NCSU SoS Lablet Quarterly Executive Summary

A. Fundamental Research
High level report of result or partial result that helped move security science forward-- In most cases it should point to a "hard problem". These are the most important research accomplishments of the Lablet in the previous quarter.

We started three projects in the NC State Lablet during the previous quarter. In this quarter, the projects were mainly getting off the ground. However, they began to show outcomes, including

• Applying unsupervised machine learning to container vulnerability discovery.
• Published our survey of research on attack surfaces and that helps understand how attack surfaces are discussed in the literature.
• Identified a vulnerability in the paging protocol used by intermittently connected devices (such as on the the 4G and 5G cellular networks) by which an attacker could identify whether a device is present in a physical region.

B. Community Engagement(s)
Research interaction in the community including workshops, seminars, competitions, etc.

Three members of the NC State Lablet participated in the quarterly meeting at UIUC.

We brought up the Science of Security in a variety of fora, including

• Presentations at academic conferences
• Discussions with colleagues at several academic conferences
• Interactions with industry organization, such as the GSM Association

C. Educational Advances
Impact to courses or curriculum at your school or elsewhere that indicates an increased training or rigor in security research.

We are continuing to include Science of Security materials in our courses, including on attack surfaces and policy, and social computing. We interacted with a high-school student in West Lafayette to involve the student in our research.