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Detection and prevention of username enumeration attack on SSH protocol: machine learning approach
Get PDFA Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Master’s in Information System and Network Security of the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and TechnologyOver the last two decades (2000–2020), the Internet has rapidly evolved, resulting in
symmetrical and asymmetrical Internet consumption patterns and billions of users worldwide.
With the immense rise of the Internet, attacks and malicious behaviors pose a huge threat to
our computing environment. Brute-force attack is among the most prominent and commonly
used attacks, achieved out using password-attack tools, a wordlist dictionary, and a usernames
list – obtained through a so – called an enumeration attack. In this study, we investigate
username enumeration attack detection on SSH protocol by using machine-learning classifiers.
We apply four asymmetrical classifiers on our generated dataset collected from a closed environment network to build machine-learning-based models for attack detection. The use of
several machine-learners offers a wider investigation spectrum of the classifiers’ ability in
attack detection. Additionally, we investigate how beneficial it is to include or exclude network
ports information as features-set in the process of learning. We evaluated and compared the
performances of machine-learning models for both cases. The models used are k-nearest
neighbor (KNN), naïve Bayes (NB), random forest (RF) and decision tree (DT) with and
without ports information. Our results show that machine-learning approaches to detect SSH
username enumeration attacks were quite successful, with KNN having an accuracy of 99.93%,
NB 95.70%, RF 99.92%, and DT 99.88%. Furthermore, the results improved when using ports
information. The best selected model was then deployed into intrusion detection and prevention
system (IDS/IPS) to automatically detect and prevent username enumeration attack. Study also
recommends the use of Deep Learning in future studies
C-Reactive Protein as a Triage Test in Guiding Who Should Get a Confirmatory Test for Pulmonary Tuberculosis Diagnosis among Adults: A Case-Control Proof-of-Concept Study from Urban Tanzania
Get PDFThis research article was Scientific Research Publishing Inc., 2022Background: The current screening tools for tuberculosis (TB) are inadequate resulting in insufficient TB case detection and continued community transmission of TB. As the world is geared into finding missing TB cases, new strategies are called for to aid in rapid identification of TB cases. This study aimed to evaluate the role C-reactive protein (CRP) in triaging patients to get a definitive test for active pulmonary TB diagnosis in urban Tanzania. Methods: A case-control study was conducted among pulmonary TB (PTB) patients and contacts without active PTB. The diagnosis of PTB was performed using GeneXpert MTB/RIF assay and culture. Blood was collected from cases and controls for measuring CRP levels during recruitment. We compared socio-demographic characteristics, clinical and laboratory parameters obtained during recruitment and performed diagnostic accuracy analyses for CRP. Results: Out of all 193 study participants who were involved in final analysis, 147 (76.2%) were males. Pulmonary TB cases had significantly lower median BMI than controls (median 17.4 kg/m2 [IQR: 15.8 - 19.2 kg/m2] vs., 24.9 kg/m2 [IQR: 22.1 - 28.5 kg/m2), p < 0.001). There was no statistical difference in prevalence of HIV between PTB cases and controls i.e., 13.33% vs., 11.7%, p = 0.48. CRP was significantly higher in PTB cases vs., controls (median 67.8 mg/L, [IQR: 36.5 - 116.9 mg/L] vs., 1.55 mg/L, [IQR: 0.59 - 6.0 mg/L], p = 0.003). Furthermore, CRP at cut-off ≥10 mg/L was associated with best combination of sensitivity, specificity and area under the curve of 89.9%, 95% CI: 82.2 - 95.0, 80.9%, CI: 71.4 - 88.2 and 0.85, 95% CI: 0.80 - 0.90 respectively. A multivariate logistic regression model adjusted for fever, night sweats and body mass index showed that CRP above 10 mg/L was significantly associated with PTB, aOR 5.2, 95% CI 1.2 - 22.8. Conclusions: CRP at cut-off ≥10 mg/L can be used to screen pulmonary TB. These findings can be used to improve TB screening algorithm by incorporating CRP in combination with TB symptoms to identify patients who need further confirmatory TB tests. However, additional prospective studies are required to support our findings and contribute into policy recommendations on use of CRP in a screening algorithm for pulmonary TB
Causal relationship between Environmental Enteric Dysfunction (EED), poor WaSH practices and growth failure in children from Rukwa-Tanzania
