MSc Project Proposals

Transcription

1 DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY - STRL/CSC MSc Project Proposals Programme Leader: Ali Al-Bayati 14 May 2016

2 DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY - STRL/CSC PROJECT 01: PRIVACY IN SMART METERING Project Outline Smart meters allow energy companies to read meters remotely. This fine-grained power consumption data allows them to optimise the operation of the power grid. However, smart meters have important privacy implications because they allow inferring the behaviour of people in a household (for example, which TV program is being watched). Project Objectives The aim is to evaluate data aggregation as a privacy-enhancing technology. Based on a smart metering dataset and a framework that implements privacy metrics, the objectives are to implement data aggregation across households (e.g. 2, 5, 10 households) implement data aggregation over time (e.g. 5 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 day) evaluate the amount of privacy provided by each aggregation methods Prerequisite Programming skills in Python Technical Requirements: YELLOW (Traffic light indicator) Expected Deliverables 1. Implementation of data aggregation for a smart metering scenario 2. A final report that includes a brief overview of the current state of the art in smart meter privacy, a description of the evaluation method, presentation and discussion of the results. Supervisor - Dr Isabel Wagner I research privacy and technologies to protect privacy. Find out more on my website: research.isabel-wagner.net/ Lecturer in Computer Science (Cybersecurity) GH The Gateway De Montfort University LE1 9BH T: +44 (0) E: isabel.wagner@dmu.ac.uk

3 DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY - STRL/CSC PROJECT 02: EXTENDING OUR CYBER-RANGE CYRAN WITH SOCIAL ENGINEERING CAPABILITIES Project Outline CYRAN is a training environment that presents trainees with a virtual network modelled after a typical organisational network. The red team aims to penetrate the network's defences, and the blue team aims to protect the network. CYRAN uses a combination of Linux and Windows virtual machines to provide the virtual network. Project Objectives The aim is to extend CYRAN with social networking tools to offer a social engineering angle to the red team. The objectives are to add a virtual machine that provides a Twitter-like social network (for example, using the open source software pump.io) add a virtual machine that provides a Facebook-like social network (for example, using the open source softwares diaspora* or friendica) create artificial data/user activity to populate the social networks (either statically or dynamically using the each network's API) Prerequisite Linux experience Technical Requirements: YELLOW (Traffic light indicator) Expected Deliverables 1. Virtual machines for Twitter-like and Facebook-like social networks that can be plugged into CYRAN 2. A final report that includes a brief overview of the current state of the art in cyber ranges, a description of design choices made for the inclusion of social networks into CYRAN, and a discussion of the capabilities and benefits for the red/blue teams

4 DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY - STRL/CSC Supervisor - Dr Isabel Wagner I research privacy and technologies to protect privacy. Find out more on my website: research.isabel-wagner.net/ Lecturer in Computer Science (Cybersecurity) GH The Gateway De Montfort University LE1 9BH T: +44 (0) E: isabel.wagner@dmu.ac.uk

5 DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY - STRL/CSC PROJECT 03: CRYPTOGRAPHY ON A GPU Project Outline Cryptography is an important ingredient in privacy-enhancing technologies. A particularly promising technique is homomorphic encryption (HE), which allows computations on encrypted data. However, current implementations are extremely slow - too slow to be feasible in practice. In your project, you would start evaluating whether this can be accelerated by running homomorphic encryption on a graphics processing unit (GPU). The challenge is that GPUs are really good at computations using floating point numbers -- but cryptography uses big integers. As a result, there is no big integer library for the GPU, and it is unclear how efficient integer arithmetic on the GPU would be. Project Objectives The objectives are to identify which integer operations are needed for HE implement a library for these operations on the GPU evaluate how fast the GPU library is in comparison to big integer libraries for the CPU. Use the GPU library to create a simple homomorphic encryption scheme. Prerequisite Programming experience in C and potentially CUDA. The workstations in our labs have CUDA enabled GPUs and have the software development environment installed and ready to go. Technical Requirements: RED (Traffic light indicator) Expected Deliverables 1. Implementation of a big integer library for the GPU 2. Implementation of a simple homomorphic encryption scheme on the GPU 3. A final report that includes a brief overview of the current state of the art in homomorphic encryption and its implementations, a description of design and implementation choices made, the capabilities of the implementation, and a discussion of the speed-up achieved with the GPU implementation

6 DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY - STRL/CSC Supervisor - Dr Isabel Wagner I research privacy and technologies to protect privacy. Find out more on my website: research.isabel-wagner.net/ Lecturer in Computer Science (Cybersecurity) GH The Gateway De Montfort University LE1 9BH T: +44 (0) E: isabel.wagner@dmu.ac.uk

