"Researchers To Enhance Security Of Next-Generation Wireless Systems"

Guofei Gu, a professor in Texas A&M University's Department of Computer Science and Engineering, is the principal investigator of a research team that has received a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Resilient and Intelligent Next-Generation Systems (RINGS) program to improve the security of future wireless and mobile network systems. The RINGS program aims to secure and enhance the resiliency of next-generation (NextG) wireless and mobile communication, sensing, computing, and networking systems supporting critical services. NextG networks will connect billions of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and users, providing personalized computational and storage resources for highly critical data in real-time with minimal delay. NextG will use edge computing to host many application services. Edge computing refers to computing services physically located near the user or source of the data rather than miles away at the core of a traditional cloud data system. As a result, the corresponding device can respond quickly. Future autonomous vehicles, for example, may require NextG support to perform computations, store and process critical data from their various sensors, manage vehicle-to-vehicle communications, and run their deep-learning algorithms. It will use microservice architecture to ensure that the billions of NextG-supported services remain scalable and reliable. Microservice architecture is made up of a single application or service divided into smaller, independent processes (microservices) that each serve a specific purpose. They are reusable and can be produced quickly in order to meet demand. Furthermore, if a single microservice fails, the entire application or service will not crash. However, existing microstructure architecture is usually not developed and deployed with built-in security measures. While basic security patches are available for addition after the fact, they are inadequate in supporting the large volumes of critical services hosted by NextG systems. To address these issues, the team has proposed developing a new framework, NextSec, to transform microservices into self-protecting entities capable of performing security enhancement protection on their own. This article continues to discuss the importance of improving the security of NextG wireless systems and Texas A&M's project aimed at doing so. 

Texas A&M Today reports "Researchers To Enhance Security Of Next-Generation Wireless Systems"