INSTITUTE FOR CYBER SECURITY
Research Opportunities at the
Institute for Cyber Security (ICS)
Ravi Sandhu
Executive Director and
Endowed Professor
www.ics.utsa.edu
www.profsandhu.com
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About ICS
INSTITUTE FOR CYBER SECURITY
We are a startup
Founded June 2007 by multi-million startup funding from State of Texas, conditional
on recruiting Prof. Ravi Sandhu to lead ICS
ICS
We are different
World-class research with
commercialization
ICS Labs
ICS Incubator
ICS CIAS
World-class sponsored
research on all aspects of
cyber security in
collaboration with leading
academic, industry and
government partners
Develops innovative security
products and companies by
bringing in novel and commercially
viable ideas and prototypes,
incubating and developing these
and spinning out companies
Conducts dark screen
exercises and training at the
city and county level to improve
our nation’s capability to
withstand coordinated cyber
attacks
ICS Labs is off to a great start
$1.7M (UTSA portion) in new funding won in 2008 in partnership with
Purdue, UIUC, UMBC, UNCC, Michigan, UTD, Penn St., ASU, Georgia Tech
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INSTITUTE FOR CYBER SECURITY
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About Ravi Sandhu
BTech, MTech: Electrical Engineering, IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi
MS, PhD: Computer Science, Rutgers Univ., New Jersey
Assistant Prof of Computer Science, Ohio State U (6 yrs)
Associate/Full Prof of Information Security, George Mason U (18 yrs)
Full Prof & Endowed Chair of Cyber Security, UTSA (2007 onwards)
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Founding EIC ACM TISSEC: world’s leading security journal
Founder ACM CCS: world’s leading security conference
Founder ACM SACMAT: another leading security conference
Major author of NIST/ANSI Standard on Role-Based Access Control
Creator & architect of MS and PhD programs in Cyber Security at GMU
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Co-Founder & Chief Scientist, TriCipher: Silicon Valley startup
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One of the world’s most cited authors in cyber security research
10,000+ Google Scholar hits, with two superhits (3200+ and 1900+ hits)
175 papers with 50+ co-authors, 14 PhD graduates
ACM Fellow, IEEE Fellow, 12 Security Technology patents
Awards from ACM, IEEE, NIST, NSA
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INSTITUTE FOR CYBER SECURITY
ICS Forte
Implementation
e.g., Virtualization,
Peer-to-peer
The Computer Science Research Triangle
Models
e.g., 7-layer OSI nw stack,
OO Programming
A good PhD dissertation
should involve all 3
elements but contributions
will typically emphasize
one of these
Theory
e.g., P =? NP,
Automata
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INSTITUTE FOR CYBER SECURITY
Cyber Security Goals
USAGE
purpose
INTEGRITY
modification
USAGE
AVAILABILITY
access
CONFIDENTIALITY
disclosure
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INSTITUTE FOR CYBER SECURITY
Models
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RBAC: Role-Based Access
Control,1992UCON: Usage Control, 2002PEI: Policy-EnforcementImplementation, 2000…
ICS Forte: Security Models and
Analysis
IT Technologies
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Applications
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Enterprise security
Identity management
Information sharing
Stream-processing
Social networking
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Web 2.0
Virtualization
Software as a Service (SaaS)
Web services
Trusted computing
Semantic web
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Attack Technologies
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Botnets
Phishing
Buffer overflow
Cross scripting
Sniffers
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RBAC96 Model (1992-)
INSTITUTE FOR CYBER SECURITY
ROLE HIERARCHIES
USER-ROLE
ASSIGNMENT
USERS
The most successful
authorization model so far
PERMISSIONS-ROLE
ASSIGNMENT
ROLES
...
PERMISSIONS
SESSIONS
CONSTRAINTS
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INSTITUTE FOR CYBER SECURITY
Usage Control UCON Model (2002-)
New kid on the block
Receiving good traction
unified model integrating
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authorization
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obligation
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conditions
• and incorporating
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continuity of decisions
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mutability of attributes
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Continuity of
Decisions
pre-decision
Rights
(R)
Subjects
(S)
Objects
(O)
Usage
Decisions
Subject Attributes (SA)
Object Attributes (OA)
ongoing-decision
before-usage
ongoing-Usage
pre-update
ongoing-update
after-usage
Authoriz
ations
(A)
Obliga
tions
(B)
Condi
tions
(C)
post-update
Mutability of
Attributes
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INSTITUTE FOR CYBER SECURITY
PEI Models (2004-)
No competing
framework so far
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INSTITUTE FOR CYBER SECURITY
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Managing the Assured Information Sharing Life Cycle (AISL)
Sponsor: Air Force Office of Scientific Research, MURI, 2008-2013
Partners: UMBC, Michigan, UIUC, Purdue, UTD
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Content, often including private sensitive data, is flowing into social networks at a very high rate. How do we
enable privacy and security without impacting the velocity of data transfer and convenience?
A Framework for Combating Stealthy Botnets
Sponsor: Air Force Office of Scientific Research, MURI, 2008-2013
Partners: Georgia Tech.
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9/11 caused us to move from a "need to know" mindset to a "need to share" posture. What does this really
mean? What are the implications? How can we share safely? How do we “share but protect”?
Securing Dynamic Online Social Networks
Sponsor: National Science Foundation, 2008-2012
Partners: Penn. State Univ., ASU, UNC-Charlotte
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Current Funded Projects
Botnets are the most dangerous, widespread and insidious attack vehicles on the Internet. Future botnets are
anticipated to use stealth techniques such as encryption and aggregation to avoid exposure, easily defeating
current detection techniques. What do we do to contain this threat?
Secure Knowledge Management: Models and Mechanisms
Sponsor: National Science Foundation, 2007-2009
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How do we combine cryptographic techniques and access control techniques to effectively protect information
and knowledge?
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INSTITUTE FOR CYBER SECURITY
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Current Un-Funded Projects
Write your own ticket
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INSTITUTE FOR CYBER SECURITY
Group-Based Information
Sharing
Information Sharing Metaphors:
Secure virtual room in cyberspace
Subscription service
Idealized policy:
Formalized using temporal logic
Pragmatic policy:
Approximation to ideal, formalized
using temporal logic
Detailed protocols
Working system
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INSTITUTE FOR CYBER SECURITY
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The need for cyber security will only grow
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Attackers are often more innovative and more incented than defenders
Every cyber technology innovation creates a new attack-defend cycle
No final solution
UTSA has a world class research operation in cyber security
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Unless humans suddenly transform into angels
Unless cyber innovations stop delivering productivity gains
The best we can offer is to stay ahead of the attackers
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Conclusion
Take security courses
Join our team
Come talk to me: drop me an email and I will make time
We have multiple openings
Come join us on Nov 18th to celebrate our Founders Day
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4:00-5:30pm: Distinguished lecture by Prof. Eugene Spafford of Purdue
5:30-7:00pm: Wine and cheese reception
See www.ics.utsa.edu
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