Get PDFThis research article was published by Elsevier,2022Stunting is the most prevalent form of chronic undernutrition. The Rukwa region in Tanzania has one of the highest prevalence of stunting, despite being one of the most food secure region in the country. It is therefore important to understand other possible environmental and biological factors for stunting/growth failure, apart from food insecurity. This was a hospital based prospective cohort study aimed at assessing other causal relationship between Environmental Enteric Dysfunction (EED), WaSH practices and growth failure in children aged between 1–2 years from Rukwa, Tanzania, using univariate and multivariate logistic regression models. We found very significant causal relationship between growth failure and combined water availability (p = 0.0055), toilet sharing by parents/caregivers (OR = 2.632, CI: 1.156–6.233, p = 0.023 from univariate analysis, and OR = 4.067, CI: 1.484–12.206, p = 0.008 from multivariate analysis), and handwashing by parents/caregivers before food (OR = 3.363, CI: 0.928 -11.454, p = 0.05 from univariate analysis and OR = 15.038, CI:2.422–115.8, p = 0.005 from multivariate analysis). This significant causal relationship may be linked to increased diarrheal incidence and other waterborne infections among the studied children, which may then lead to inadequate absorption of nutrients and subsequent growth failure. The findings herein should therefore improve policy and programs designed to deliver targeted intervention strategies in Tanzania, to also identify and include other entry points for managing child growth failure and improving WaSH services
Assessment of characteristics and severity of giraffe skin disease in Tarangire, Manyara ecosystem
Get PDFA Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Master’s in Life Sciences at Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and TechnologyGiraffe Skin Disease (GSD) is a recently observed illness, mainly affecting adult and sub adult giraffes, causing gray or crusty lesions on giraffe body. The general objective of this
study was to assess and characterize GSD and its severity in Tarangire-Manyara Ecosystem
(TME). The study used road transects to gather field information on GSD. Eighty-four
giraffes were sighted by systematic random sampling in the six study sites. Examination of
giraffes involved body distribution of lesions, severity of the lesions and whether they were
associated with age and sex of the affected giraffes. Five giraffes with GSD were
immobilized in Tarangire National Park and Burunge Wildlife Management Area for tissue
collection and histopathological analysis and blood for hematological and biochemical
analysis. Overall GSD prevalence was (69%,), affected animals typically had 1-5 lesions
which were mostly moderate and were predominantly observed on the forelegs. GSD
positivity rate was higher among females 54% versus males, whereas males had a higher rate
of severe lesions and generally had more lesions than females. Calves showed no lesions. All
tissue sections stained routinely with Hematoxylin and Eosin (H-E) and then to the special
Grocott Methenamine Silver (GMS) staining showed the presence of large quantities of
fungal elements (hyphae and spores). However, haematological parameters examined and
biochemical profile analysis showed changes associated with the presence of fungus
infection. Our findings suggest the involvement of fungal infection in GSD pathogenesis. We
recommend further characterization of the lesions using modern molecular techniques and
culture to identify primary and secondary or opportunistic etiologies, and the order in which
the pathogens occur in the lesions.Giraffe Skin Disease (GSD) is a recently observed illness, mainly affecting adult and sub adult giraffes, causing gray or crusty lesions on giraffe body. The general objective of this
study was to assess and characterize GSD and its severity in Tarangire-Manyara Ecosystem
(TME). The study used road transects to gather field information on GSD. Eighty-four
giraffes were sighted by systematic random sampling in the six study sites. Examination of
giraffes involved body distribution of lesions, severity of the lesions and whether they were
associated with age and sex of the affected giraffes. Five giraffes with GSD were
immobilized in Tarangire National Park and Burunge Wildlife Management Area for tissue
collection and histopathological analysis and blood for hematological and biochemical
analysis. Overall GSD prevalence was (69%,), affected animals typically had 1-5 lesions
which were mostly moderate and were predominantly observed on the forelegs. GSD
positivity rate was higher among females 54% versus males, whereas males had a higher rate
of severe lesions and generally had more lesions than females. Calves showed no lesions. All
tissue sections stained routinely with Hematoxylin and Eosin (H-E) and then to the special
Grocott Methenamine Silver (GMS) staining showed the presence of large quantities of
fungal elements (hyphae and spores). However, haematological parameters examined and
biochemical profile analysis showed changes associated with the presence of fungus
infection. Our findings suggest the involvement of fungal infection in GSD pathogenesis. We
recommend further characterization of the lesions using modern molecular techniques and
culture to identify primary and secondary or opportunistic etiologies, and the order in which
the pathogens occur in the lesions
Effects of sample preservation methods and storage duration on the performance of mid-infrared spectroscopy for predicting the age of malaria vectors
Get PDFA Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Public Health Research of the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and TechnologyThe study assessed the effects of different preservation methods and storage durations on the
performance of mid-infrared spectroscopy for age-grading malaria transmitting mosquitoes.