7 PROJECT 04: USABLE PRIVACY Project Outline Many current applications, both mobile apps and traditional desktop applications, gather and process sensitive data. However, many apps fail to make users aware of the privacy implications, and most apps do not offer any mitigation options for privacy-conscious users. We have previously proposed the I-AM cycle as a method how privacy awareness can be integrated into applications. The I-AM cycle considers three stages: Inform, Alert, and Mitigate. However, it is not clear how these stages are best integrated into user interfaces. Project Objectives The aim of this project is to create and evaluate a user interface that follows the I-AM cycle. The objectives are to design a prototype user interface that increases privacy awareness and allows to inform users of privacy issues, to alert users to on-going threats, and to offer mitigation options evaluate the prototype with user studies Prerequisite Experience with human-computer interface design, experience with user studies Technical Requirements: GREEN (Traffic light indicator) Expected Deliverables a prototype user interface a questionnaire to evaluate the user interface a final report that includes a brief overview of the current state of the art in privacy-aware user interface design, a description of the design choices made for the prototype, an analysis of the user study results, and a discussion of the results Supervisor - Dr Isabel Wagner I research privacy and technologies to protect privacy. Find out more on my website: research.isabel-wagner.net/ Lecturer in Computer Science (Cybersecurity) GH The Gateway De Montfort University

8 DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY - STRL/CSC LE1 9BH T: +44 (0) E: isabel.wagner@dmu.ac.uk

9 DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY - STRL/CSC PROJECT 05: INTRUSION DETECTION SYSTEM (SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT PROJECT) Cyber-physical systems are becoming vital to modernising the national critical infrastructure systems. Due to the rapid increase of sophisticated cyber threats with exponentially destructive effects, intrusion detection systems (IDS) must systematically evolve. Cyber-attacks usually target valuable infrastructures assets, taking advantage of potential weaknesses in the defence system. Specific intrusion detection systems that reassure both high accuracy, low rate of false alarms and decreased overhead on the network traffic must be designed for modern systems The students are expected to have programming background and develop software codes in Java, Matlab, C/C++, visual basic, etc. associating with Machine Learning, data fusion, optimisation etc. TOPIC1: SCADA SYSTEMS (OCSVM METHODS FOR INTRUSION DETECTION) In this topic knowledge of SCADA systems is essential. OCSVM machine module that is implemented in Java is going to be used / extended in order to deal with different kind of attacks. TOPIC 2: SECURITY AND TRANSPORTATION (DISTRIBUTED DEFENCE MECHANISMS FOR VANETS) In this topic students will need to understand how a network simulator works. Students must be keen of learning how to use Veins. Veins is an open source framework for running vehicular network simulations. It is based on two well-established simulators: OMNeT++, an event-based network simulator, and SUMO, a road traffic simulator. Supervisor - Dr Leandros Maglaras Lecturer GH5.60 The Gateway De Montfort University LE1 9BH T: E: Leandros.maglaras@dmu.ac.uk

10 DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY - STRL/CSC PROJECT 06: CHALLENGES TO CYBER SECURITY (THEORETICAL ANALYSIS) The use of the internet as a tool of international commerce is expanding at a very rapid rate. Countries that are years behind in technology have been catapulted into the 21st century by virtue of easy access to the internet and social media. There is therefore a need for specialists in the area of cyber security to develop the resources necessary for monitoring, designing and containing the explosion in the threat of cyber terrorism. Nations are increasingly developing the capability of surveillance of other countries; countervailing strategies therefore need to be developed to handle the inordinate growth in the incidence of cyber terrorism worldwide. Topics to be covered: Management of information security Principles of information security management Planning for information security implementation Contingency planning for information security Information security policy Organisational security and information technology Implementation of security education, training and awareness programmes Risk management and risk assessment in the digital age Protective mechanisms for cybersecurity Information systems and intrusion detection systems Ethics and education in information security Supervisor - Dr Leandros Maglaras Lecturer GH5.60 The Gateway De Montfort University LE1 9BH T: E: Leandros.maglaras@dmu.ac.uk

11 DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY - STRL/CSC PROJECT 07: SECURITY MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORKS E.G. INFORMATION GOVERNANCE (IG), SECURITY ASSURANCE (SA) Introduction Information Governance is to ensure appropriate use of personal information. It is a set of policies, procedures, and controls implemented to manage information. It includes both technical assurance and non-technical assurance. Security Assurance is to ensure that system is protected at a level that the security objectives are satisfied. Assurance can also be viewed as the confidence that the security control will function as expected. Key areas are IG/SA for banking and healthcare industries. These frameworks can be used to inform the updates of policies/standards and support an organisation's legal, risk, and operational requirements. We have a group of PhD students, who are security professionals/consultants, working in these areas. Students selecting this project will join this group for active discussion and knowledge exchange. Projects Objectives Review and have a thorough understanding of IG/SA. Model and validate IG/SA Framework in a practical environment. Prerequisite Basic skills of case studies and business modelling. Work experience in industry (banks, healthcare) is desirable. A Cyber Security or Information Systems background is desirable Expected Deliverables Your Final Report can be either of the following, A Survey of IG/SA in a specific area (e.g. healthcare) Case Studies & IG/SA framework modelling IG/ SA framework modelling & validation (e.g. through industrial business cases)

12 DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY - STRL/CSC Supervisor - Dr Ying He Lecturer GH The Gateway De Montfort University LE1 9BH T: +44 (0) E: ying.he@dmu.ac.uk

