Protect

Whether it is on their smartphones, in their browsers or on social networks, people are confronted with an increasingly unmanageable number of privacy settings. What is needed is a new, more scalable paradigm that empowers them to regain control over the collection and use of their data. This is particularly the case for mobile apps people download on their smartphones. These apps have been shown to collect and share a wide variety of sensitive data, with users unable to keep up.

The proposed project will develop Visualization and Analysis of C Code Security (VACCS) tool to assist students with learning secure code programming. The proposal addresses the critical issue of learning secure coding through the development of a system for analyzing and visualizing C code and associated learning materials. VACCS will utilize static and dynamic program analysis to detect security vulnerabilities and warn programmers about the potential errors in their code.

The cyber security of advanced manufacturing systems (AMS) has raised significant interest amongst both the general public and researchers. However, corresponding education programs fall behind in many aspects. Limited curriculum or hands-on learning resources are available for security education in AMS, especially exercises that cover the complete manufacturing cycle. This project will try to bridge the gap by developing an experiment platform dedicated to security education for AMS, and designing a suite of course modules and hands-on projects upon it.

Modern critical infrastructure relies on successful interdependent function among many different types of networks. For example, the Internet depends on access to the power grid, which in turn depends on the power-grid communication network and the energy production network. For this reason, network science researchers have begun examining the robustness of critical infrastructure as a network of networks, or a multilayer network. Research in network anomaly detection systems has focused on single network structures (specifically, the Internet as a single network).

Users entrust their mobile devices with sensitive data, including business emails, as well as health and financial information. Thus, mobile devices have become an increasingly popular target for attackers. Mobile devices house powerful browsers that are vulnerable to at least as many attacks as their desktop counterparts. Yet, the security of these mobile browsers is understudied by researchers, leading to a lack of current information about ongoing attacks and possible defenses.