A new international plan to tackle cybercrime has been launched at Queen’s University in Belfast involving major IT security organisations including Kapersky Labs, Altera, BAE Systems, Cisco, IBM, McAfee, Q1 Labs and Thales.
The new research road map has been developed by leading international cyber security researchers along with industry and government experts who gathered for the Second World Cyber Security Summit at the Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT) at Queen’s in March.
More than 80 invited participants from around the world attended the event.
They included chief scientific adviser from the UK Home Office Prof Bernard Silverman; Cyber Security Division director of US Homeland Security Dr Douglas Maughan; chairman and CEO of Kaspersky Labs Eugene Kaspersky; director of Innovation at Connected Energy Networks Cisco Barbara Fraser; and Raj Samani, CTO, EMEA, McAfee.
Now available online, the summit report contains strategic recommendations under four main research themes critical to the on-going creation of cyber-security defences.
The collective strategy includes the following elements:
· Adaptive cyber security technologies – Using ‘big data’ in adaptive techniques and harnessing nature-inspired mechanisms to provide faster response and provide hi-fidelity detection.
· The protection of smart utility grids – Smart Meter as a Platform (SMaaP), standardisation of smart meters, their platforms, authentication protocols and sensing technologies; the mitigation of realistic threat scenarios.
· Security of mobile platforms and applications – Investigating common policies and technologies that can be applied to all components in the mobile architecture and focusing on trust models, authentication and application certification.
· Multi-faceted approach to cyber-security research – Studying social norms and user behaviour to exploit opportunities for cross cutting research based around ownership, identity, privacy and measuring trust.
Mapping and combating the biggest threats to online security
The Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT), the UK university centre for cyber-security research, is a new innovation and knowledge centre (IKC) based at Queen’s University of Belfast’s, Institute of Electronics, Communications and Information Technology (ECIT) in the Northern Ireland Science Park.
Bringing together research specialists in complementary fields such as data encryption, network security systems, wireless enabled security systems, video analytics and intelligent surveillance technology, CSIT creates the security infrastructure needed to safeguard the trustworthiness of information stored electronically, both at home and in the workplace.
CSIT has been awarded ‘Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research’ status by the UK’s GCHQ in partnership with the Research Councils’ Global Uncertainties Programme (RCUK) and the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS).
“The annual summit is unique in that it brings together cyber security experts, researchers and government policy makers from around the world for two days to identify, map out and ultimately combat the biggest threats to online security,” CSIT principal investigator, Prof John McCanny explained.
“Ultimately, our objective is to help make the internet of tomorrow a safe and secure platform which is vital for global economic growth and societal development,” McCanny said.
