle.

The Montgomery multiplication is an efficient method for modular arithmetic. Typically, it is used for modular arithmetic over integer rings to prevent the expensive inversion for the modulo reduction. In this work, we consider modular arithmetic over rings of Gaussian integers. Gaussian integers are subset of the complex numbers such that the real and imaginary parts are integers. In many cases Gaussian integer rings are isomorphic to ordinary integer rings. We demonstrate that the concept of the Montgomery multiplication can be extended to Gaussian integers. Due to independent calculation of the real and imaginary parts, the computation complexity of the multiplication is reduced compared with ordinary integer modular arithmetic. This concept is suitable for coding applications as well as for asymmetric key cryptographic systems, such as elliptic curve cryptography or the Rivest-Shamir-Adleman system.

Multi-dimensional spatial modulation is a multipleinput/ multiple-output wireless transmission technique, that uses only a few active antennas simultaneously. The computational complexity of the optimal maximum-likelihood (ML) detector at the receiver increases rapidly as more transmit antennas or larger modulation orders are employed. ML detection may be infeasible for higher bit rates. Many suboptimal detection algorithms for spatial modulation use two-stage detection schemes where the set of active antennas is detected in the first stage and the transmitted symbols in the second stage. Typically, these detection schemes use the ML strategy for the symbol detection. In this work, we consider a suboptimal detection algorithm for the second detection stage. This approach combines equalization and list decoding. We propose an algorithm for multi-dimensional signal constellations with a reduced search space in the second detection stage through set partitioning. In particular, we derive a set partitioning from the properties of Hurwitz integers. Simulation results demonstrate that the new algorithm achieves near-ML performance. It significantly reduces the complexity when compared with conventional two-stage detection schemes. Multi-dimensional constellations in combination with suboptimal detection can even outperform conventional signal constellations in combination with ML detection.

Many resource-constrained systems still rely on symmetric cryptography for verification and authentication. Asymmetric cryptographic systems provide higher security levels, but are very computational intensive. Hence, embedded systems can benefit from hardware assistance, i.e., coprocessors optimized for the required public key operations. In this work, we propose an elliptic curve cryptographic coprocessors design for resource-constrained systems. Many such coprocessor designs consider only special (Solinas) prime fields, which enable a low-complexity modulo arithmetic. Other implementations support arbitrary prime curves using the Montgomery reduction. These implementations typically require more time for the point multiplication. We present a coprocessor design that has low area requirements and enables a trade-off between performance and flexibility. The point multiplication can be performed either using a fast arithmetic based on Solinas primes or using a slower, but flexible Montgomery modular arithmetic.