Auburn University is collaborating with IBM on cybersecurity research to improve systems that can be used for outreach.
“Imagine cybersecurity is becoming one of the top threats of the world,” said Anthony Skjellum, professor of computer science and software engineering and the lead cyber scientist for Auburn. “Whether it’s cars or medical records, they are all linked. Your digital life is becoming more and more your life.”
Cybersecurity is the different technologies that are used to protect computers, networks and data from unauthorized access or attack.
“Cybersecurity looks at do I have the computer facilities I think I have?" Skjellum said. "Do I have what I need to have for the systems to work as expected? Just like if you have a car, you don’t want it to be stolen or your brakes to be stolen. We look at how to build systems that are robust and can detect what’s happened.”
Carlos Lima, second-year graduate student in software engineering, helps lead the team of undergraduate and graduate students who are contributing to research.
“Basically my personal role is just to help coordinate different people’s projects,” Lima said. “We have people working in malware, people working in forensics and people working in general cybersecurity issues. What I do personally is secure device integration, ensuring that any device I bring into a new environment is secure.”
IBM has more than 300 partners in education software programs and is the technology and services leader of the world, according to Skjellum.
“The idea is that IBM would like us to advance security in the future,” Skjellum said. “We were advised that we need to have a great relationship with IBM.”
Skjellum and the rest of the cybersecurity team focus primarily on “the Internet of things,” a term used to describe cell phones, computers, GPS units and any other “thing” embedded with network connectivity. Ensuring the safety of everything within the Internet of things is Lima’s job with device integration.
“How do you make sure that when you walk into a building with your smart technology it doesn’t affect all other systems with viruses?” Lima said.
Skjellum contacted Jin Wang, associate professor in the department of chemical engineering, because of her specialized work with the Internet of things.
“We are now working together to test systems,” Wang said. “Our emphasis is much more for big data analytics: What’s the key information embedded in the data that you can use to make changes?”
Wang said her group works to build models as well as test data. She hopes that with more powerful computers in the future, students could have easier access to “computation hardware.”
“My group is for containing processes,” Wang said. “Using easily measurable variables to build a model to predict the harder variables.”
Skjellum said the work being done would only be beneficial in the future.
“We are working on malware, Android phones, vulnerabilities software, how the Internet of things devices can work together and how they can be compromised and forensics—how to get data out of systems after they’ve been compromised,” Skjellum said. “Cybersecurity is a relatively new field. Cybersecurity that keeps us safe will be a long-term research development. There won’t be bank robberies in 20 years, but someone could digitally rob your bank.”
Skjellum is one of the few people in the world who is trained in proper cybersecurity control, according to Wang.
“He’s the only one I’ve ever met that has a background in control,” Wang said. “That means he understands and can use the different terminologies and algorithms, which makes it easier to exchange ideas and contribute [to the rest of the world].”
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