13 DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY - STRL/CSC PROJECT 08: INFORMATION DRIVEN CYBER SECURITY INTELLIGENCE E.G. SOCIAL MEDIAL INTELLIGENCE, CYBER SECURITY INTELLIGENCE AND RISK MANAGEMENT Introduction With the information explosion of cyber threat data from different sources such as social media, security forum, incident management systems, system log files, etc, responders can gather and share real-time, dynamic information to improve situational awareness and assist in decision-making. The ability to identify, verify, coordinate, aggregate, and contextualise is very important to re-use this information. Cyber threat intelligence aims to visualise and predict the next state of threat landscape/status and suggest security solutions to counteract threats. The cyber threat intelligence generated can be used to inform risk management (e.g. asset management) and security decision-making (e.g. solution prioritisation). Key areas are CTI for banking, healthcare and other security critical industries. This project is based on a current DMU funded project, in collaboration with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Georgia Institute of Technology. MSc Topics can be aligned to our on-going project. Projects Objectives Generate threat intelligence from different data sources. Analyse, visualise and represent data in to support threat prediction. Produce security knowledge to inform effective security decision-making. Prerequisite Basic knowledge of security risk management and decision-making. Work experience in industry (banks, healthcare) is desirable. Basic skills of business analytics, data visualisation, and programming are desirable. A Cyber Security or Information Systems background is desirable.

14 DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY - STRL/CSC Expected Deliverables Your Final Report can be either of the following 1. A survey of cyber security intelligence 2. The design of an approach to analyse data for a particular security decision-making scenario. Supervisor - Dr Ying He Lecturer GH The Gateway De Montfort University LE1 9BH T: +44 (0) E: ying.he@dmu.ac.uk

15 DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY - STRL/CSC PROJECT 09: IT/ICS SECURITY INCIDENT RESPONSE FRAMEWORKS & AGILE MANIFESTO E.G. DYNAMIC INCIDENT RESPONSE AND SECURITY FORENSICS Introduction IT/ICS security incident response requires efficient change management (e.g. patch update), data integration, reporting, adaptability and collaboration of different stakeholders. However, current incident response practices follow a linear plan-driven approach, not reflecting the real-world incident handling procedures. This has limited the benefits of incident response capabilities. There is a need of an iterative and incremental incident handling approach. Agile principal values collaboration, communication and flexible response to changes. IT/ICS security incident response would potentially benefit from the integration of Agile Principal. The proposed Agile Incident Response/Security Forensic Frameworks will be tested and validated in our Cyber Range Events. Projects Objectives Model and validate an Agile Incident Response Framework. Model and validate an Agile Security Forensic Framework. Prerequisite Basic knowledge of security incident response and forensics. Work experience in industry (banks, healthcare) is desirable. A Cyber Security or Information Systems background is desirable. Expected Deliverables Your Final Report can be either of the following, 1. Agile Incident Response Framework modelling and validation 2. Agile Security Forensic Framework modelling and validation

16 DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY - STRL/CSC Supervisor - Dr Ying He Lecturer GH The Gateway De Montfort University LE1 9BH T: +44 (0) E: ying.he@dmu.ac.uk

17 DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY - STRL/CSC PROJECT 10: USABLE SECURITY E.G. HUMAN FACTORS IN SECURITY. INTERACTIVE SECURITY EVALUATIONS Introduction In many systems, human users play an important role. They are also known as the weakest link in the security process. This has become the target of social engineering. They develop secure systems, encrypt data and share information that can secure or destroy a system. However, many secure systems are designed with little or no consideration of people's cognitive abilities. As a result, people make mistakes and get security obstacles. It is important for security experts to understand how people will interact with the systems they develop. We need to design security into products from inception. Projects Objectives Design and build secure systems with a human-centric focus. Evaluate the usability of secure systems through user studies. Prerequisite Basic skills of programming, The skills of HCI experimental design, and user studies are desirable. A Cyber Security or Human Computer Interaction background is desirable. Expected Deliverables Your Final Report can be either of the following, 1. The design of a secure system with a human-centric focus 2. The evaluation of a security interactive system Supervisor - Dr Ying He Lecturer GH The Gateway De Montfort University LE1 9BH T: +44 (0) E: ying.he@dmu.ac.uk

18 DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY - STRL/CSC PROJECT 11: THE DEVELOPMENT OF SECURITY TRAINING TOOL Project Outline Industrial Control Systems (ICS) are used to remotely monitor and control critical infrastructures that provide society with essential resources like water and electricity. If these systems stop working correctly, the consequences could be disasters, environmental damage, equipment damage or even losing lives. When a control system contains security vulnerabilities, it can be hacked by attackers who exploit existed weaknesses to disable system functions. Problem description One of the Main causes of producing ICS vulnerabilities is that system developers lack of security knowledge and training. This project aims to provide a training tool that can enhance the security knowledge of ICS developers. This educational tool particularly focus on system design security. This tool will: 1. include a hierarchy of learning activities (text, diagrams...) 2. allow users to navigate a learning tree based on some conditions (in user profile) 3. display learning contents in an interactive and user-friendly interfaces 4. examine the developed tool in a focus group. Deliverables A complete research report associated with a training tool. Supervisor - Mrs Nuria Benjuma PhD Student at STRL Queens Building, 3.05 De Montfort University Mill Lane, LE2 7DR E: p @my .dmu.ac.uk

