Collaborative

While hardware resources for computation and data storage are now abundant, economic factors prevent specialized hardware security mechanisms from being integrated into commodity parts. System owners are caught between the need to exploit cheap, fast, commodity microprocessors and the need to ensure that critical security properties hold. This research will explore a novel way to augment commodity hardware after fabrication to enhance secure operation. The basic approach is to add a separate silicon layer, housing select security features, onto an existing integrated circuit.

Developments in public-key encryption (PKE) and identity-based encryption (IBE) have revolutionized the field of cryptography and secure communication in general. PKE allowed remote parties to establish secure channels in front of eavesdropping adversaries, and led to public-key directories storing parties' public-keys. The stronger primitive of IBE eliminated the need for a large public-key directory, though this comes at the cost of trusting a central private-key generation authority.

Differential privacy (DP) has been accepted as the de facto standard for data privacy in the research community and beyond. Both companies and government agencies are trying to deploy DP technologies. Broader deployments of DP technology, however, face challenges. This project aims to understand the needs of different stakeholders in data privacy, and to develop algorithms and software to enable broader deployment of private data sharing.

Differential privacy (DP) has been accepted as the de facto standard for data privacy in the research community and beyond. Both companies and government agencies are trying to deploy DP technologies. Broader deployments of DP technology, however, face challenges. This project aims to understand the needs of different stakeholders in data privacy, and to develop algorithms and software to enable broader deployment of private data sharing.

There has been a rapid escalation of targeted cyber-attacks, called Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs), on high-profile enterprises. These skilled attacks routinely bypass widely deployed protection mechanisms. Existing second-line cyber defenses (e.g., intrusion detection systems) are helpful, but they often generate a flood of information that overwhelms cyber analysts. Moreover, analysts lack the tools to piece together attack fragments spanning multiple applications and/or hosts.