Networking, wireless

Today's world is highly dependent on the integrity of communication systems as the Internet, WiFi, or cellular networks. As networks become more pervasive, they are increasingly being used for communication and storage of critical as well as sensitive data and therefore impose more stringent demands on reliability and security, which must be maintained even under extreme settings such as partial power failures, natural disasters, or, most importantly, adversarial attacks.

The modernized Smart Grid (SG) is expected to enable several new applications such as dynamic pricing, demand response and fraud detection; however, collection of such fine-grained data raises privacy issues. This project aims to design and implement several novel mechanisms for securing data collection and communication in SG Advanced Metering Infrastructure applications while preserving user privacy when the data are to be accessed.

Wireless systems have become an inseparable part of our social fabric, which allow users to move around and access the services from different locations while on the move. However, wireless security is often cited as a major technical barrier that must be overcome before widespread adoption of mobile services can occur. Traditional approaches have focused on addressing security threats on a case-by-case basis in an ad-hoc manner as new and specialized threats are uncovered.

The objective of this project is to understand and strengthen the security of Multipath TCP (MPTCP) - an IETF standardized suite of TCP extensions that allow one MPTCP connection, consisting of multiple sub-connections between two hosts, to use multiple paths simultaneously. Even though MPTCP has been gaining momentum in being widely deployed, its security is yet to be well understood. The project is expected to raise awareness of MPTCP security and ultimately yield a foundation for MPTCP security.

This project will help address the shortage of highly-skilled Cybersecurity professionals by bringing research results on pervasive and mobile computing security into education and by integrating them into existing Cybersecurity curricula. Although the research community is making progress towards effective solutions in mitigating security and privacy threats in pervasive computing, it still needs to find its way to university courses across the nation, especially, in the undergraduate curriculum.