Access control

Loss of personal data or leakage of corporate data via apps on mobile devices poses a significant risk to users. It can have both a huge personal and financial cost. This work is designing new novel techniques to help reduce the risks for end-users who use a single device for multiple spheres of activity. Getting security right when a single device is used for multiple spheres of activity is a major research challenge, with unforeseen information flows between various subsystems that are currently difficult to control.

Data structures have a prominent modern computational role, due to their wide applicability, such as in database querying, web searching, and social network analysis. This project focuses on the interplay of data structures with security protocols, examining two different paradigms: the security for data structures paradigm (SD) and the data structures for security paradigm (DS).

As wireless technologies become more pervasive, it becomes increasingly important for devices to authenticate the locations of other devices. For example, patients with implantable medical devices (IMDs) may reasonably expect that any device used to control their IMD would have to be within arm's reach, to help prevent unauthorized access to their device. In other words, IMDs should enforce policies based on the proximity, and in general the location, of wirelessly connected devices.

The use of cloud computing has revolutionized the way in which cyber infrastructure is used and managed. The on-demand access to seemingly infinite resources provided by this paradigm has enabled technical innovation and indeed innovative business models and practices. This rosy picture is threatened, however, by increasing nefarious interest in cloud platforms. Specifically, the shared tenant, shared resource nature of cloud platforms, as well as the natural accrual of valuable information in cloud platforms, provide both the incentive and the possible means of exploitation.

This project is developing tools and techniques for cost-effective evaluation of the trustworthiness of mobile applications (apps). The work focuses on enterprise scenarios, in which personnel at a business or government agency use mission-related apps and access enterprise networks.