ECS faculty specializing in cybersecurity conduct research to advance the science and practice of protecting vital information in today’s digital age. Researchers tackle challenges at the frontier of cybersecurity for a wide range of applications and systems, including traditional computer and network systems, cognitive wireless systems, biometric systems, cyber-physical systems, and emerging blockchain systems.
ECS cybersecurity researchers are committed to addressing many pressing challenges to ensure a digital future that is both reliable and trustworthy. Active ECS research in this area focuses on identifying threats faced by existing and future systems, developing both fundamental cybersecurity theory and deployable security mechanisms and algorithms, and developing learning environments that are safe for students to simulate attacks and defense.
Prof. Wenliang (Kevin) Du’s work on emulating a variety of systems, networks, and blockchains has led to an emulation system that has been widely used throughout the world for training next-generation cybersecurity experts and evaluating cyber offense/defense solutions in leading institutions. The SEED labs have been adopted by more than 1000 institutions in over 80 counties. The work spearheaded by Prof. Yuzhe Tang is the first analysis of the Ethereum blockchain’s system security under the denial of service threats and led to an award from the Ethereum Foundation.
Some notable ECS news stories in this area include:
- Prof. Du’s paper on Privacy-Preserving Cooperative Statistical Analysis, published in ACSAC 2001, won the prestigious Test-of-Time Award in December 2021
- Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Awarded NSF Research Grants
- Profs. Wenliang (Kevin) Du and Vir Phoha Attain Prestigious IEEE Fellow Recognition
- Prof. Vir Phoha Elected as a National Academy of Inventors Fellow
Please explore the departmental web pages or the researchers’ websites below for more information.
