Secure and dynamic access control over encrypted data in the cloud. This project aims to enable dynamic access control due to organisational change, which is critical to enable the adoption of cloud computing in practice. Access control over encrypted outsourced data is an essential requirement for enabling practical, secure storage. This project will be underpinned by a study of constructing new cryptographic primitives for enabling cipher-text changes without the need for refreshing the users’ ....Secure and dynamic access control over encrypted data in the cloud. This project aims to enable dynamic access control due to organisational change, which is critical to enable the adoption of cloud computing in practice. Access control over encrypted outsourced data is an essential requirement for enabling practical, secure storage. This project will be underpinned by a study of constructing new cryptographic primitives for enabling cipher-text changes without the need for refreshing the users’ secret keys. The expected outcomes will bridge theory and practice, providing economic benefits to industry by enabling practical mechanisms to store confidential user’s information in the cloud, hence lowering the infrastructure cost for industry.Read moreRead less
Design and deployment of practical anonymous access systems. This project aims to design, test and deploy a practical and highly secure anonymous access system for online businesses that offer services on a free trial basis. Currently, online businesses are unable to take advantage of feedback from customers during and after trial periods; nor do currently available mechanisms offer practical privacy protection to customers. The project expects to overcome these barriers by developing innovative ....Design and deployment of practical anonymous access systems. This project aims to design, test and deploy a practical and highly secure anonymous access system for online businesses that offer services on a free trial basis. Currently, online businesses are unable to take advantage of feedback from customers during and after trial periods; nor do currently available mechanisms offer practical privacy protection to customers. The project expects to overcome these barriers by developing innovative cryptographic solutions and security testing methods that will inform new protocol design and implementation, which will bring long-term benefits to online businesses and their customers. The project also aims to develop new, distributed ledger technology, which is a strategic technology trend. This will provide significant benefits such as a practical, reliable and highly secure anonymous access system for online businesses, in Australia and worldwide, that offer services on a free trial basis, which would enable these service providers to add value to and enhance their product offerings.Read moreRead less
Taipan: a block-chain with democratic consensus and validated contracts. Blockchains keep records by mass collaboration using peer-to-peer and cryptographical algorithms. Programmable blockchain technology can disrupt the finance industry, governance, and legal services by reducing the role for intermediaries such as banks and government authorities. This project aims to propose a new block-chain for “Trust Among Individual ParticipANts” (TAIPAN). The main feature of TAIPAN’s programmable block ....Taipan: a block-chain with democratic consensus and validated contracts. Blockchains keep records by mass collaboration using peer-to-peer and cryptographical algorithms. Programmable blockchain technology can disrupt the finance industry, governance, and legal services by reducing the role for intermediaries such as banks and government authorities. This project aims to propose a new block-chain for “Trust Among Individual ParticipANts” (TAIPAN). The main feature of TAIPAN’s programmable block-chain is the integrity and security of individual ownership records that current block-chains lack. This project will aim to overcome two major threats in current programmable block-chains, double-spending among participants, and security vulnerabilities in smart contracts. TAIPAN will provide a democratic and leaderless consensus algorithm that will avoid double-spending, and a new bug-checking framework for smart contracts that finds anomalies before smart contracts are admitted to the block-chain.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE190100046
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$387,000.00
Summary
Fortifying our digital economy: advanced automated vulnerability discovery. This project aims to enable security researchers to detect critical vulnerabilities in large software systems with maximal efficiency, cost-effectively, and with known statistical accuracy. The aim is to develop advanced high-performance fuzzers that effectively thwart malware attacks, ransomware epidemics, and cyber terrorism by exposing security flaws before they can commence. The project will employ a well-established ....Fortifying our digital economy: advanced automated vulnerability discovery. This project aims to enable security researchers to detect critical vulnerabilities in large software systems with maximal efficiency, cost-effectively, and with known statistical accuracy. The aim is to develop advanced high-performance fuzzers that effectively thwart malware attacks, ransomware epidemics, and cyber terrorism by exposing security flaws before they can commence. The project will employ a well-established statistical framework utilised in ecology research to provide fundamental insights to boosting the efficiency of software vulnerability discovery, and on the trade-off between investing more resources and gaining better cyber security guarantees. As our reliance on new technologies is ever growing, this project equips Australia to curb cyber crime cost-effectively.Read moreRead less
Security and Privacy of Individual Data Used to Extract Public Information. The project aims to contribute to the development of techniques to allow the harvesting of useful information without compromising personal privacy. Intelligent analysis of personal data can reveal valuable knowledge about a population but at a risk of invading an individual's privacy. This project aims to provide at least partial solutions to some of the problems associated with the protection of private data. In partic ....Security and Privacy of Individual Data Used to Extract Public Information. The project aims to contribute to the development of techniques to allow the harvesting of useful information without compromising personal privacy. Intelligent analysis of personal data can reveal valuable knowledge about a population but at a risk of invading an individual's privacy. This project aims to provide at least partial solutions to some of the problems associated with the protection of private data. In particular, it plans to work on the problem of security of statistical databases and privacy of streaming data. This would be underpinned by a study of anonymisation and homomorphic encryption. The expected outcomes are new theoretical results, new algorithms and protocols applicable to at least some of the current significant problems in information security.Read moreRead less
Mechanised foundations of proof calculi. Commercial program verification tools based upon special-purpose logic-based proof calculi can now guarantee that large programs are free of specific bugs. But who verifies the proof-calculi? Our research will lead to tools to automatically verify proof-calculi and will eventually help to avoid costly post-construction debugging.
