Security: Protocols, Sensor Networks and Phishing

Seminar Slides: Download (PPT)

When: Friday, October 4, 2013
Where: PGH 232
Time: 11:00 AM

Speaker: Prof. Rakesh Verma, University of Houston

Host: Prof. Christoph Eick

In the interconnected world of computers, mobile phones, video cameras and other devices including refrigerators and baby monitors, security and privacy are now central concerns. In this talk, I will start with a brief survey of security and cover three important topics: protocols, wireless sensor networks and phishing. Eighteen years after publication of the Needham-Schroeder mutual-authentication protocol, a flaw was discovered using the verification system FDR. There has been exciting progress on protocol verification since this discovery, which will be discussed. Wireless sensor networks are being deployed in hazardous and hostile environments for numerous military and civil applications. They pose unique security challenges because of their inherent limitations. This talk will cover key concepts and security challenges of wireless sensor networks. Phishing is a scourge that affects the Internet economies and societies. Novel techniques for phishing email and web site detection based on Natural Language Processing will be discussed.

Bio:
Rakesh Verma is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Houston (UH) and Director of the Secure Protocols and Systems Laboratory and the NSM Center for Information Assurance Research and Education at UH. He was the co-lead in the National Security Agency designation of UH as a Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education in 2009. His research interests are on formal methods with applications to protocol verification, automated reasoning and equational programming, on text and data mining, and on computer security.

Rakesh was a visiting professor at the Centre for Informatics Research (CRIN) in Nancy, France, in 1995, 1996-97, and 2001. He was given over 40 invited talks in universities and research institutes worldwide. He is a distinguished speaker of the ACM He has organized many workshops and served on the program committees of several conferences. His phishing research has received the CougarPitch Award in 2011 and in 2013 he received UH’s first Lifetime Award for Mentoring Undergraduate Research.