Expectations and commitments in the Australia-USA alliance. This project aims to investigate the gap between the high expectations of mutual support and the lack of detailed security commitments in the Australia-US Alliance. The project intends to use a focused approach that captures thematic aspects of the alliance through project frames and historical slices across time. Expected outcomes can advance understanding of how alliances operate as security institutions. The outcomes can help to prom ....Expectations and commitments in the Australia-USA alliance. This project aims to investigate the gap between the high expectations of mutual support and the lack of detailed security commitments in the Australia-US Alliance. The project intends to use a focused approach that captures thematic aspects of the alliance through project frames and historical slices across time. Expected outcomes can advance understanding of how alliances operate as security institutions. The outcomes can help to promote a more informed national conversation about the costs and benefits of Australia's security relationship with the United States of America (USA) and contribute to debates over the future of the Australia-USA Alliance during a period of strategic uncertainty.Read moreRead less
Energy big data analytics from a cybersecurity perspective. This project aims to develop a framework on energy big data analytics from security and privacy perspectives. Unlike other big data analytics such as social network big data analytics, energy big data analytics involve research challenges on how to cope with real-time tight cyber-physical couplings, and security/safety of the smart grid system. This project will develop advanced data-driven algorithms that are capable of detecting coord ....Energy big data analytics from a cybersecurity perspective. This project aims to develop a framework on energy big data analytics from security and privacy perspectives. Unlike other big data analytics such as social network big data analytics, energy big data analytics involve research challenges on how to cope with real-time tight cyber-physical couplings, and security/safety of the smart grid system. This project will develop advanced data-driven algorithms that are capable of detecting coordinated cyber-attacks that will potentially lead to catastrophic cascaded failures; and develop new solutions in detecting the false data-injection attacks that are conventionally considered as unobservable. This project will provide the benefit of enhancing our national critical infrastructure's security.Read moreRead less
Privacy-preserving Biometrics based Authentication and Security. Password based authentication systems cannot verify genuine users. Biometric authentication can address this issue. However, the booming IoT applications and cloud computing require that the biometric authentication must be conducted in the privacy-protected setting in order to comply with privacy protection legal regulations. Latest reports show that current biometric authentication systems, under protected setting, exhibit poor ....Privacy-preserving Biometrics based Authentication and Security. Password based authentication systems cannot verify genuine users. Biometric authentication can address this issue. However, the booming IoT applications and cloud computing require that the biometric authentication must be conducted in the privacy-protected setting in order to comply with privacy protection legal regulations. Latest reports show that current biometric authentication systems, under protected setting, exhibit poor authentication performance, which is not commercially applicable. This project aims to investigate innovative solutions to this issue. The intended deliverables will include deep learning based biometric feature extractor, cancellable biometrics and cloud oriented biometrics security protocols. Read moreRead less
Stochastic Assessment of Terrorist Blast and Fragmentation Casualty Risks. The project will develop probabilistic models to predict the likelihood and extent of casualties and other losses from terrorist car bombing threats. Car bombs comprise a large quantity of explosives, and produce primary fragments such as wheels, engine block, parts of door panels and other shrapnel that pose a serious safety hazard to people exposed in a street or other mass gatherings. An improved understanding of safet ....Stochastic Assessment of Terrorist Blast and Fragmentation Casualty Risks. The project will develop probabilistic models to predict the likelihood and extent of casualties and other losses from terrorist car bombing threats. Car bombs comprise a large quantity of explosives, and produce primary fragments such as wheels, engine block, parts of door panels and other shrapnel that pose a serious safety hazard to people exposed in a street or other mass gatherings. An improved understanding of safety risks will assist in setting safe evacuation distances. A quantitative assessment of terrorism risks will also allow the effectiveness of security measures to be assessed to provide cost-effective levels of protection that are acceptable to society.Read moreRead less
Pacific Partners? The Australia-New Zealand alliance in the Pacific Islands. This project aims to investigate how alliances operate and why they endure using an in-depth analysis of the Australia-New Zealand alliance in the Pacific Islands, the region where the alliance has focused and in which there is growing strategic and policy interest. It intends to build a micro-level analysis of the influence of the behaviors and beliefs of individuals onto existing conceptual accounts. Informed by exten ....Pacific Partners? The Australia-New Zealand alliance in the Pacific Islands. This project aims to investigate how alliances operate and why they endure using an in-depth analysis of the Australia-New Zealand alliance in the Pacific Islands, the region where the alliance has focused and in which there is growing strategic and policy interest. It intends to build a micro-level analysis of the influence of the behaviors and beliefs of individuals onto existing conceptual accounts. Informed by extensive interviews, it expects to advance understanding of how the two states negotiate differences in approaches and interests while working together to preserve their security. It anticipates pinpointing strengths and vulnerabilities in the alliance and contributing to a more informed policy debate about how it should operate.Read moreRead less