Laboratory-reared Anopheles arabiensis (N=3,681) were collected as 5 or 17-day olds
and killed with ethanol then preserved using either silica desiccant at 5°C, freezing at -20°C,
or absolute ethanol at room temperatures. For each preservation method, the mosquitoes were
divided into three groups and stored for 1, 4 or 8 weeks, then scanned using the mid-infrared
spectrometer. Supervised machine learning classifiers were trained with the infrared spectra,
and used to predict the mosquito ages. The classification of mosquito ages (as 5 or 17-day
old’s) was most accurate when the samples used to train the models and samples being tested
were preserved the same way or stored for equal durations. However, when the test and
training samples were handled differently, the classification accuracies declined significantly.
Support vector machine classifiers (SVM) trained using spectra of silica-preserved
mosquitoes achieved 95% accuracy when predicting the ages of other silica-preserved
mosquitoes, but this declined to 72% and 66% when age-classifying mosquitoes preserved
using ethanol and freezing. Similarly, models trained on one-week stored samples had
declining accuracies of 97%, 83% and 72% when predicting ages of mosquitoes stored for 1,
4 or 8 weeks respectively. When using mid-infrared spectroscopy and supervised machine
learning to age-grade mosquitoes, the highest accuracies are achieved when the training and
test samples are preserved the same way and stored for the same durations. Protocols for
infrared-based entomological studies should emphasize standardization of sample-handling
procedures
Smallholder farmer's awareness and determination of aflatoxins in sesame seeds of southern Tanzania
Get PDFThis research article was published Journal of Food Safety and Hygiene in 2022Consumption of aflatoxins contaminated foods has led to detrimental health effects worldwide, with even more severe cases in African countries including Tanzania. A cross sectional study was conducted to assess awareness and aflatoxins contamination of sesame seeds in Lindi and Mtwara regions. Subsequently, a total of 70 sesame seed samples were randomly purchased from local markets for aflatoxin determination using High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). Qualitative data were analyzed using SPSS 20 for descriptive and correlation analysis. Results show that 82.4% of the respondents were not aware of aflatoxin contamination of agricultural produce. Awareness was negatively correlated to the levels of education (p=-0.309) and positively correlated with gender whereby men were more aware than women (p=0.03). On the other hand, 37 out of 70 sesame seeds samples were contaminated with total aflatoxins at a range of 0.009 ng/g to 5.557 ng/g. Although none of these samples exceeded the Tanzania maximum limits of 10 ng/g for total aflatoxins, 2 samples exceeded the maximum limit of 4 ng/g set by the European Union. Furthermore, Aflatoxin B1 was detected in 13 samples moreover the concentration was below the Tanzania and EU maximum limit of 5 ng/g and 2 ng/g respectively. Though the contamination was below the national maximum limits and limited to one agro-ecological zone and season, these findings provide useful insights on aflatoxins contamination of sesames seeds from the two main growing regions in Tanzania
Increasing agricultural soil phosphate (P) status influences water P levels in paddy farming areas: Their implication on environmental quality
Get PDFThis research was published by Elsevier Ltd. in 2022Intensive paddy farming activities involve higher use of irrigation water and agrochemicals to increase crop productivity per unit area. However, a practice may result in environmental challenges due to nutrient loss and agro-chemicals contamination from agricultural fields. The present study characterized the relationship between agricultural soil phosphate (P) status and P levels in water bodies in Usangu agro-ecosystem (UA), the area famous for paddy rice production in Southern Highland Tanzania. The studied soil pH ranged from 6.4 to 7.6, while water pH was 4.9–6.8, which varied among study sites and negatively correlated to each other. This study found a positive correlation between P concentration (P 1.65 mg/L) from agricultural fields to water bodies found in different water samples from irrigation schemes potentially leads to eutrophication. To sustainably manage P concentration in water bodies and increase land productivity per unit area, the hotspot for P loss to water bodies in the agro-ecosystem has to be identified and managed, but also flooding irrigation system standard in the study area has to be abandoned to reduce plant nutrient loss and contamination of water bodies
What influences individuals to invest in improved sanitation services and hygiene behaviours in a small town? A formative research study in Babati, Tanzania
Get PDFThis research article was published by PLOS ONE in 2022Sub-Sahara African countries face immense challenges in ensuring adequate sanitation and hygiene behaviours to the rapidly growing populations. Attempts to address these challenges require empirical evidence to inform policy and planning. We contribute toward that goal by unveiling findings of formative research conducted in Babati, a rapidly growing town in Tanzania. We conducted a cross-sectional study involving 486 households, to unwind motives and barriers for individuals to invest in improved sanitation services and hygiene behaviour change. We used several methods including household survey, focus group discussions, behaviour observations and spot checks. The findings revealed that households derive their motivation to invest in improved sanitation and hygiene practices from comfort, raising social status, and the need for personal safety and privacy. Other motives include fear of penalties and fines and fear of disease outbreaks, whilst the barriers include, limited water availability and accessibility, environmental factors, property rights, cultural issues, financial constraints, and a person’s attitude. Quantitative data were subjected to multivariate analysis to identify determinants of households to invest in sanitation and hygiene practices. The logistic regression analyses revealed that sources of water, property rights, and education level were the main determinants of households to invest in sanitation and hygiene facilities, while household income was the main determinant for households to invest in both construction of handwashing facility and water treatment. We argue that the initiative to promote sanitation and hygiene behaviour change in small towns should focus on promoting motivation factors and abating the determinant factors identified in this study
Cashew apple in Tanzania: status of utilization, challenges, and opportunities for sustainable development
Get PDFThis research article was published by F1000 Research, 2022Home Browse Cashew apple in Tanzania: status of utilization, challenges, and opportunities...
