Developing Adversary-Aware Classifiers for Android Malware Detection. Smartphones have become increasingly ubiquitous in people’s everyday life. However, it was reported that one in every five Android applications were actually malware, considering that Android has taken 88% market share of mobile phones. As an effective technique, machine learning has been widely adopted to detect Android malware. However, recent work suggests that deliberately-crafted malware makes machine learning ineffective ....Developing Adversary-Aware Classifiers for Android Malware Detection. Smartphones have become increasingly ubiquitous in people’s everyday life. However, it was reported that one in every five Android applications were actually malware, considering that Android has taken 88% market share of mobile phones. As an effective technique, machine learning has been widely adopted to detect Android malware. However, recent work suggests that deliberately-crafted malware makes machine learning ineffective. In this project, we propose to develop a series of new techniques, such as 1) Android contextual analysis, 2) wrapper-based hill climbing algorithm, and 3) ensemble learning, to solve this problem. The outcomes will help Australia gain cutting edge technologies in adversarial machine learning and mobile security.Read moreRead less
Defending AI based FinTech Systems against Model Extraction Attacks. This project aims to develop new methods for defending artificial intelligence (AI) based FinTech systems from highly potent and insidious model extraction attacks whereby an adversary can steal the AI model from the system to cause intellectual property (IP) violation, business advantage disruption, and financial loss. This can be achieved by examining various attack models, creating active and utility-preserving defences, and ....Defending AI based FinTech Systems against Model Extraction Attacks. This project aims to develop new methods for defending artificial intelligence (AI) based FinTech systems from highly potent and insidious model extraction attacks whereby an adversary can steal the AI model from the system to cause intellectual property (IP) violation, business advantage disruption, and financial loss. This can be achieved by examining various attack models, creating active and utility-preserving defences, and inventing non-removable watermarks on AI models. The outcomes are new tools for securing AI-based FinTech systems before deployment and tools for IP violation forensics post-deployment. Such capabilities are beneficial by improving the security and safety of FinTech systems and other nationally critical AI systems.Read moreRead less
Combating Fake News on Social Media: From Early Detection to Intervention. The project aims to detect fake news early to minimise the negative impact of false information. This project expects to devise novel solutions to address technical challenges for detection of fake news with scarce signals. Expected outcomes of this project include a suite of data mining and machine learning models for identification of fake news from the social media stream, prediction of user propagation of false infor ....Combating Fake News on Social Media: From Early Detection to Intervention. The project aims to detect fake news early to minimise the negative impact of false information. This project expects to devise novel solutions to address technical challenges for detection of fake news with scarce signals. Expected outcomes of this project include a suite of data mining and machine learning models for identification of fake news from the social media stream, prediction of user propagation of false information as well as recommendation of truthful news to counteract adversarial fake news. This project should generate technologies that enhance the integrity of the online echo system and benefit media providers and online population within Australia and across the world. Read moreRead less
Detecting Firmware Vulnerabilities in Smart Home Devices. 83% of Australians have smart home devices. 47% claim they have three or more. These devices are easily targeted by cyber-attacks, and searching for their vulnerabilities has become more crucial than ever. Our industry partner GPG is actively looking for ways to detect vulnerabilities in their smart home products, but have not found any existing methods that satisfy three critical requirements: 1) massive search, 2) cross platform detecti ....Detecting Firmware Vulnerabilities in Smart Home Devices. 83% of Australians have smart home devices. 47% claim they have three or more. These devices are easily targeted by cyber-attacks, and searching for their vulnerabilities has become more crucial than ever. Our industry partner GPG is actively looking for ways to detect vulnerabilities in their smart home products, but have not found any existing methods that satisfy three critical requirements: 1) massive search, 2) cross platform detection, and 3) finding unseen vulnerabilities. We therefore propose to use a series of new techniques such as efficient in-memory fuzzing, conditional formulas, and transfer learning to solve the above challenges. The project outcomes will help Australia gain cutting edge techniques in vulnerability detection. Read moreRead less
Developing an effective defence to cyber-reputation manipulation attacks. This project will develop new technologies for businesses to accurately identify fake internet reviews. Fake reviews, paid for and/or written with malicious intent, can cause irreparable damage to businesses resulting in revenue loss, consumer dissatisfaction or even closure of businesses. However they are difficult to identify, as they continuously evolve to avoid detection and the volume of Internet reviews makes analysi ....Developing an effective defence to cyber-reputation manipulation attacks. This project will develop new technologies for businesses to accurately identify fake internet reviews. Fake reviews, paid for and/or written with malicious intent, can cause irreparable damage to businesses resulting in revenue loss, consumer dissatisfaction or even closure of businesses. However they are difficult to identify, as they continuously evolve to avoid detection and the volume of Internet reviews makes analysis a monumental task. This project will provide advanced tools to detect fake website reviews and a cybersecurity system prototype ready to be used by industry, making Australia a leader in this field and resulting in a safer internet environment for all.Read moreRead less
Decentralised Data Management for Edge Caching Systems in 5G. This project aims to deliver a suite of decentralised data management approaches to facilitate practical edge caching systems in the 5G mobile edge computing (MEC) environment. Edge caching offers great promises for Australia's post-COVID economic recovery and resilience with the ability to enable real-time mobile and IoT software applications in various domains, e.g., telehealth, online learning/working, advanced manufacturing, etc. ....Decentralised Data Management for Edge Caching Systems in 5G. This project aims to deliver a suite of decentralised data management approaches to facilitate practical edge caching systems in the 5G mobile edge computing (MEC) environment. Edge caching offers great promises for Australia's post-COVID economic recovery and resilience with the ability to enable real-time mobile and IoT software applications in various domains, e.g., telehealth, online learning/working, advanced manufacturing, etc. This project tackles new and urgent challenges in edge data storage, manipulation, maintenance, and protection with optimisation, distributed consensus, graph analytics, and cryptography techniques. The outcomes should build the pillars of edge caching systems and promote Australia's 5G software innovations.Read moreRead less
Investigation of New Physics via matter-antimatter asymmetries. The universal matter-antimatter asymmetry and the existence of dark matter imply that new fundamental physics must exist. Recent anomalous results provide evidence that the nature of new physics can be discovered by observing B-meson decays. The project aims to do this with the Belle II experiment in Japan. Discovering new physics would be a substantial scientific discovery leading to a paradigm change in Fundamental Physics. In the ....Investigation of New Physics via matter-antimatter asymmetries. The universal matter-antimatter asymmetry and the existence of dark matter imply that new fundamental physics must exist. Recent anomalous results provide evidence that the nature of new physics can be discovered by observing B-meson decays. The project aims to do this with the Belle II experiment in Japan. Discovering new physics would be a substantial scientific discovery leading to a paradigm change in Fundamental Physics. In the process of making the measurements we will develop and enhance international collaborations, develop new techniques for machine-learning and create innovative work-flow software.This will enhance the international reputation of Australian Universities leading to increased exports of Australian education.
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Examining multi-level Information Technology (IT) project alignment in government services: the case of contracted employment services. Improved Information Technology (IT) alignment is essential for the delivery of government services within a complex public-private, inter-organisational environment. This project will investigate the extent to which well-aligned IT support systems contribute positively to the efficient and effective delivery of contracted employment services.