Preventing sensitive data exfiltration from insiders . Confidential data such as military secrets or intellectual property must never be disclosed outside the organisation; formally protecting data exfiltration from insider attacks is a major challenge. This project aims to develop a pattern matching based systematic methodology for data exfiltration in database systems. We will devise highly accurate detection tools and secure provenance techniques that can effectively protect against insider a ....Preventing sensitive data exfiltration from insiders . Confidential data such as military secrets or intellectual property must never be disclosed outside the organisation; formally protecting data exfiltration from insider attacks is a major challenge. This project aims to develop a pattern matching based systematic methodology for data exfiltration in database systems. We will devise highly accurate detection tools and secure provenance techniques that can effectively protect against insider attacks. The outcomes of the project will incorporate new security constraints and policies raised by emerging technologies to enable better protection of sensitive information. Read moreRead less
The Proscription of Terrorist Organisations in Illiberal States . This project aims to investigate the use of anti-terrorism proscription powers in illiberal democracies after 2002. Although promulgated by the archetypal liberal institution – the United Nations – proscription powers are increasingly recognised as important tools of illiberal regimes in legitimising human rights abuses and suppressing political dissent. Using studies of Cameroon, Nigeria, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, the project expl ....The Proscription of Terrorist Organisations in Illiberal States . This project aims to investigate the use of anti-terrorism proscription powers in illiberal democracies after 2002. Although promulgated by the archetypal liberal institution – the United Nations – proscription powers are increasingly recognised as important tools of illiberal regimes in legitimising human rights abuses and suppressing political dissent. Using studies of Cameroon, Nigeria, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, the project explores the intersections of colonial proscription, UN anti–terrorism norms and illiberal regimes' security. The project will generate new comparative knowledge on the deployment of colonial instruments of control in the ‘war on terror’ and innovate conceptual insights into the global security politics of exclusion. Read moreRead less
Privacy-aware Smart Access Control for Internet-of-Things on Blockchain. This project aims to address privacy and trust issues in Internet-of-Things (IoT) access control mechanism of smart critical infrastructure. This project expects to generate new knowledge in the area of IoT access control by leveraging privacy-preserving techniques, blockchain, and machine learning. Expected outcomes of this project include enhanced capability to build improved techniques for privacy aware tamperproof IoT a ....Privacy-aware Smart Access Control for Internet-of-Things on Blockchain. This project aims to address privacy and trust issues in Internet-of-Things (IoT) access control mechanism of smart critical infrastructure. This project expects to generate new knowledge in the area of IoT access control by leveraging privacy-preserving techniques, blockchain, and machine learning. Expected outcomes of this project include enhanced capability to build improved techniques for privacy aware tamperproof IoT access control with machine learning based anomaly detection. This should provide significant benefits, such as preventing cyber threats on security and privacy of IoT and improving trust in IoT-enabled smart critical infrastructure of Australia.Read moreRead less
Deep Learning Attacks and Active Defences: A Cybersecurity Perspective. The belief that deep learning technology is imperative for economic development, military control, and strategic competitiveness has accelerated its development across the globe. However, experience has revealed the disappointing fact that deep learning models are vulnerable to a range of security attacks. Hence, a series of methodologies and defence strategies will be devised that make deep learning systems robust to these ....Deep Learning Attacks and Active Defences: A Cybersecurity Perspective. The belief that deep learning technology is imperative for economic development, military control, and strategic competitiveness has accelerated its development across the globe. However, experience has revealed the disappointing fact that deep learning models are vulnerable to a range of security attacks. Hence, a series of methodologies and defence strategies will be devised that make deep learning systems robust to these attacks. The methodologies require analysing attack lifecycles to identify them in their early stages. With this knowledge, active defence methods and forensic strategies can be developed to ensure efficient defences and prevent further attacks. Moreover, the outputs will be generalisable to most deep learning services.Read moreRead less
Balance and reinforcement: privacy and fairness in high intelligence models. The aim of this project is to develop a series of privacy preservation methods to achieve a new balance between privacy and fairness in highly accurate intelligence models. The main issue in achieving this goal is that high-accuracy intelligence technologies have resulted in significant privacy violations and are very vulnerable to issues of unfairness. This project will analyse the privacy risks associated with intelli ....Balance and reinforcement: privacy and fairness in high intelligence models. The aim of this project is to develop a series of privacy preservation methods to achieve a new balance between privacy and fairness in highly accurate intelligence models. The main issue in achieving this goal is that high-accuracy intelligence technologies have resulted in significant privacy violations and are very vulnerable to issues of unfairness. This project will analyse the privacy risks associated with intelligent systems and devise mechanisms to mutually reinforce both privacy and fairness based on the theoretical foundations laid by our analysis. These outcomes will enable model owners to effectively protect their intellectual property and offer services to users in a private, fair, and accurate manner.Read moreRead less