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Research Interest overview and future directions. Mina Guirguis Computer Science Department Texas State University – San Marcos CS5300 9/16/2011. Research areas. Mobile Cyber-Physical Systems Security in networks and systems Digital Forensics Networks. Mobile Cyber-Physical System.
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Research Interest overview and future directions Mina Guirguis Computer Science Department Texas State University – San Marcos CS5300 9/16/2011
Research areas • Mobile Cyber-Physical Systems • Security in networks and systems • Digital Forensics • Networks
Mobile Cyber-Physical System • Cyber-Physical System (CPS) • Combine computation and communication with our physical world • Intelligent buildings • Robotics surgery • Control systems • Mobile CPSs • Subclass of CPSs where physical systems are mobile • Cell phones, robots, cars, etc…
Motivating example • First feature video from the iRobot • In military applications
Research vision and goal • Vision: environment in which mobile nodes collaborate to solve problems • Robots communicate to achieve a specific task • Cell phones share resources (CPU, network, power) • Cars coordinate to realize an intelligent transportation system • Goal: ensure that Mobile CPS applications are safe and secure
Challenges • Mobile CPSs will rely on wireless communication • Attackers can interfere with/jam the signal between mobile nodes, preventing them from communicating • Mobile CPSs are emerging as complex systems • Complex systems are easier to attack and harder to debug • Mobile CPSs will make decisions under failures • Control theory address noise due to random failure • Attacks are not random failures, but well orchestrated
General research approach • Play the role: offense • Identifying optimal and suboptimal attack policies • What is the worst adversarial signal that would cripple the system at this point in time? • How can an attacker evade detection? • Play the role: defense • Randomization: make the system less predictable • Attacker would not be able to mount potent attacks
Mobile CPS Lab • 4 iRobot Create, each with a netbook on top • Camera, wireless, sensors • 2 SRV-1 Blackfin robots • Open source • Camera, wireless, sensors • Servers and laptops for simulation and numerical analysis
Research areas • Mobile Cyber-Physical Systems • Security in networks and systems • Digital Forensics • Networks
Network and systems security • Second feature video from a movie • “Untraceable” the movie 2008
Research agenda • Goal: ensure secure and resilient networking and system components • Denial of Service (DoS) attacks • Uninteresting -- easy to trace back to the heavy hitters • More interesting: Identify stealthy attacks • Do not take a lot of resources to mount • Undetectable • Untraceable
Stealthy attacks • Idea: to exploit “adaptation mechanisms” found in networks and computing systems • Adapting content based on load • Adapting traffic rates based on congestion • Balancing traffic across servers • Reorganizing a P2P network • Analogy: Make other drivers brake when they should accelerate and accelerate when they should brake
Illustrative example… • DoS attacks (exploiting capacity) • Low-rate attacks (exploiting adaptation)
Exploiting adaptation • Adaptation mechanisms are designed under the assumption of non-adversarial loads • Examples: random traffic patterns, random arrival processes, etc.) • What types (patterns) of load would make adaptation harmful? • What are the tradeoffs between efficiency and tolerance to dynamic exploits?
Research areas • Mobile Cyber-Physical Systems • Security in networks and systems • Digital Forensics • Networks
Digital forensics • Vision: Build effective tools to recover, examine and preserve digital evidence • Examples of digital evidence: • Financial fraud documents • Threatening/blackmail emails • Contraband material • Viruses, worms, trojans, backdoors, spyware, etc… • Incriminating network connections • Steganography channels for espionage
Digital forensics • Goal: Help investigators extract evidence from a computer or a digital device (iPad, iPhone, mp3 player) • Done very carefully to be admissible in court • Offline versus Online (live response) • Speed up the process of finding evidence • Requires knowledge that spans different areas: • Networks, systems, security, statistics, image processing, criminal law, etc…
Research areas • Mobile Cyber-Physical Systems • Security in networks and systems • Digital Forensics • Networks
Final remarks • My email address: msg@txstate.edu • Office hours: • Mondays: 4:30 – 6:00 (in Round Rock) • Tuesdays: 3:30 - 5:00 (in San Marcos) • Thursdays: 10:00 – 12:00 (in San Marcos)