"Cyber Professor Awarded $1.5 Million in Grants"

Elias Bou-Harb, associate professor of cybersecurity at the Carlos Alvarez College of Business at UTSA, has been awarded $1.5 million by the National Science Foundation (NSF) for two grants focusing on cybersecurity research, development, operations, and training related to Internet of Things (IoT) devices and critical infrastructure. This work includes collaborations with researchers at UTSA, Vanderbilt, San Diego State University, and the University of the Incarnate Word. The first project, "Collaborative Research: CISE-MSI: Active and Passive Internet Measurements for Inferring IoT Maliciousness at Scale," involves researchers designing and implementing algorithms to fingerprint exploited IoT devices and discover their inherent security problems. The work will begin with consumer devices, which are widely available, but will also include sensors installed in critical infrastructure systems such as power grids and water systems. In addition, the researchers will devise mitigation strategies for improving Internet security on IoT devices. They will analyze IoT devices and report on their findings from laboratory research. The network traffic from these devices will then be analyzed to better understand their characteristics and security protocols. The second project, "Collaborative Research Cyber Training Implementation: Medium Cross-Disciplinary Training for Joint Cyber Physical Systems and IoT Security," will investigate both cyber and physical attacks in water systems. The primary focus of this project will be on improving the cybersecurity and data science workforce, with a research component to supplement it. This article continues to discuss the NSF-funded projects on IoT and critical infrastructure cybersecurity research, development, operations, and training. 

UTSA reports "Cyber Professor Awarded $1.5 Million in Grants"