MSc Project Proposals Programme Leader: Ali Al-Bayati 10 June 2015
PROJECT 01: MEASURING PRIVACY IN SMART METERING Project Outline Smart meters, like conventional electricity meters, measure the power consumed in a household. Smart meters allow power companies to read the meter remotely. This means that they do not need to be physically present to read the meter, and thus can do it much more frequently than before (before: once every few months; now: every few minutes). For the power companies, this has the additional benefit that they gain fine-grained power consumption data that can help them optimise their grid operations. However, this fine-grained reading of power consumption has important privacy implications for end users. For example, one study found that this data can be used to tell which TV program is being watched in a household. This allows power companies to create detailed profiles of a household's TV viewing habits. The privacy research community has proposed several solutions for this. One of the simplest solutions is to aggregate power consumption data for an entire neighbourhood. This would still allow the power company to access fine-grained data for grid optimisation, but would not allow the creation of household profiles. However, before implementing this kind of solution, we would like to know how strong the privacy protection provided by it is. The literature proposes many different privacy metrics to evaluate the strength of privacy protection, but they have not been systematically applied to a smart metering scenario. In this project, you will first investigate which privacy metrics are applicable to smart metering, and then systematically evaluate the privacy protection provided by the aggregation solution. Supervisor - Dr Isabel Wagner Lecturer in Computer Science (Cybersecurity) GH 5.59 - The Gateway T: +44 (0) 116 207 8576 E: isabel.wagner@dmu.ac.uk
PROJECT 02: 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 T: +44 116 207 8483 E: Leandros.maglaras@dmu.ac.uk
PROJECT 03: 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 T: +44 116 207 8483 E: Leandros.maglaras@dmu.ac.uk
PROJECT 04: 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. Key areas are information governance for healthcare. 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. Projects Objectives Have a thorough understanding of IG/SA. Model and validate IG/SA Framework. Prerequisite Basic skills of case studies and business modelling. An Information Systems background is desirable. Expected Deliverables Your Final Report can be either of the following, 1. A Survey of IG/SA in a specific area (e.g. healthcare) 2. Case Studies & IG/SA framework modelling 3. IG/ SA framework modelling & Validation (e.g. industrial business case) Supervisor - Dr Ying He Lecturer GH 5.61 - The Gateway T: +44 (0) 116 207 7614 E: ying.he@dmu.ac.uk
PROJECT 05: INFORMATION DRIVEN CYBER SECURITY INTELLIGENCE E.G. SOCIAL MEDIAL INTELLIGENCE, CYBER SECURITY INTELLIGENCE AND RISK MANAGEMENT Introduction With the information explosion of social media, responders can gather and share real-time, dynamic information from social media to improve situational awareness and assist in decision-making. The ability to identify, verify, coordinate, aggregate, and contextualise is very important to re-use and disseminate this information. Projects Objectives Generate security knowledge from social media data. Analyse, visualise and represent data in a meaningful way. Inform effective security decision-making. Prerequisite Basic skills of business analytics, data visualisation, and programming Basic knowledge of security risk management and decision-making. Business Computing, Information Retrieval backgrounds are desirable. 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 and visualise data for a particular security decisionmaking scenario. Supervisor - Dr Ying He Lecturer GH 5.61 - The Gateway T: +44 (0) 116 207 7614 E: ying.he@dmu.ac.uk
PROJECT 06: IT/ICS SECURITY INCIDENT RESPONSE FRAMEWORKS & AGILE MANIFESTO E.G. DYNAMIC INCIDENT RESPONSE AND SECURITY FORENSICS Introduction Current IT/ICS security incident response requires efficient change management (e.g. patch update), data integration, reporting, adaptability and collaboration of different stakeholders. Agile principal values collaboration, communication and flexible response to changes. IT/ICS security incident response would potentially benefit from the integration of Agile Principal. Projects Objectives Model an Agile Incident Response Framework. Model an Agile Security Forensic Framework. Prerequisite Basic knowledge of security incident response and forensics. An 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 Supervisor - Dr Ying He Lecturer GH 5.61 - The Gateway T: +44 (0) 116 207 7614 E: ying.he@dmu.ac.uk
PROJECT 07: 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. 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. 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, HCI experimental design, and user studies. A 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 5.61 - The Gateway T: +44 (0) 116 207 7614 E: ying.he@dmu.ac.uk
PROJECT 08: 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 Mill Lane, LE2 7DR E: p12188805@myemail.dmu.ac.uk
PROJECT 09: 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 5.34 - The Gateway T: +44 (0) 116 207 8490 E: liming.chen@dmu.ac.uk W: www.tech.dmu.ac.uk/~limingchen/
PROJECT 10: 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.
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.
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 5.34 - The Gateway T: +44 (0) 116 207 8490 E: liming.chen@dmu.ac.uk W: www.tech.dmu.ac.uk/~limingchen/
PROJECT 11: 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 2020. 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 emails, 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
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
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: - https://connect.innovateuk.org/web/internet-of-things - 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 5.34 - The Gateway T: +44 (0) 116 207 8490 E: liming.chen@dmu.ac.uk W: www.tech.dmu.ac.uk/~limingchen/
PROJECT 12: 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.
Supervisor - Prof Liming Chen (Luke) Professor of Computer Science GH 5.34 - The Gateway T: +44 (0) 116 207 8490 E: liming.chen@dmu.ac.uk W: www.tech.dmu.ac.uk/~limingchen/