19 PROJECT 12: SMART CITIES SURVEY AND ANALYSIS THE STUDENT WHO TAKES THIS PROJECT WILL RECEIVE AN AMOUNT OF FUNDING SUPPORT. PLEASE DISCUSS WITH PROF CHEN Project Outline A smart city is a place where the traditional networks and services are made more efficient with the use of digital and telecommunication technologies, for the benefit of its inhabitants and businesses. In Smart Cities, digital technologies translate into better public services for citizens, better use of resources and less impact on the environment. Deliverables This project will carry out a survey on the following aspects of smart cities. 1. Review on underlying technologies 2. Review on smart city applications 3. analysis on underlying enabling technologies 4. analysis on smart city applications 5. Discussion on open issues and future research, technology and development directions Supervisor - Prof Liming Chen (Luke) Professor of Computer Science GH The Gateway De Montfort University LE1 9BH T: +44 (0) E: liming.chen@dmu.ac.uk W:

20 PROJECT 13: SMART ENVIRONMENTS: THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE Project Outline Pervasive computing aims to enable a new paradigm of human-centric computer interaction one person versus many computers, by embedding increasingly ubiquitous connected computing devices in an environment to allow the thorough integration of everyday objects and activities. Built upon this, ambient intelligence tries to make the environment sensitive and responsive to the presence of people by providing technologies and systems that support context awareness, personalisation, adaptability and anticipation. In parallel, several threads of enabling technologies have also made significant advance, including sensing technologies the prevalence of miniaturised low-power low-cost high-capacity sensors and actuator, mobile computing the large scale uptake and increasingly powerful mobile devices, WIFI, NFC, internet of Things and cloud computing, to name but a few. In combination this has created intelligent environments where miniature computing devices / objects work in concert to support people in carrying out their daily working and living life activities in an easy, natural and personalised way. A typical real-world example of such an intelligent environment is a Smart Home within which the daily activities of its inhabitants, usually the elderly or disabled, are monitored and analysed so that personalised context-aware assistance can be provided. Problem description This dissertation aims to carry out a thorough examination on the state of the art of the research and development of smart environments, in particular, their applications, implementations, case studies and demonstrations. It is expected that the student should develop meaningful structures to organise (classify or categorise) existing work based on one or the other criteria. This will be one major contribution to knowledge. The student should be able to carry out extensive in-depth analysis on related work, e.g. comparison in terms of various dimensions such as the application domains, or the underlying technologies or the user cohorts or the types of environments. Based on the analysis the student should draw conclusions of the strengths and weaknesses of existing research and development of smart environments, identify open research problems and derive insights and visions into future research, development, and applications. This will be the second major contribution to knowledge. In addition, built upon the previous review and analysis, the student should speculate, conceive and design novel smart environment applications, in particular, based on real world use scenarios including daily life, working, doing business and entertainment. This will be the third contribution to knowledge of this dissertation.

21 Deliverables In addition to the three aforementioned contributions to knowledge, the dissertation should be able to be readily published as a survey or review paper after the completion of the dissertation. The following is an indicative structure with a number of pullet points that this dissertation should cover. Nevertheless, the student should not be limited to this. It is expected that emphases of the dissertation should be placed on the review and analysis of reference implementations, application case studies and speculation of innovative use and application scenarios of smart environments. We would particularly like to see the critical review, comparison and analysis of reference implementations, application case studies and speculation of novel use scenarios of smart homes and semantic smart homes. Suggested Key Points to be Covered by the Dissertation (it is the student s responsibility to organise the dissertation in a logical, coherent way) General introduction / overview to smart environment High level description of smart environments - The requirements from user perspectives and from application perspectives, its anatomy and physiology - in terms of architecture, constituent components and underlying technologies, e.g. sensors, actuators, middleware platforms, - In terms of functional features, e.g. adaptability, learning, cognitive capabilities, interoperability, openness, etc. The categorisation of smart environments, e.g. - closed world application scenarios - including smart homes, smart conferencing centres, meeting rooms, hospital, smart research environments - open world application scenarios including airport, context aware commercial environments, i.e. service robot enabled shopping mall, smart cities, etc. For each category of smart environment, - review the state of the art of application, potential use scenarios include health (smart homes, assistive living), energy, mobility and commercial services (smart cyber-physical systems), etc. - review the state of the art of reference implementation including proof-of-concept, large-scale demonstrations and validation driven by innovative use scenarios - analyse the strengths and weaknesses in particular existing problems Speculate future R&D directions Speculation, conception and specification and/or design of novel smart environment application scenarios, potential implementations, etc.

