Information Assurance Research in the College of Engineering

Information Assurance Measures that protect and defend information and information systems by ensuring their availability, integrity, authentication, confidentiality, and non-repudiation.

Florida Institute of Technology was designated a Center for Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Research by the National Security Agency

The Harris Institute for Assured Information serves as a focal point for collaboration and project support

COE Faculty Performing Research in Information Assurance – Richard Ford, Computer Science – Harris Institute – Fredric Ham, Electrical and Computer Engineering – Gerald Marin, Computer Science – Harris Institute – William Allen, Computer Science – Harris Institute – Ryan Stansifer, Computer Science – Liam Mayron, Computer Science – Harris Institute – Marius Silaghi, Computer Science – Adjunct Faculty: Marco Carvalho, Ronda Henning

Adaptive Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition Funded by the U.S. Department of Energy – Enhanced Protection of Critical Infrastructure – COE Participants: Drs. Ford, Allen, Ham, Stansifer Supporting 1 Ph.D. student and 2 M.S. students – Publications: three conference papers accepted/presented to date two papers in preparation – $470,000 in funding over two years (current)

Neurocomputing and Interoception Funded by Harris Corporation – Attempts to allow computers to engage in interoceptive behaviors, inspired by the brain’s “system of systems” – COE Participants: Drs. Ford, Carvalho Supporting 1 M.S. student – Publications: One paper accepted and presented to date – $65,000 in funding over two semesters

Human Ground Truth in Virtual Worlds Funded by Harris Corporation – Create new collaborative environments that leverage the power of Virtual Worlds – COE Participants: Drs. Ford, Carvalho Supporting 3 students – Publications: No publications to date – project has just started – $150,000 in funding over one year (current)

Biologically-Inspired Security Infrastructure for Tactical Environments Research funded by the Army Research Lab – Improving the Security of Mobile Networks – COE Participants: Drs. Ford, Allen, Ham, Marin, one Postdoc Researcher Graduated 1 Ph.D. and 5 M.S. students – Publications: twelve papers published on this work – $2,785,300 in funding over 3 years (completed)

Assured Information in SOA Environments Funded by Harris Corporation – Developed a method for evaluating security- centric testing tools for use in SOA environments – COE Participants: Dr. Tilley Supported 1 Ph.D. student and 1 M.S. student – Publications: three conference papers published on this work – $150,000 in funding over one year

Harris Corporation Grants The Harris Corporation funded several recent projects through the Harris Institute: – Vulnerabilities in Graphics Systems - $125k Drs. Ford and Allen – Brain-inspired computing for security -$65k Dr. Ford – Collection of Malware Samples - $100k Drs. Allen and Ford and graduate students – Metrics for Human Computer Interaction - $60k Dr. Ford and Dr. Bahr (Psychology)

Using Program Slicing in Software Maintenance This seminal work by Dr. Keith Gallagher was published in IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering in 1991 – Program slicing helps in understanding foreign code and in debugging, Dr. Gallagher extended this idea to aid in software maintenance. – This work had a significant impact on discovering and correcting the Y2K problem and continues to be widely used for software maintenance – This paper has been cited over 600 times

Software Testing Information Assurance requires the ability to verify that software is free from vulnerabilities and that it functions as intended Dr. Cem Kaner has co-authored four books and numerous articles and workshops on software testing principals and practices, including: – Cem Kaner, Jack Falk, & Hung Quoc Nguyen, Testing Computer Software, 2 nd edition – Cem Kaner, James Bach, & Bret Pettichord, Lessons Learned in Software Testing – Cem Kaner & David Pels, Bad Software: What To Do When Software Fails

Towards a Secure Software Development Framework Based on an Integrated Engineering Process Abdulaziz Alkussayer, PhD completed in 2011 – Developed a methodology for improving the development of secure software – Publications: one Journal article, five Conference papers to date – Advisor: William Allen – Abdulaziz is currently on the faculty of a University in Saudi Arabia

Program Comprehension Through Sonification Lewis Berman, PhD completed in 2011 – Developed a sonification (i.e., non-speech sound) scheme to facilitate the understanding of software which has been shown to be particularly useful for analyzing dynamic program behaviors – Publications: three Conference papers to date – Advisor: Keith Gallagher

Migrating Software Testing to the Cloud Tauhida Parveen, PhD completed in 2010 – Developed a methodology for migrating software testing to a cloud environment to improve performance and lower costs – Publications: two Journal articles, six Conference papers to date – Advisor: Scott Tilley – Tauhida is employed at a local security company

Automatic Design of Feistel Ciphers Using Constraint Techniques Venkatesh Ramamoorthy, PhD completed in 2010 – Developed several improvements to existing cryptographic techniques – Publications: three Conference papers to date – A patent has been applied for on this work – Advisor: Marius Silaghi – Venkatesh is employed at Array Networks, Inc.

Malicious Mobile Code Related Experiments with an Extensible Network Simulator Attila Ondi, PhD completed in 2007 – Developed a technique for simulating the spread of malicious code with high fidelity to better evaluate methods for defending against attacks – Publications: two Journal articles, four Conference papers to date – Advisor: Richard Ford – Attila is employed at Securboration, Inc.

Masters Research in Information Assurance Reputations for Security in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks, Katherine Hoffman, M.S., 2011 MANET Security and Antibodies, Stephen Dotson, M.S., 2011 – a biologically-inspired approach to protecting mobile networks Evaluating the Capabilities of SOA Testing Tools from a Security Perspective, Nawwar Kabbani, M.S., 2010 A Proactive Defense System for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks, Eyosias Yoseph Imana, M.S., 2009 A State-Machine-Based Attack Description Language for the Evaluation of Intrusion Detection Systems, Samuel Oswald, M.S, 2009

Masters Research in Information Assurance Incrementally Learning Rules for Anomaly Detection, Denis Petrusenko, M.S., 2009 A Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET) Simulator with Worm Propagation, Matthew Reedy, M.S., 2009 A Modular Framework for Next-Generation Testing and Evaluation of Network Applications, Derek Pryor, M.S., 2009 Discovering a Covert Channel between Virtual Machines Sharing the Same Set of Hardware, James Stimers, M.S., 2008 Changing the Modulus of Secret Sharing, Accessing Arrays of Secrets and Incentive Mixnets, Timothy Atkinson, M.S., 2007 The Hunt for Viral Processes, Christiana Ioannou, M.S., 2006