Michael Tu - US grants

Proposal #: 11-23220
PI(s): Xu, Dianxiang; Pauli, Joshua; Tu, Michael
Institution: Dakota State University
Title: MRI/Acq.: Online Banking System for Information Assurance Research
Project Proposed:
This project from an EPSCoR state, aiming to acquire hardware and software to create a banking testbed to explore issues of computer security of banking systems, enhances the future of security research for the global banking infrastructure. While online banking makes it more convenient to manage financial activities, security threats are becoming even greater because the money is stored on and moved around an untrustworthy Internet environment with increasing use of mobile, wireless devices. The proposed acquisition will enable various activities for promoting information assurance research and education in the banking sector. The proposed online banking system for South Dakota enables the following research projects in security:
- Threat modeling and verification, aiming at a rigorous techniques with proof /disproof capability,
- Security testing, aiming at cost-effective, automated security testing with threat models,
- Forensic readiness, aiming at better investigation of intrusions and frauds, and
- Security requirements analysis, aiming at consistent and testable specification.
The work establishes a flexible research instrument for a key element of the nation?s financial infrastructure. The research enabled by the online banking system will lead to novel techniques for the defense, in-depth, of online banking applications.
Broader Impacts:
This instrumentation increases DSU?s capacity to conduct cutting-edge research on online banking security. The online banking system expands critical infrastructure in the new National Center for the Protection of the Financial Infrastructure. It also broadens the participation of students in research by providing a rich variety of research topics for the NSF REU (Research Experience for Undergraduate) Site in Information Assurance and Security, which places emphasis on recruitment of minority students. In terms of training the next generation workforce, far-reaching impacts are envisioned through improvements to the information assurance curriculum. The proposed system will be used to teach cyber security in computer classes at eight high schools through collaboration with the NSF project ?GK-12 Fellows in Cyber Security?. Two of these schools serve mainly Native-Americans. Finally, the instrument enhances PhD production in an EPSCoR state and solidifies DSU?s position in online banking research.

This funding establishes a new Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site at Purdue University Calumet. Undergraduate students recruited from across the nation will participate in summer research projects focused on sustainable wireless communications. The research involves exploration of topics related to the almost pervasive use of devices such as smart phones and tablets that rely on wireless networks to communicate. The increasing use of these devices and applications is outstripping the capacity of the underlying network infrastructures. To accommodate the rising demand for ubiquitous high-speed data, researchers will need to design sustainable wireless networks that can function in the presence of the many challenges raised by the nature of wireless communications. This REU experience should help develop a group of computing professionals who can develop future communication systems that will be reliable, efficient, and sustainable.

The research projects span a variety of topics under the umbrella of sustainable wireless communications including spectrum-efficient wireless communication by means of reflected power, energy-efficient data dissemination in wireless sensor networks, adaptive backbone-based routing in delay tolerant wireless networks, adaptive network recovery from excessive network failure, and sustainable networks under intentional attacks. The program will target students from under-represented minorities and students from institutions that do not offer Ph.D degrees. The host institution, Purdue University Calumet, is a predominantly undergraduate institution with many students in the target group. Through hands-on projects and experiments, the program will provide students with an authentic environment to investigate effective solutions to real-world problems involving wireless communication technologies. The research activities coupled with other professional development opportunities all help achieve the project goal of inspiring students to pursue advance educational opportunities and professional careers in computer and information science.

Purdue University Northwest is developing an innovative cybersecurity curriculum to provide high school students with hands-on activities in an immersive learning environment. The following activities will be developed for cybersecurity teaching in high school environments: virtual reality three-dimension games, robotic programming games, practical ethical hacking labs, and cyber forensics labs based on simulated cases. This project is expected to provide an immersive, learning-based curriculum for high school cybersecurity education. One of the goals is to minimize preparation efforts, and requirements of cybersecurity skills and content knowledge from teachers looking to incorporate cybersecurity into their classroom education. This will address the lack of cybersecurity educators and will make cybersecurity education more accessible to students in rural areas. Through the proposed outcomes, more students will be exposed to cybersecurity education during high school and are likely to be more motivated to pursue higher education and careers in this field, which will ultimately strengthen future cybersecurity workforce development.

Virtual reality three-dimension games will be developed to simulate system vulnerabilities, attacks, security protection techniques and social engineering scams. Robotic programming games will be developed for robots, such as Sparki and Raspberry Pi, to simulate robotic functionality and security attack scenarios that take advantage of programming security vulnerabilities. Cyber forensics investigation cases and cybersecurity attack labs will be developed based on a virtual network system that simulate a classic enterprise system with business functioning and security components. The virtual reality three dimension games, robotic programming games, cyber forensics cases, and cybersecurity attack labs are expected to be integrated with other instructional methods to promote student education through interactive practices. The cybersecurity curriculum and instructor companion materials developed through this project will be shared and disseminated to the cybersecurity education community via sharing with GenCyber student and teacher summer camps, and in K12 teacher conferences and organizations.

Purdue University Northwest (PNW), a National Security Agency/Department of Homeland Security designated National Center for Academic Excellence (CAE) in Cyber Defense Education, in collaboration with Ivy Tech and Moraine Valley Community College (MVCC), two CAE-2Y institutions, propose to jointly establish the Purdue Northwest Cyber Defenders Program (PCDP) to recruit, prepare, and support 18 PCDP Scholars at PNW to successfully transition to federal, state, local, tribal or territorial government employment as cybersecurity professionals. This project aims to make a significant contribution to the development of an innovative cybersecurity education system that can train an unrivaled cybersecurity future workforce through the CyberCorps(R): Scholarship for Service (SFS) program. Recruiting students and exposing them to real-world cybersecurity research and practices will motivate them to develop practical expertise in this critical field and allow them to leverage their experience as they enter the government workforce.

This project seeks to establish a seamless pathway for students from MVCC and Ivy Tech to continue their higher education in PNW's CAE-4Y cybersecurity program. Mechanisms include new program articulation agreements, curriculum sharing, elective course recommendations, and extra-curricular activity collaboration. The short distances between the 3 institutions make this goal achievable. The PCDP will optimize recruitment by maximizing faculty involvement and information accessibility; developing plans to recruit underrepresented students (e.g., African American, Hispanic, female); and articulating plans to create a student pipeline for the long-term sustainability of PCDP program. The pathway created by this project can provide a practical national model for the transfer of community college students to a bachelor degree program, which will help to greatly improve the four-year program transfer rate for community college students. The success of PCDP program will establish a model for other STEM disciplines in the areas of student outreach, recruitment, mentoring, and placement.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.