Division of Computer and Network Systems (CNS)
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Submitted by cardenas on Tue, 08/13/2019 - 9:43am
This project focuses on tackling the security and privacy of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) by integrating the theory and best practices from the information security community as well as practical approaches from the control theory community. The first part of the project focuses on security and protection of cyber-physical critical infrastructures such as the power grid, water distribution networks, and transportation networks against computer attacks in order to prevent disruptions that may cause loss of service, infrastructure damage or even loss of life.
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Submitted by Kangjie Lu on Tue, 08/13/2019 - 8:42am
Operating system (OS) kernels play a critical role in computer systems by virtually having complete control over the systems. OS kernels not only manage hardware and system resources, but also provide services and protection. Given these tasks, OS kernels have to process external untrusted inputs and perform complicated operations, both of which are error-prone. To avoid entering into erroneous states, OS kernels tend to enforce a large number of security checks---"if" and "switch" statements that are used to validate states. Unfortunately, security checks themselves are often buggy.
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Submitted by Anthony Vance on Tue, 08/13/2019 - 8:39am
This project measures how decreased attention to frequent software notifications negatively influences peoples' responses to uncommon security warnings that are truly critical. The researchers will use eye tracking equipment to examine this problem by measuring attention to notifications and warnings through eye gaze patterns, and individuals' decisions in response to these messages.
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Submitted by Rachel Greenstadt on Tue, 08/13/2019 - 8:37am
Online social networks (OSNs) have fundamentally transformed how billions of people use the Internet. These users are increasingly discovering books, music bands, TV shows, movies, news articles, products, and other content through posts from trusted users that they follow. All major OSNs have deployed content curation algorithms that are designed to increase interaction and act as the "gatekeepers" of what users see.
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Submitted by msherr on Tue, 08/13/2019 - 8:30am
The ability to expand research frontiers through system deployment has been hindered by a lack of experimentation frameworks that can be used to safely and accurately evaluate new algorithms and network protocols at scale. This is particularly true for anonymous communication systems, which are generally understood to be among the most secure ways to communicate online, but are difficult to experiment with because (1) they are designed to be resistent to observation and (2) experiments must be crafted very carefully to ensure they do not endanger the systems' users.
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Submitted by Ari Juels on Thu, 08/08/2019 - 9:28am
Blockchains provide compelling security properties that enable powerful systems to be constructed without reliance on trusted third parties. Their rise has created successful, multi-billion dollar systems and has had a transformative impact on venture funding and the financial industry. Blockchains as currently designed, though, fail to enforce fairness for their users, meaning equal opportunities for fast transaction processing. The project investigators will seek to address the pervasive fairness deficiencies in blockchain systems.
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Submitted by Houman Homayoun on Wed, 08/07/2019 - 7:28pm
Malware, a broad term for any type of malicious software, is a piece of code designed by cyber attackers to infect computing systems without the user consent, typically for harmful purposes such as stealing sensitive information. The ubiquity of information technology has made malware a serious threat. Detecting malware in a system is a difficult task, particularly when the malware is stealthy. Hardware-assisted malware detection (HMD) mechanisms seek runtime detection of malware.
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Submitted by Shreyas Sen on Wed, 08/07/2019 - 7:22pm
Digital Encryption is typically performed by specialized circuits to ensure confidentiality and integrity of data. While encryption is mathematically robust, the circuits encrypting data may leak information via the amount of the power drawn from the supply, and the amount of electromagnetic (EM) radiation that emanates from the circuit. This is known as side-channel leakage. An attacker may be able to unravel the secret cryptographic information by analyzing the side-channel leakage, thereby compromising security. Newer analysis techniques based on machine-learning make the attack easier.
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Submitted by Arijit Raychowdhury on Wed, 08/07/2019 - 7:18pm
Digital Encryption is typically performed by specialized circuits to ensure confidentiality and integrity of data. While encryption is mathematically robust, the circuits encrypting data may leak information via the amount of the power drawn from the supply, and the amount of electromagnetic (EM) radiation that emanates from the circuit. This is known as side-channel leakage. An attacker may be able to unravel the secret cryptographic information by analyzing the side-channel leakage, thereby compromising security. Newer analysis techniques based on machine-learning make the attack easier.
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Submitted by Stefano Tessaro on Wed, 08/07/2019 - 7:14pm
Cryptography is essential to ensure confidentiality and integrity of information. Due to their practicality, symmetric algorithms where the same secret key is used by the sender and the recipient underlie most practical deployments of cryptographic techniques. However, also as a result of this, symmetric cryptography suffers from an inherent tension between real world efficiency demands and provable security guarantees. This project investigates new technical advances aimed at narrowing the gap between provable security and the practical demands of symmetric cryptography.