22 Main Reference Sources - Papers - In particular, existing EU FP7, FP6 and EU AAL funded research projects, e.g. FP OASIS project UK EPSRC SPHERE, etc. Supervisor - Prof Liming Chen (Luke) Professor of Computer Science GH The Gateway De Montfort University LE1 9BH T: +44 (0) E: liming.chen@dmu.ac.uk W:

23 PROJECT 14: ARCHITECTURES AND PLATFORMS FOR CONNECTED SMART OBJECTS Project Outline The Internet of Things is an emerging area of interest and is a term that is widely used for the set of technologies, systems and methodologies that underpins the emerging new wave of internetenabled applications based on physical objects and the environment seamlessly integrating into this information network. Some research estimates that the number of connected objects will reach 50 billion as early as The potential added value of services using IoT is likely to reach hundreds of billions of pounds a year, with new business models, applications and services spanning all sectors of the economy (such as smart cities, intelligent transport, health monitoring and environmental control, to name but a few). Today the IoT landscape is already very complex, and yet still keeps evolving - a typical feature / characteristic of an emerging technology area. For example, objects are increasingly evolving towards smart objects with storage and processing capabilities we have already seen smart freezers sending spam s, smart TVs and smart meters. Communication is not merely based on internet, short-, mid- and long- range wireless communication have become commonplace, e.g. RFID, NFC, WIFI technologies extensively used. Other developments include the increasing adoption of natural interaction, embedding of processing capabilities into daily objects, e.g. bracelets and rings with wearable sensors, disappearance of computing systems into background, to name but a few. Nevertheless, IoT is still at its infancy - a stage typically characterised by a large number of proprietary, sector-specific approaches, application-dependent ad hoc architectures / platforms (if any). Each of these approaches or platforms may support one or the other features including openness, dynamic expandability, interoperability, dependability, cognitive capabilities and distributed decision making, but overall fragmented, lack of interoperability and unclear business propositions in all but a few application areas. Problem description This dissertation aims to carry out a thorough examination on the state of the art of the research and development of IoT. It should particularly focus on existing architectures and platforms for connected smart objects, including what core features among openness, expandability, interoperability, etc. they support and how. It is expected that the student should develop meaningful structures to organise (classify or categorise) existing work based on one or the other criteria. This will be one major contribution to knowledge. The student should be able to carry out extensive in-depth analysis on related work, e.g. critical comparisons among various architectures / platforms and their features

24 in terms of various dimensions such as the types of smart environment they realise, the application domains, or the underlying technologies. Based on the analysis the student should draw conclusions of the strengths and weaknesses of existing research and development of IoT platforms, identify open research problems and derive insights and visions into future research, development, and applications. This will be the second major contribution to knowledge. In addition, built upon the previous review and analysis, the student should speculate, conceive and design a novel IoT architecture and platform, which should be contextualised in real world use scenarios including smart homes (health monitoring, self-management), smart cities, or more generically about community life, cultural experiences, future society. This will be the third contribution to knowledge of this dissertation. Deliverables In addition to the three aforementioned contributions to knowledge, the dissertation should be able to be readily published as a survey or review paper after the completion of the dissertation. The following is an indicative structure with a number of pullet points that this dissertation should cover. Nevertheless, the student should not be limited to this. It is expected that emphases of the dissertation should be placed on the review and analysis of existing architecture and platforms in terms of the key features these platforms support and the technologies they used to enable and support these key features. We would also like to see the critical review, comparison and analysis of the application of such IoT platform in real use scenarios and speculation of innovative use scenarios of such IoT platforms for smart homes. Suggested Key Points to be Covered by the Dissertation (it is the student s responsibility to organise the dissertation in a logical, coherent way) General introduction / overview to IoT High level description of IoT architecture / platforms - What they are requirements, anatomy and physiology - In terms of functional features, e.g. adaptability, cognitive capabilities, interoperability, openness, etc. - In terms of underlying technologies, e.g. sensors, actuators, middleware platforms, Review of existing IoT platforms - The student should propose some ways to best organise existing work. It will be helpful for the student to review related work in related research areas including smart cyber-physical systems, robotics, embedded systems middleware infrastructure, etc. - Can it be categorised into a) closed world application scenarios, b) open world application scenarios

25 for each category of IoT platform, - review the state of the art of application, potential use scenarios include health (smart homes, assistive living), energy, mobility and commercial services (smart cyber-physical systems), etc. - review the state of the art of reference implementation including proof-of-concept, large-scale demonstrations and validation driven by innovative use scenarios - analyse the strengths and weaknesses in particular existing problems, technologies - speculate future R&D directions Speculation, conception and specification and/or design of a novel IoT platform for connected smart objects. It may be helpful to contextualise the platform in a specific application domain, ideally in smart homes. Main Reference Sources Papers In particular, existing EU FP7, FP6 and EU AAL funded research projects Useful links: IoT Challenges and Opportunities, April 2013: tiny.cc/iotchallengesfinal - A roadmap for Interdisciplinary Research in the IoT, March 2013: tiny.cc/iotresearchoverview - Report of the TSB-funded Preparatory Studies on IoT Convergence Supervisor - Prof Liming Chen (Luke) Professor of Computer Science GH The Gateway De Montfort University LE1 9BH T: +44 (0) E: liming.chen@dmu.ac.uk W:

