Division of Computer and Network Systems (CNS)

The integration of computation, communication and sensing technologies into our transportation, power grid, healthcare, and manufacturing systems presents unprecedented challenges in ensuring the security and safety of these systems. Cyber attacks on such systems cross from the cyber realm into the physical world, and we must deal with new attack trends that may cause vehicles to veer off the road, manipulate devices responsible for power generation, distribution and consumption, and exploit robotic/drone systems for malicious activities.

Today, embedded devices are ubiquitous. These devices are inherently networked, which exposes them to malware attacks. Windows devices remain the most prominent targets of malware attacks to date. But this playing field is quickly changing, as demonstrated with firmware attacks to private access points or closed-circuit television cameras. Other intrusions to industrial and governmental infrastructure have been reported in the power grid, for industrial control and automotive systems, even in small devices in private homes that are networked, often referred to as the Internet-of-Things.

Increasingly medical devices are dependent on software and the wireless channel for their operations, which also pose new vulnerabilities to their safe, dependable, and trustworthy operations. Medical devices such as implantable insulin pumps, which are in wide use today, continuously monitor and manage a patient's diabetes without the need for frequent daily patient interventions. These devices, not originally designed against cyber security threats, must now mitigate these threats.

Intellectual property protection of software remains a priority for the commercial sector because counterfeiting and piracy erode profits and market share, ultimately causing impacts on companies, consumers and governments. Watermarking for proving digital ownership and obfuscation for hindering adversarial reverse engineering are currently used to provide some level of deterrence against this. This project will investigate novel methods of software protection, hiding executable programs within other executable code.

Advances in privacy-enhancing technologies, including cryptographic mechanisms, standardized security protocols, and infrastructure, significantly improved privacy and had a significant impact on society by protecting users. At the same time, the success of such infrastructure has attracted abuse from illegal activities, including sophisticated botnets and ransomware, and has become a marketplace for drugs and contraband; botnets rose to be a major tool for cybercrime and their developers proved to be highly resourceful.