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
Privacy-Preserving Fog Info System in Infrastructure-Deficient Environments. Due to Australia’s unique geographical distribution and population density, many regional or remote areas lack infrastructural support and development, including telecommunications and electricity supply. It is important to provide information and communication services in such infrastructure-deficient environments. In this project, we will develop a first-ever commercially ready Fog information system, or FogIS in shor ....Privacy-Preserving Fog Info System in Infrastructure-Deficient Environments. Due to Australia’s unique geographical distribution and population density, many regional or remote areas lack infrastructural support and development, including telecommunications and electricity supply. It is important to provide information and communication services in such infrastructure-deficient environments. In this project, we will develop a first-ever commercially ready Fog information system, or FogIS in short, to enable localised information and communication services, while preserving users' privacy, in infrastructure-deficient environments. The deployment of this system will bring great benefits to Australia’s economic growth, the quality of life, cybersecurity, and environment control in rural and regional Australia. Read moreRead less
Tuning parallel applications on software-defined supercomputers. Supercomputers are used by many Australian industries and laboratories to make better products and perform critical predictions, and it is essential that codes operate efficiently. This project aims to assist programmers in identifying performance bottlenecks in their code quickly and easily. The project expects to supersede the current methods, which are often complex and time-consuming, by developing innovative software tools and ....Tuning parallel applications on software-defined supercomputers. Supercomputers are used by many Australian industries and laboratories to make better products and perform critical predictions, and it is essential that codes operate efficiently. This project aims to assist programmers in identifying performance bottlenecks in their code quickly and easily. The project expects to supersede the current methods, which are often complex and time-consuming, by developing innovative software tools and techniques. The expected outcomes include novel software, verified by industry partners in real world case studies, ranging from life sciences to hypersonic transport. This should provide significant benefits, including the capacity for Australian industries to access world-class supercomputing technology.Read moreRead less
Privacy preservation for personalised smart devices. The goal of this project is to build a privacy preservation framework for personalised smart devices with both immediate and long-term applications in a range of industries. The novel theoretical contributions include a privacy-preservation mechanism that guards against attacks by intelligent tools, a model and metrics that distinguish between object detection and object recognition, and allowing users to specify their desired level of privacy ....Privacy preservation for personalised smart devices. The goal of this project is to build a privacy preservation framework for personalised smart devices with both immediate and long-term applications in a range of industries. The novel theoretical contributions include a privacy-preservation mechanism that guards against attacks by intelligent tools, a model and metrics that distinguish between object detection and object recognition, and allowing users to specify their desired level of privacy guarantee. Practically, these solutions have clear economic and public-safety benefits. The solutions will accelerate AI device development, advance smart technologies based on individual behaviours, and guarantee personal data privacy against both human attackers and adversarial algorithms. Read moreRead less
A safety-preserving ecosystem for autonomous driving. In this project, Macquarie University will collaborate with UTS and SilverQuest to develop an innovative safety-preserving ecosystem for autonomous driving. This system will not only be adopted by SilverQuest’s customers (automotive companies) to secure their latest autonomous driving models, but also be commercialised as a toolset that can be plugged into existing autonomous vehicles to detect and prevent malicious attacks on autonomous driv ....A safety-preserving ecosystem for autonomous driving. In this project, Macquarie University will collaborate with UTS and SilverQuest to develop an innovative safety-preserving ecosystem for autonomous driving. This system will not only be adopted by SilverQuest’s customers (automotive companies) to secure their latest autonomous driving models, but also be commercialised as a toolset that can be plugged into existing autonomous vehicles to detect and prevent malicious attacks on autonomous driving models. The project will lead to two innovations: in theory design an attack detection and prevention ecosystem for autonomous driving and in application implement a safety analysis toolset for industry-scale autonomous systems.Read moreRead less