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POLICY BRIEF
Cashew apple in Tanzania: status of utilization, challenges, and opportunities for sustainable development [version 1; peer review: awaiting peer review]
Noel Dimoso https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5536-3437, Neema Kassim, Edna Makule https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3077-8932
Author details
This article is included in the Agriculture, Food and Nutrition gateway.
Abstract
Cashew apples, although widely available and rich in nutrients are still underutilized after harvest in Tanzania. Approximately 2,327,000 metric tonnes of cashew apples are lost each year. Their counterpart, the cashew nut is highly appreciated and successfully contributes to the national economy. The huge underutilization of cashew apples is a challenge that requires urgent attention in order to achieve both national and global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. Improvement of the cashew apple sector could have a positive impact on global SDGs 1, 2, and 3 targets of no poverty, zero hunger, and good health and well-being respectively. At national level, this sector could contribute to the goals of the Tanzania Development Vision (TDV) 2025, namely: high quality livelihood, particularly food self-sufficiency and food security; and a strong and competitive economy, particularly a diversified and semi-industrialized economy with a substantial industrial sector comparable to typical middle-income countries. In addition, the country’s Third Five Year Development Plan III (FYDP III) 2021/22 – 2025/26 has established key strategic interventions, notably those related to competitive industrialization, energy, and food and nutrition security to ultimately achieve the goals of the TDV 2025. To be effective, however, these strategic interventions require continued strong central and local government support and active involvement of stakeholders to ensure program effectiveness yielded towards efficient utilization of widely available natural resources such as cashew apples which has cross-cutting benefits in food, agriculture, health, energy, and economic perspectives. Therefore, the work provides evidence on the utilization status, challenges, and opportunities for sustainable development in Tanzania
Cockle (Anadara granosa) shells-based hydroxyapatite and its potential for defluoridation of drinking water
Get PDFThis research article was published in the Journal Results in Engineering volume 13,2022The present study describes the synthesis and characterization of a hydroxyapatite (HAp)-based adsorbent
derived from biogenic cockle (Anadara granosa) shells for the defluoridation of drinking water. The raw cockle
shells and synthesized HAp were characterized by X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF), attenuated total
reflection-Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Field emission scanning electron
microscopes-energy dispersive X-ray (FESEM-EDX) and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area analysis. As
demonstrated by FTIR, cockle shells were found to be composed of calcium carbonate (97.4%), an aragonite
polymorphous type of carbonate mineral. XRD and SEM analysis supported the formation of a nanocrystalline
HAp with an average crystal size of 19.08 nm and 57.1 nm, respectively, with a surface area of 105.8 m2/g and a
pore size of 5.6 nm, as depicted by BET. Batch adsorption experiments were conducted using the Box-Behnken
design (BBD) with five input parameters: adsorbent dose (2–10 g/L), initial fluoride concentration (10–80 mg/L),
contact time (0.5–24 h), reaction temperature (303–333 K), and pH. (3–11). BBD revealed the following opti-
mum conditions: adsorbent dose (6 g/L), initial fluoride concentration (45 mg/L), contact period 12.25 h, re-
action temperature (303 K), and pH 3. Experimentally, the adsorption of fluoride on HAp fitted well with the
non-linear Langmuir isotherm and linear pseudo-second order kinetics, signifying the chemisorption process. A
maximum adsorption capacity (qm) of 15.374 mg/g, which is closer to the experimental value of 14.053 mg/g,
was presented by the Langmuir isotherm. Thermodynamically, the adsorption process was spontaneous, endo-
thermic, and stable in nature. The defluoridation mechanism was through electrostatic attraction, ion exchange,
hydrogen bonding, and precipitation. Furthermore, the synthesized HAp and bone char were used to examine
their efficacy in defluoridating field water: HAp performed better at natural pH, where the treated water met
WHO and TBS standards, whereas bone char had insufficient fluoride removal, especially at high fluoride levels.
As a result, this study suggests that HAp derived from Anadara granosa shells could be a viable adsorbent for the
defluoridation of drinking water