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE150100720
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$375,000.00
Summary
Testing Isomorphism of Algebraic Structures. The algorithmic problem of isomorphism testing seeks to decide whether two objects from a mathematical category are essentially the same. This project focuses on the setting when the categories are from algebra, including but not limited to, groups and polynomials. It is a family of fundamental problems in complexity theory, with important applications in cryptography. The project aims to develop efficient algorithms with provable guarantee, or formal ....Testing Isomorphism of Algebraic Structures. The algorithmic problem of isomorphism testing seeks to decide whether two objects from a mathematical category are essentially the same. This project focuses on the setting when the categories are from algebra, including but not limited to, groups and polynomials. It is a family of fundamental problems in complexity theory, with important applications in cryptography. The project aims to develop efficient algorithms with provable guarantee, or formal hardness proofs, for these problems. Algorithms will be implemented to examine the impacts on certain cryptography schemes. The successful completion of this project will enhance the understanding of computational complexities of these problems, and identify the security of certain cryptography schemes.Read moreRead less
Evidence-based frameworks for security protocol verification. Security protocols are an essential part of secure communication networks. This project aims to develop verification techniques for security protocols that produce independently verifiable formal certificates of correctness. The project's outcome will contribute to the certification processes for secure network systems at the highest level of assurance.
New Efficient Cryptographic Tools for Data Privacy and Software Protection. Online services for collaborative communication and software distribution are commonplace today, but their use is hampered by data privacy breaches and intellectual property violations via software reverse engineering. Recent theoretical breakthroughs in cryptography promise to provide new powerful tools for solving these problems, but these tools are not yet suitable for practical use, due to their low efficiency and a ....New Efficient Cryptographic Tools for Data Privacy and Software Protection. Online services for collaborative communication and software distribution are commonplace today, but their use is hampered by data privacy breaches and intellectual property violations via software reverse engineering. Recent theoretical breakthroughs in cryptography promise to provide new powerful tools for solving these problems, but these tools are not yet suitable for practical use, due to their low efficiency and a lack of solid security foundations. This project aims to apply algebraic and probabilistic techniques to improve efficiency of existing tools, and the understanding of their security. Outcomes are expected to include new insights in cryptographic theory, and new practical tools for cyber security.Read moreRead less
Developing smart embedded host-based intrusion detection systems. Computer intrusion is a major concern in many places. It is estimated that cybercrime cost firms US$1 trillion globally in 2008. Many serious cyber attacks, including cyber espionage, do not generate significant network traffic and can easily penetrate network-based intrusion detection systems (NIDS). Such attacks often attempt to compromise individual hosts and hence they are best detected at the host level. We aim to design i ....Developing smart embedded host-based intrusion detection systems. Computer intrusion is a major concern in many places. It is estimated that cybercrime cost firms US$1 trillion globally in 2008. Many serious cyber attacks, including cyber espionage, do not generate significant network traffic and can easily penetrate network-based intrusion detection systems (NIDS). Such attacks often attempt to compromise individual hosts and hence they are best detected at the host level. We aim to design innovative host-based IDS, as a complement to the NIDS, to address this issue. The outcomes of this project will strengthen the national capability to resist attacks by criminals and terrorists on Australian networked critical infrastructures and also enhance the global competitiveness of Australia’s information technology industry.Read moreRead less