26 PROJECT 15: REVIEWS ON WEARABLE SENSING TECHNOLOGIES AND PLATFORMS Project Outline Wearable sensors, as part of the internet of things, have been widely used for many purposes, from measuring physiological vital sign parameters to behaviours, e.g. walking, running, even sexual activities. Applications that use wearable sensors involve several areas, including: 1. Sensor technologies, i.e. different types of sensors with various nature, 2. Data collection, modelling and processing 3. Technology infrastructure such as wired/ wireless communication, receivers, etc. 4. A wide range of use cases, e.g. in healthcare, object tracking, etc Deliverables This dissertation aims to carry out a thorough examination on the state of the art of the research and development of wearable sensors. It should particularly focus on existing sensing technologies, devices and platforms. It is expected that the student should develop meaningful structures to organise (classify or categorise) existing work based on one or the other criteria. This will be one major contribution to knowledge. The student should be able to carry out extensive in-depth analysis on related work, e.g. critical comparisons among various sensors / platforms and their features in terms of various dimensions such as the types of circumstances they can be used (e.g. indoor or outdoor), the application domains (e.g. for vital sign physiological parameters like EEG or ECG or for exercises), or the underlying technologies. Based on the analysis the student should draw conclusions of the strengths and weaknesses of existing research and development of wearable sensors, identify open research problems and derive insights and visions into future research, development, and applications. This will be the second major contribution to knowledge. In addition, built upon the previous review and analysis, the student should speculate, conceive and design a novel sensing architecture and platform, which should be contextualised in real world use scenarios including smart homes (health monitoring, self-management), smart cities, or more generically about community life, cultural experiences, future society. This will be the third contribution to knowledge of this dissertation. In addition to the three aforementioned contributions to knowledge, the dissertation should be able to be readily published as a survey or review paper after the completion of the dissertation.

27 Supervisor - Prof Liming Chen (Luke) Professor of Computer Science GH The Gateway De Montfort University LE1 9BH T: +44 (0) E: liming.chen@dmu.ac.uk W:

28 PROJECT 16: ONLINE GAMING: GAME BOT Outline Game bots or automated programs are used to assist some game players in accumulating in-game wealth to the disadvantage of other players. For example, game bots are used to farm certain virtual items (e.g. gold) or reputation with certain factions via repeating a number of quests. Objectives Develop a Game Bot for online games with independent modules to: 1. Explore a region in game 2. Farm virtual items 3. Complete quests 1 4. The game bot will be validated on CYRAN Note: When feasible, each module should be game independent Prerequisites An understanding of online gaming An understanding of game programming An understanding of network programming Technical Requirements: RED (Traffic light indicator) Expected Deliverables 1. Software modules 2. User manual Supervisor - Dr Prapa Rattadilok Senior Lecturer at the De Montfort University (field: Network and Data Intelligence). Her interests include data analytics, data fusion, anomaly detection, faulty analysis, situation awareness, networked systems analytics and optimisation. She has more than 10 years experience in industry led data centric research in the areas including biomedical intelligent systems, smart home, robotics, sensor network. T: E: prapa.rattadilok@dmu.ac.uk 1 CYRAN is a training environment that uses a combination of Linux and Windows virtual machines to provide a virtual network

29 PROJECT 17: A GAME IN A GAME: ATTACKER Outline Security issues in online gaming are a growing concern as social, competitive and even professional gaming become more prevalent. Different types of multiplayer games have different priorities and thus are more or less susceptible to different kinds of security breach. Persistent latency issues may be more of an issue for a First Person Shooter (FPS) such as Counter Strike: Global Offensive (CSGO) than for Real Time Strategy (RTS) games such as StarCraft. Drop rate and disconnections too would have different implications and even have different implications depending on what stage of a game people are in. An additional factor is the growth in voice communication within online games, and again a security breach (e.g. a Denial of Service (DoS) attack) would affect games differently. Objectives As an exploitative player, your task is to reduce the opposition players effectiveness and also illegally improve your own performance. For example: 1. Disrupt the gaming experience of others to benefit themselves 2. Hack user accounts to steal or destroy player 'belongings' 3. Improve your own status (e.g. auto-levelling and digital content generation) 4. Run assistance software (e.g. Bots) to improve your performance or 'farm' more resources 5. The software modules will be validated on CYRAN Prerequisites Understanding of online gaming An understanding of game programming Understanding of network programming Technical Requirements: Red (Traffic light indicator) Expected Deliverables 1. Software modules 2. User manual

30 Supervisor - Dr Prapa Rattadilok Senior Lecturer at the De Montfort University (field: Network and Data Intelligence). Her interests include data analytics, data fusion, anomaly detection, faulty analysis, situation awareness, networked systems analytics and optimisation. She has more than 10 years experience in industry led data centric research in the areas including biomedical intelligent systems, smart home, robotics, sensor network. T: E: prapa.rattadilok@dmu.ac.uk W: TBC