Towards full lifecycle privacy protection on cloud. Privacy protection in user data on cloud is now at risk throughout all stages of user information lifecycle facing significant challenges such as stage adaptive protection, across-system protection, privacy invasion tracing and prediction. Current approaches mainly focus on a specific case at certain stage, hence cannot address those challenges properly by considering all stages. This project aims to systematically investigate those challenges ....Towards full lifecycle privacy protection on cloud. Privacy protection in user data on cloud is now at risk throughout all stages of user information lifecycle facing significant challenges such as stage adaptive protection, across-system protection, privacy invasion tracing and prediction. Current approaches mainly focus on a specific case at certain stage, hence cannot address those challenges properly by considering all stages. This project aims to systematically investigate those challenges and expects to establish innovative research and solutions for enabling full lifecycle privacy protection on cloud. The project outcomes will help to safeguard Australian community in fast-growing online cyber world, and benefit to fast-growing privacy sensitive data hosting and applications on cloud.Read moreRead less
The Fluid-Particle Mechanics of a Synthetic Jet-based Dry Powder Inhaler. This project aims to untangle the fundamental principles that govern the fluid mechanics and particulate interactions in a novel concept chip-based micro-zero-net-mass-flux (micro-ZNMF) jet-assisted dry powder inhaler (DPI). Respiratory diseases affect 6.2 million Australians. The treatment of these diseases is hampered by the poor efficiency of current delivery systems, with conventional DPI devices exhibiting sub-optimum ....The Fluid-Particle Mechanics of a Synthetic Jet-based Dry Powder Inhaler. This project aims to untangle the fundamental principles that govern the fluid mechanics and particulate interactions in a novel concept chip-based micro-zero-net-mass-flux (micro-ZNMF) jet-assisted dry powder inhaler (DPI). Respiratory diseases affect 6.2 million Australians. The treatment of these diseases is hampered by the poor efficiency of current delivery systems, with conventional DPI devices exhibiting sub-optimum performance, delivering typically less than 20% of the loaded dose to the target site, the lungs. The new fundamental knowledge resulting from this research will enable the engineering of a high-efficiency groundbreaking DPI, with the potential to be fully adaptive user-specific benefiting millions of Australians. Read moreRead less
Development of Cryptographic Library and Support System. The protection of the whole cyber space relies on a foundation of cryptography. Cryptographic components of apps authenticate remote parties and secure the communications. However, cryptographic misuse has become a most common issue in development of security component, affecting up to 90% of apps!
This project aims to research, design and develop a crypto library. The innovation of this project lays in three aspects: (1) we will develop ....Development of Cryptographic Library and Support System. The protection of the whole cyber space relies on a foundation of cryptography. Cryptographic components of apps authenticate remote parties and secure the communications. However, cryptographic misuse has become a most common issue in development of security component, affecting up to 90% of apps!
This project aims to research, design and develop a crypto library. The innovation of this project lays in three aspects: (1) we will develop a self-contained, reliable, compatible and verifiable crypto library; (2) we will develop security test software automatically to test and verify security of codes; and (3) we will provide intelligent decision support through argumentation to help developers to apply the library efficiently and correctly.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
Secure and efficient data leak prevention on cloud. The leak of sensitive data on cloud not only poses serious threats to both public and private organisations but also puts their employees and clients at risk, e.g., economic loss and social impact. The aim of this project is to develop a secure and efficient solution that can detect and prevent leak of data in real-time. Uniquely, the proposed research will develop novel techniques that can monitor data leak security incidents happening over ti ....Secure and efficient data leak prevention on cloud. The leak of sensitive data on cloud not only poses serious threats to both public and private organisations but also puts their employees and clients at risk, e.g., economic loss and social impact. The aim of this project is to develop a secure and efficient solution that can detect and prevent leak of data in real-time. Uniquely, the proposed research will develop novel techniques that can monitor data leak security incidents happening over time and captured by different sensors and identify correlations between historic security incidents and current data attacks. This project will significantly help to secure data on cloud for organisations in Australia and benefit fast-growing security sensitive data hosting and applications on cloud.Read moreRead less