Cybersecurity Workforce

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Visible to the public TC: Large: Collaborative Research: Facilitating Free and Open Access to Information on the Internet

This project develops methods to provide citizens information about technologies that obstruct, restrict, or tamper with their access to information. Internet users need an objective, independent, third-party service that helps them determine whether their Internet service provider or government is restricting access to content, specific protocols, or otherwise degrading service. Towards this goal, we are (1) monitoring attempts to block or manipulate Internet content and communications; and (2) evaluating various censorship circumvention mechanisms in real-world deployments}.

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Visible to the public Virtual Laboratory and Curriculum Development for Secure Mobile Computing

The "Virtual Laboratory and Curriculum Development for Secure Mobile Computing" project at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) will develop a set of courses and a virtual laboratory in mobile system security with an emphasis on securing smart phones. The courses that will be developed will include topics such as Android taint analysis using existing tools or development of new tools, scalable Android security threat analysis on applications (apps), and smart phone forensics.

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Visible to the public TWC: Medium: Title: SDR Shield: A Hardware-based Security Solution for Software Defined Radio

Software Defined Radio (SDR) technology has the flexibility of implementing a large part of physical layer functions in software. It is one of the major technologies that will provide broadband services to millions of US residences. However, unlike conventional radio whose RF signals are tightly regulated by FCC-certified hardware, the software components of SDR can be easily exploited by hackers to create a wide range of unauthorized waveforms to launch attacks on many security-critical wireless systems.

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Visible to the public TWC: Small: Understanding and Mitigating the Security Hazards of Mobile Fragmentation

Mobile computing technologies are rapidly evolving and phone (and other mobile device) manufacturers are under constant pressure to offer new product models. Each manufacturer customizes operating system software for its devices and often changes this software to support its new models. Given the many manufacturers in the mobile device marketplace and the many different generations of products, there are many customized branches of mobile operating systems in use at any time.

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Visible to the public TWC: Small: Intelligent Malware Detection Utilizing Novel File Relation-Based Features and Resilient Techniques for Adversarial Attacks

Malware (e.g., viruses, worms, and Trojans) is software that deliberately fulfills the harmful intent of an attacker. It has been used as a major weapon by the cyber-criminals to launch a wide range of attacks that cause serious damages and significant financial losses to many Internet users. To protect legitimate users from these attacks, the most significant line of defense against malware is anti-malware software products, which predominately use signature-based methods to recognize threats.

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Visible to the public TWC: Small: Coding-based Mechanisms for Building Secure Cloud Storage Systems

A wide range of cloud services and applications operate on sensitive data such as business, personal, and governmental information. This renders security and privacy as the most critical concerns in the cloud era. The objective of this project is to question the separation approach in the design of security and reliability features of storage systems, and to investigate new, coding-based security mechanisms based on a joint-design principle. The proposed program will result in a myriad of outcomes.

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Visible to the public TWC: Small: Coding-based Mechanisms for Building Secure Cloud Storage Systems

A wide range of cloud services and applications operate on sensitive data such as business, personal, and governmental information. This renders security and privacy as the most critical concerns in the cloud era. The objective of this project is to question the separation approach in the design of security and reliability features of storage systems, and to investigate new, coding-based security mechanisms based on a joint-design principle. The proposed program will result in a myriad of outcomes.

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Visible to the public TC: Small: The Design of Secure Hash Functions and Block Ciphers

While the mathematical study of cryptography has yielded a rich theory, and while the use of cryptography has become quite widespread, there is unfortunately still a significant gap between the theory and practice of cryptography. The goal of this project is to bridge this gap. The emphasis will be on the design and analysis of fundamental cryptographic primitives, such as hash functions and block ciphers, as well as other primitives derived from them, that are practical and yet theoretically sound. Indeed, hash functions and block ciphers are used in almost any cryptographic application.

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Visible to the public Spreading SEEDs: Large-Scale Dissemination of Hands-on Labs for Security Education

This capacity building project seeks to addresses the lack of opportunities for students for experiential learning of Cybersecurity. Although there is no overall shortage of labs anymore, many instructors do not feel comfortable using them in their courses. This project has a potential to help many instructors to provide hands-on learning opportunities to their students. The project is based on the 30 SEED labs, which were developed and tested by the PI over the last ten years and are used by over 150 instructors from 26 countries.

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Visible to the public SaTC: Collaborative: Exploiting Spintronics for Security, Trust and Authentication

The Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) based security primitives typically suffer from area/power overhead, sensitivity to environmental fluctuations and limited randomness and entropy offered by Silicon substrate. Spintronic circuits can complement the existing CMOS based security and trust infrastructures. This project explores ways to uncover the security specific properties of the magnetic nanowire and capture them in detailed circuit model.