31 PROJECT 18: A GAME IN A GAME: DEFENCE Outline Security issues in online gaming are a growing concern as social, competitive and even professional gaming become more prevalent. Different types of multiplayer games have different priorities and thus are more or less susceptible to different kinds of security breach. Persistent latency issues may be more of an issue for a First Person Shooter (FPS) such as Counter Strike: Global Offensive (CSGO) than for Real Time Strategy (RTS) games such as StarCraft. Drop rate and disconnections too would have different implications and even have different implications depending on what stage of a game people are in. An additional factor is the growth in voice communication within online games, and again a security breach (e.g. a Denial of Service (DoS) attack) would affect games differently. Objectives The attackers are exploitative players who try to reduce the other player s effectiveness and also illegally improve their performance. For example: 1. Disrupt the gaming experience of others to benefit themselves 2. Hack user accounts to steal or destroy player 'belongings' 3. Improve your own status (e.g. auto-levelling and digital content generation) 4. Run assistance software (e.g. Bots) to improve your performance or 'farm' more resources 5. The software modules will be validated on CYRAN. Your task is to prevent and/or detect the attackers violations by analysing profiles, monitoring packet behaviour, implementing policy changes on accounts and reacting to attacks. Prerequisites Understanding of online gaming An understanding of game programming Understanding of network programming Technical Requirements: RED (Traffic light indicator) Expected Deliverables 1. Software modules 2. User manual

32 Supervisor - Dr Prapa Rattadilok Senior Lecturer at the De Montfort University (field: Network and Data Intelligence). Her interests include data analytics, data fusion, anomaly detection, faulty analysis, situation awareness, networked systems analytics and optimisation. She has more than 10 years experience in industry led data centric research in the areas including biomedical intelligent systems, smart home, robotics, sensor network. T: E: prapa.rattadilok@dmu.ac.uk W: TBC

33 PROJECT 19: TRACK YOUR HEALTH Outline Two-thirds of the UK adult population is classified as obese. This is one of the leading preventable causes of death. Most cases of obesity are due to excessive food intake and the lack of physical activity. Objectives Develop a mobile app to: 1. Track the user s locations 2. Infer activities, e.g. walk, running 3. Allow the user to input their food diary and annotate their activities 4. Suggest a suitable level of physical activity that is needed for their daily calorie intake 5. Identify ways to sustain user interest in using the app Note: If feasible, the app should also communicate with wearable devices. Prerequisites An understanding of mobile programming Technical Requirements: YELLOW (Traffic light indicator) Expected Deliverables 1. Mobile app 2. User manual Supervisor - Dr Prapa Rattadilok Senior Lecturer at the De Montfort University (field: Network and Data Intelligence). Her interests include data analytics, data fusion, anomaly detection, faulty analysis, situation awareness, networked systems analytics and optimisation. She has more than 10 years experience in industry led data centric research in the areas including biomedical intelligent systems, smart home, robotics, sensor network. T: E: prapa.rattadilok@dmu.ac.uk W: TBC

34 PROJECT 20: SELECTING PORTFOLIO OF SECURITY COUNTERMEASURES Objective The final goal is to develop a tool for selecting portfolio of security countermeasures. Project Description Choosing an optimal investment in security is an issue most companies facing these days. Which security countermeasures/controls to buy to protect their IT system in a best way? Selecting subset of security countermeasures among many available ones can be formulated as a resource allocation problem. To solve it usually several conflicting objectives should be optimised simultaneously. In particular, security of system should be improved without hindering productivity. Moreover, company might have limited budged for buying controls, which should be taken into account in the optimisation problem. In this project, the problem will be formulated and solved using existing optimisation frameworks, e.g. JMetal. Project Outline 1. Study security budget allocation problem and existing approaches to solve it. 2. Formulate budget allocation as an optimisation problem. 3. Solve the problem using existing optimisation frameworks. 4. Analyse results (e.g. compare performance for several algorithms) and draw conclusions. Prerequisite Programming skills, e.g. Java Problem structuring and modelling using existing mathematical formulations. Expected Deliverables 1. Short literature review of security budget allocation problem and existing approaches to solve it. 2. Solution of the existing benchmark problems using existing optimisation frameworks. 3. Report on the analysis of results.

35 Supervisor - Dr Iryna Yevseyeva, Lecturer in Computer Science School of Computer Science and Informatics Faculty of Technology 5.33 Gateway House, The Gateway De Montfort University, LE1 9BH, Leicester, UK E: iryna.yevseyeva@dmu.ac.uk W: TBC

36 PROJECT 21: DECISION AIDING FOR SELECTING A PRIVACY NON-INVASIVE APPLICATION FROM PLAY STORE Objective To develop a mobile application for ranking Mobile Applications according to their permission requirements. Project Description Nowadays when searching for a Mobile App, e.g. in Play store, people are mainly considering how many downloads were made for an App. However, this criterion does not consider how privacy invasive each application is, which becomes of importance for modern privacy aware society. In this project the available Apps will be ranked based on how many and which permissions it requires for being installed. Scoring will be done based on Mobile App privacy invasion assessment and developed as an App, e.g. to be used as an alternative to popularity ranking in Play Store. Project Outline 1. Study literature on existing privacy permissions and privacy assessment. 2. Design evaluation function for scoring privacy of an App in Play Store. 3. Implement and test the scoring App. Prerequisite Programming skills for mobile phones, e.g. Java for Android Problem structuring and modelling using existing mathematical formulations. Expected Deliverables 1. Short literature review privacy permissions and privacy assessment. 2. Decision aiding model for scoring privacy invasion assessment of an App. 3. Scoring App.

