Research in computer
security and information assurance is conducted in the Information Security Laboratory
(ISL) under the direction of Dr.
Csilla Farkas; other faculty members in the center include Professors Duncan Buell, Caroline Eastman, Steve Fenner, Chin-Tser Huang, and Manton Matthews in Computer Science
and Engineering and Professor Joe Johnson in Physics. The Center has an isolated network that can
be used for security experiments; two subnetworks allow implementation and observation
of security attacks and defenses. In
addition to experimental work, the center research includes theoretical work in
quantum security and protection against inference attacks in relational
databases. Four undergraduate students were actively involved in designing and
setting up the network and computer configurations in the Information Security
Laboratory.
Information
Security. Research
projects in security will generally involve design, implementation, and
experimentation with different security modules, such as firewalls and
paradigms for security in mobile code. The controlled environment of the Information Security Laboratory
will be used to both carry out security attacks and to monitor and track
attacks in progress; it will also be used to evaluate basic security prevention
(authentication, access control, firewalls, etc.) and detection
techniques (system monitoring, intrusion detection, virus detection,
etc.). This work will provide a
foundation for follow-on research to develop monitoring and tracking tools for
the Information Security
Laboratory. These tools will be
oriented toward specialized security topics, such as database security, WWW
security, and cryptography. Additional work will involve the
development of models of various types of security attacks. These models will be included in the set of Information Security Laboratory
tools used by students enrolled in security related courses. Research in this lab is currently funded
primarily by an NSF CAREER award to Dr.
Farkas.
Secure Protocols. The Secure Protocol Implementation
and Development (SPID) Laboratory is currently conducting research in the
development, implementation, and verification of secure network protocols;
current research emphases include network anomaly detection, secure sensor
network infrastructures, security of intermediate network devices and wireless
network security. Research projects include active network anomaly detection
via intelligent signal analysis methods, and the development and evaluation of
authentication protocols for IEEE 802.11 wireless networks and sensor networks.