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

Other motivating examples

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)