Pervasively Secure Infrastructures (PSI)

This  project  addresses  homeland  security,  an  issue  of  highest  national  priority,  with  a  goal  of monitoring, preventing, and recovering from natural and inflicted disasters. In particular, we propose to create a novel technology-enabled security framework, called Pervasively Secure Infrastructures (PSI), that will make use of such advanced technologies as smart sensors, wireless networks, mobile agents, data mining, and profile-based learning in an integrated, collaborative and distributed manner.

The proposed PSI framework consists of a lower-end tier, composed of basic data collected from sensor networks and other resources, and a higher-end tier that fuses (or combines) data collected at the lower-end tier to make intelligent decisions and provide security services. Through an existing NSF supported project, we are developing the concept of community computing as a framework for the development of pervasive computing applications. In community computing, goal- oriented software agents working on behalf of lower-end sensors and devices, collaborate with each other to  carry  out  application-specific  services.  In  trying  to  apply  the  community  computing  framework  to provide  pervasively  secure  infrastructures,  many  significant  and  challenging  problems  lay  ahead, including: (i) data collection and aggregation from heterogeneous, seemingly unrelated sensors; (ii) real-time, secured, authenticated information processing and exchange; and (iii) discovery of security threats using data mining, learning and intelligent decision making techniques. In order to address these problems we have formed synergistic teams of investigators from three universities with extensive experience and background  in  areas  directly  relevant  to  the  above  challenges.  Our  project  management  plan  utilizes meaningful collaboration among our research teams to ensure successful fruition of the project. 

The scope of research in the project is spread across five research groups:

  • Wireless Sensor Networks
  • Multi and Stream Databases
  • Machine Learning and Data Mining
  • Pervasive Computing and Communication
  • Computer and Network Security

The project aims to conduct innovative research in security and develop a framework for PSI, followed by its prototyping, at the Institute for Research in Security (IRIS) at the University of Texas at Arlington. This project is a collaborative research effort, involving researchers from Missouri University of Science and Technology, University of Texas at Arlington (UTA), University of Kentucky (UKY) and Pennsylvania State University (PSU).

Ongoing research work (in alphabetical order) is in collaboration with the following research groups:

The project is funded by National Science Foundation under Grant No IIS-0326505.

Faculty

  • Prof. Sajal K. Das
  • Prof. Mohan Kumar
  • Prof. Kalyan Basu
  • Prof. Sharma Chakravarthy
  • Prof. Frank Lewis
  • Prof. Ishfaq Ahmad

Researchers

  • Dr. Mario Di Francesco

Collaborators

  • Prof. Diane J. Cook, Washington State University
  • Prof. Lawrence B. Holder, Washington State University
  • Prof. Behrooz Shirazi, Washington State University
  • Prof. Mukesh Singhal, University of Kentucky
  • Prof. Raphael A. Finkel, University of Kentucky
  • Prof. Ali R. Hurson, Missouri University of Science and Technology

Alumni

  • Sumantra R. Kundu
  • Wook Choi
  • Pradip De
  • Wei Zhang
  • Jayanta Hajra
  • Caleb Noble
  • Hitha Alex
  • Jeff Coble
  • Miatrayee Mukherjee
  • Afrand Agah