Two Post-doctoral Positions in SUTD on Verification/Validation of Timing-channel Freedom

The Automated Systems Security research group (https://asset-group.github.io/) at the Singapore University of Technology and Design is looking for: Two (2) Post-Doctoral Positions on techniques for analyzing, validating and shielding micro-architectural timing-channels.

The ASSET research group in SUTD is involved in recently introducing the first comprehensive solution (https://oo7.comp.nus.edu.sg/) against the well-known Spectre attack (released Jan, 2018). To check the specific activities in this project so far, check out the following:

https://asset-group.github.io/projects/secure-embedded.html

Description of the project:

The two post-docs will participate in an effort to design efficient algorithms and tools to validate, verify and shield arbitrary programs against realistic micro-architectural timing-channel attacks. Such attacks exploit dynamic software properties (e.g. time, cache misses and memory access statistics) to retrieve sensitive information, recent examples include CacheBleed, Spectre and Meltdown. The algorithms and tools will build on techniques such as program analysis, symbolic execution, model checking and model counting in order to enable strong theoretical guarantees on the level of protection against threats involving timing channels.

The positions are funded by a recent highly competitive three-years grant from the Singapore Ministry of Education (MOE) on automating the analysis and validation of Micro-architectural timing-channel Freedom.

Environment:

Selected post-docs and research assistants will be offered internationally competitive remunerations (80K to 100K SGD per year depending on experience) and post-docs will also be offered support to travel to conferences for communicating the research outputs.

Singapore is a vibrant city that has an excellent mix of Western and Asian cultures. The city is well connected and is the center of one of the best airports in the world. Employees in Singapore enjoy a low tax-rate and the excellent facilities supporting research and technologies.

Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) is Singapore's fourth autonomous university. It is developed in collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). SUTD's mission is to advance knowledge and nurture technically grounded leaders and innovators to serve societal needs. This will be accomplished with a focus on Design, through an integrated multi-disciplinary curriculum and multi-disciplinary research.

Requirements:

Applicants should possess a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science or equivalent. A successful candidate should have a strong research experience in some of the following fields: program analysis, symbolic execution, formal verification, model checking, testing, security.

A Post-Doctoral position is time-limited for a year and extendable to two years upon satisfactory evaluation by the investigators.

Application:

Applications should include a two-page research statement describing his/her research interests and experience and how they relate to the project, a detailed CV and the contact information of two referees.

Prospective candidates are expected to join from January/February 2019 or soon after. We will look for applications until the positions are filled. However, prospective applicants are highly encouraged to submit their applications by 31st October, 2018. For submitting the application, combine all the required documents in a single PDF document and send to Sudipta Chattopadhyay (email: sudipta_chattopadhyay@sutd.edu.sg) and Ahmed Rezine (email: ahmed.rezine@liu.se) -- the investigators of the project.

All research activities will be carried out in SUTD, Singapore.

Research group:

The research will be carried out in Singapore (i.e. in SUTD) and the postdocs will be placed in SUTD. The investigators of the project are Sudipta Chattopadhyay (from SUTD) and Ahmed Rezine (from Linkoping University). For research activities in these groups, consult https://asset-group.github.io/ (at SUTD) and

http://www.ahmedrezine.com/ (at Linkoping University).