37 Supervisor - Dr Iryna Yevseyeva, Lecturer in Computer Science School of Computer Science and Informatics Faculty of Technology 5.33 Gateway House, The Gateway De Montfort University, LE1 9BH, Leicester, UK E: iryna.yevseyeva@dmu.ac.uk W: TBC

38 PROJECT 22: TRUST AND SECURITY IN EVERYDAY DECISIONS Objective The final goal is to develop security scenarios and their trust models for helping in everyday decision making. Project Description Nowadays making security decisions is a common everyday task that most of working or studying with computers people facing. For instance, answering the following questions becomes common: Shell I plug this USB stick into my computer? Shell I connect to this public Wi-Fi? Trust plays significant role in all these scenarios. In this project, the ways to model trust and assist in such decisions are explored by combining existing decision analysis models with developed in this project trust models. The developed decision aiding system is supposed to analyse all available information and suggest the decision maker a solution optimal from security and trust points of view. For instance trust can be studied in the context of phishing: why some people trust phishing s and fall victims of social engineering. Project Outline 1. Study everyday decision scenarios and existing trust models. 2. Develop trust models for selected scenario(s). 3. Design decision aiding system for advising on security choices. 4. Implement and test the system. Prerequisite Programming skills, e.g. Java Problem structuring and modelling using existing mathematical formulations Expected Deliverables 1. Short literature review of existing trust models. 2. Implementation of the decision aiding system for selected scenario(s). 3. Report on the analysis of system performance.

39 Supervisor - Dr Iryna Yevseyeva, Lecturer in Computer Science School of Computer Science and Informatics Faculty of Technology 5.33 Gateway House, The Gateway De Montfort University, LE1 9BH, Leicester, UK E: iryna.yevseyeva@dmu.ac.uk W: TBC

40 PROJECT 23: RISK ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIOURS IN SECURITY DECISIONS Objective The final goal is to gain better understanding in risk attitudes in security decision making. Project Description Understanding how people perceive risks and how they make decisions about risks associated with the business processes they perform within an organisation is a key to understand the overall risk exposure of an organisation to cyber security and other related risks. In this project risky decision making will be investigated in context of different business scenarios. In particular the hypothesis about correlation between type of business activity and risky behaviour will be investigated. Moreover it will be studied whether relaxing strict security policies improves security behaviours. Project Outline 1. Literature review on risk profiles and behaviours in security decision making. 2. Surveys and questionnaires about risk security behaviours related to different business scenarios and security policies. 3. Statistical analysis of the results. 4. Reporting conclusions from the study. Prerequisite Good skills on reviewing literature and performing questionnaires. Knowledge or willingness to learn usage of statistical analysis tools for the questionnaires results analysis. Expected Deliverables 1. Literature review of existing risk behaviour models and their usage in security decision making. 2. Designing questionnaires about risk security behaviours and testing a group of participants. 3. Analysis of results using statistical tools. 4. Report on the analysis of results.

41 Supervisor - Dr Iryna Yevseyeva, Lecturer in Computer Science School of Computer Science and Informatics Faculty of Technology 5.33 Gateway House, The Gateway De Montfort University, LE1 9BH, Leicester, UK E: iryna.yevseyeva@dmu.ac.uk W: TBC

42 PROJECT 24: PROTECTING CRITICAL WATER INFRASTRUCTURE Objective Design sensors layout for threats detection in critical infrastructure: Water supply scenario. Project Description In this project a critical water infrastructure will be protected by designing a sensors layout to perform early warnings of threats. This is an important topic with high impact due to potential attacks, e.g. via pollution of water, affecting safety of large populations. Currently existing solutions are limited to intuitive trial and error approaches. In this study it is proposed to explore systematics innovative approaches, borrowed from optimisation approaches like graph and network analysis, taking into account additional available information about water supply network structure. The idea is to maximise the number of detected critical events and minimise damage from potential attacks. For this critical points within infrastructure have to be located, identified and protected. Project Outline 1. Study literature on water critical infrastructure protection. 2. Identify common procedure for protecting critical water infrastructure. 3. Design of warning system for critical water infrastructure. 4. Implement and test the created procedure in combination with hydraulic simulator on existing benchmark. 5. Compare created solution with existing ones. Prerequisite Knowledge or willingness to learn risk assessment of critical infrastructures Knowledge or willingness to explore optimisation approaches in graph or network analysis Programming skills, e.g. Python/Java/C/C++/C#/ Expected Deliverables 1. Short literature review for becoming familiar with optimisation approaches in graph and network analysis that could be applied for critical water infrastructure. 2. Implementation of the designed warning system for critical water infrastructure. 3. Analysis of the performance on the benchmark and comparison to existing approaches.