Scientific Foundations

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Visible to the public TWC: Small: Intrusion Detection and Resilience Against Attacks in Cyber and Cyber-Physical Control Systems

Submitted by Stephane Lafortune on Wed, 01/03/2018 - 3:54pm

This project develops a novel methodology for designing secure cyber and cyber-physical systems that can detect attackers and protect against malicious behavior after the system has been compromised.

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Visible to the public TWC: TTP Option: Small: Open-Audit Voting Systems---Protocol Models and Properties

Submitted by poorvi on Wed, 01/03/2018 - 3:33pm

Open-audit cryptographic voting protocols enable the verification of election outcomes, independent of whether election officials or polling machines behave honestly. Many open-audit voting systems have been prototyped and deployed. The City of Takoma Park, MD held its 2009 and 2011 city elections using voting system Scantegrity. Systems with similar properties are being proposed for use in Victoria, Australia (the Pret a Voter system) and Travis County, Texas (the STAR-Vote system).

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Visible to the public CRII: SaTC: Design, Implementation, and Analysis of Quantum-Resistant Algorithms on Smart Handheld Embedded Devices

Submitted by Reza Azarderakhsh on Wed, 01/03/2018 - 3:29pm

The prospect of quantum computers is a threat against the security of currently used public key cryptographic algorithms. It has been widely accepted that, both public key cryptosystems including RSA and ECC will be broken by quantum computers employing certain algorithms. Although large-scale quantum computers do not yet exist, but the goal is to develop quantum-resistant cryptosystems in anticipation of quantum computers as most of the public key cryptography that is used on the Internet today is based on algorithms that are vulnerable to quantum attacks.

Outcomes Report URL: 
https://www.research.gov/research-portal/appmanager/base/desktop?_nfpb=true&_win...
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Visible to the public SaTC: STARSS: Combatting Integrated Circuit Counterfeiting Using Secure Chip Odometers

Submitted by Kenneth Mai on Wed, 01/03/2018 - 3:25pm

Electronics counterfeiting is a significant and growing problem for electronics manufacturers, system integrators, and end customers, with an estimated annual economic impact in billions of dollars. These counterfeit Integrated Circuits (ICs) can have degraded reliability, smaller operating ranges, or lower performance compared to the genuine article.

Outcomes Report URL: 
https://www.research.gov/research-portal/appmanager/base/desktop?_nfpb=true&_win...
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Visible to the public CAREER: Securing Sensory Side-Channels in Cyber-Physical Systems

Submitted by selcuk on Wed, 01/03/2018 - 3:21pm

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) integrate devices that can interact with each other and the physical world around them. With CPS applications, engineers monitor the structural health of highways and bridges, farmers check the health of their crops, and ecologists observe wildlife in their natural habitat.

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Visible to the public Breakthrough: Enhancing Privacy in Smart Buildings and Homes

Submitted by David Irwin on Wed, 01/03/2018 - 3:14pm

The design of smart electric grids and buildings that automatically optimize their energy generation and consumption is critical to advancing important societal goals, including increasing energy-efficiency, improving the grid's reliability, and gaining energy independence. To enable such optimizations, smart grids and buildings increasingly rely on Internet-connected sensors in smart devices, including digital electric meters, web-enabled appliances and lighting, programmable outlets and switches, and intelligent HVAC systems.

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Visible to the public Breakthrough: Collaborative: Secure Algorithms for Cyber-Physical Systems

Submitted by chow on Wed, 01/03/2018 - 3:12pm

Modern systems such as the electric smart grid consist of both cyber and physical components that must work together; these are called cyber-physical systems, or CPS. Securing such systems goes beyond just cyber security or physical security into cyber-physical security. While the threats multiply within a CPS, physical aspects also can reduce the threat space. Unlike purely cyber systems, such as the internet, CPS are grounded in physical reality.

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Visible to the public TWC: Small: Side Channels through Lower-Level Caches: Attacks, Defenses and Security Metrics

Submitted by Dmitry Ponomarev on Wed, 01/03/2018 - 3:08pm

In cache-based side-channel attacks, an attacker with no special privileges or physical access can extract secrets from a victim process by observing its memory accesses through a shared cache. Such attacks have been demonstrated on a number of platforms, and represent a dangerous and open threat. This project explores side-channel attacks on the shared lower-level-caches (LLCs) in modern CPUs.

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Visible to the public TWC: TTP Option: Small: Collaborative: Integrated Smart Grid Analytics for Anomaly Detection

Submitted by William Adams on Wed, 01/03/2018 - 3:04pm

The modernized electric grid, the Smart Grid, integrates two-way communication technologies across power generation, transmission and distribution, in order to deliver electricity efficiently, securely and cost-effectively. On the monitoring and control side, it employs real-time monitoring offered by a messaging-based advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), which ensures the grid's stability and reliability, as well as the efficient implementation of demand response schemes to mitigate bursts demand.

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Visible to the public TWC SBE: Medium: Context-Aware Harassment Detection on Social Media

Submitted by amitsheth on Wed, 01/03/2018 - 2:56pm

As social media permeates our daily life, there has been a sharp rise in the use of social media to humiliate, bully, and threaten others, which has come with harmful consequences such as emotional distress, depression, and suicide. The October 2014 Pew Research survey shows that 73% of adult Internet users have observed online harassment and 40% have experienced it. The prevalence and serious consequences of online harassment present both social and technological challenges.