Research Interest overview and future directions Mina Guirguis Computer Science Department Texas State University – San Marcos CS5300 9/16/2011

Research areas Mobile Cyber-Physical Systems Security in networks and systems Digital Forensics Networks

Mobile Cyber-Physical System Cyber-Physical System (CPS) Combine computation and communication with our physical world Intelligent buildings Robotics surgery Control systems Mobile CPSs Subclass of CPSs where physical systems are mobile Cell phones, robots, cars, etc…

Motivating example First feature video from the iRobot In military applications In military applications

Other motivating examples

Research vision and goal Vision: environment in which mobile nodes collaborate to solve problems Robots communicate to achieve a specific task Cell phones share resources (CPU, network, power) Cars coordinate to realize an intelligent transportation system Goal: ensure that Mobile CPS applications are safe and secure

Challenges Mobile CPSs will rely on wireless communication Attackers can interfere with/jam the signal between mobile nodes, preventing them from communicating Mobile CPSs are emerging as complex systems Complex systems are easier to attack and harder to debug Mobile CPSs will make decisions under failures Control theory address noise due to random failure Attacks are not random failures, but well orchestrated

General research approach Play the role: offense Identifying optimal and suboptimal attack policies What is the worst adversarial signal that would cripple the system at this point in time? How can an attacker evade detection? Play the role: defense Randomization: make the system less predictable Attacker would not be able to mount potent attacks

Mobile CPS Lab 4 iRobot Create, each with a netbook on top Camera, wireless, sensors 2 SRV-1 Blackfin robots Open source Camera, wireless, sensors Servers and laptops for simulation and numerical analysis

Research areas Mobile Cyber-Physical Systems Security in networks and systems Digital Forensics Networks

Network and systems security Second feature video from a movie “Untraceable” the movie 2008Untraceable

Research agenda Goal: ensure secure and resilient networking and system components Denial of Service (DoS) attacks Uninteresting -- easy to trace back to the heavy hitters More interesting: Identify stealthy attacks Do not take a lot of resources to mount Undetectable Untraceable

Stealthy attacks Idea: to exploit “adaptation mechanisms” found in networks and computing systems Adapting content based on load Adapting traffic rates based on congestion Balancing traffic across servers Reorganizing a P2P network Analogy: Make other drivers brake when they should accelerate and accelerate when they should brake

Illustrative example… DoS attacks (exploiting capacity) Low-rate attacks (exploiting adaptation)

Exploiting adaptation Adaptation mechanisms are designed under the assumption of non-adversarial loads Examples: random traffic patterns, random arrival processes, etc.) What types (patterns) of load would make adaptation harmful? What are the tradeoffs between efficiency and tolerance to dynamic exploits?

Research areas Mobile Cyber-Physical Systems Security in networks and systems Digital Forensics Networks

Digital forensics Vision: Build effective tools to recover, examine and preserve digital evidence Examples of digital evidence: Financial fraud documents Threatening/blackmail s Contraband material Viruses, worms, trojans, backdoors, spyware, etc… Incriminating network connections Steganography channels for espionage

Digital forensics Goal: Help investigators extract evidence from a computer or a digital device (iPad, iPhone, mp3 player) Done very carefully to be admissible in court Offline versus Online (live response) Speed up the process of finding evidence Requires knowledge that spans different areas: Networks, systems, security, statistics, image processing, criminal law, etc…

Research areas Mobile Cyber-Physical Systems Security in networks and systems Digital Forensics Networks

Final remarks My address: Office hours: Mondays: 4:30 – 6:00 (in Round Rock) Tuesdays: 3:30 - 5:00 (in San Marcos) Thursdays: 10:00 – 12:00 (in San Marcos)