school of cybersecurity and privacy

Cybersecurity Student Applies Studies to Win School-Led Chess Tournament

admin — Mon, 13 May 2024 14:36:41 +0000

Cybersecurity Student Applies Studies to Win School-Led Chess Tournament admin Mon, 05/13/2024 - 10:36

The School of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) hosted a chess tournament that pitted the minds, not computer software, of Georgia Tech researchers against one another.

In the end, M.S. student Meenakshi Manikandaswamy became the tournament champion on Feb. 21 by defeating Ph.D. candidate Ziyi (Francis) Yin. M.S. student Anisha Tripathi received the tournament’s best new player award.

“I am thrilled to be this tournament’s champion,” Manikandaswamy said. “I appreciate CSE for organizing this event and giving me the opportunity to participate. The tournament was well run and a fun experience.”

Manikandaswamy studies cybersecurity under Professor Mustaque Ahamad, who holds joint appointments in the School of Computer Science and the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy.

Manikandaswamy’s work is “red team” related. This designation means she takes an adversarial role in her research. She tries to break into systems to help experts understand and strengthen theM.S. student Meir platforms. Her group is developing a tool that scans for vulnerabilities on websites. The tool is easy to use and does not require computer science or cybersecurity expertise.

“Chess helps to think about the opponent’s point of view, thinking about how they are trying to attack you and how to protect yourself. That definitely applies to my master’s.”

Professor Felix Herrmann advises tournament runner-up Yin. Herrmann is jointly appointment with the Schools of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and CSE.

Together, they develop computational methods for seismic imaging and modeling. Yin studies machine learning approaches to solve inverse problems and quantify uncertainty in geoscientific applications.

“Chess became a habit of ours. I think it’s a great way to take some time to relax and take a break from our research,” Yin said. “It’s a game that unites us CSE students so that we learn about each other as people and become close friends, not just colleagues.”

Manikandaswamy defeated M.S. student Aditya Kane and Yin defeated M.S. student Karan Nahar to reach the finals.

The tournament began in January, opening with four weekly matches of round-robin play. These results determined the seeding for the semifinals.

The chess tournament’s starting field of 25 players included School of CSE students, faculty, and staff members.

The CSE Graduate Student Association (GSA) organized and managed the tournament. To encourage participation, CSE GSA solicited participation outside the School of CSE. This included the Georgia Tech Chess Club, which was how Manikandaswamy learned about the tournament.

“I think this tournament went really well, I was surprised with how much interest there is in chess across the school,” said Ph.D. student Aranya Banerjee, president of CSE GSA. “We definitely hope to do something like this again in the future.”

Summary sentence

M.S. student Meenakshi Manikandaswamy won a chess tournament hosted by the School of Computational Science and Engineering.

Summary

The School of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) hosted a chess tournament that pitted the minds, not computer software, of Georgia Tech researchers against one another.

Dateline

Fri, 02/23/2024 - 12:00

Contact

Bryant Wine, Communications Officer
bryant.wine@cc.gatech.edu

Keywords

Daily Digest

College of Computing

School of Computational Science and Engineering

school of cybersecurity and privacy

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Campus and Community

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Community

Institute and Campus

Student and Faculty

Mercury ID

673161

Source updated

Mon, 05/13/2024 - 10:35

New Resource for Domestic Abuse Survivors Combines AI, Cybersecurity, and Psychology

admin — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 17:20:41 +0000

New Resource for Domestic Abuse Survivors Combines AI, Cybersecurity, and Psychology admin Thu, 09/28/2023 - 13:20

Georgia Tech researchers are working to create a new software tool powered by artificial intelligence (AI) to address the under-researched area of digital security and domestic abuse.

These areas frequently overlap with abusers often using the internet and mobile technology to extend the reach of their abuse. However, the smaller scale of these online attacks has resulted in less attention from security researchers.

By building on developments recently made in cognitive security, Principal Research Scientist Courtney Crooks and graduate student Sneha Talwalkar are working to bring relief to survivors of domestic abuse.

The impact of domestic abuse, otherwise called intimate partner violence (IPV), on public health is something that Crooks has been studying for several years through research and practice in her role as a licensed psychologist and researcher.

After seeing how new technology opened new methods of abuse online, Crooks realized she could help fill in the gaps in this research space using her experience working with the Georgia Tech Research Institute, the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy (SCP) at Georgia Tech, and the Emory University School of Medicine.

To get what they want, abusers try to change their victim’s state of mind through cognitive manipulation and use different tactics to do so. Crooks decided to explore ways to help IPV survivors counteract these enhanced technology-enabled cognitive security risks as they progressed through their recovery.

The software Crooks and Talwalkar are working to develop would alert survivors to these potential or observed abuses by leveraging well-known, developmentally appropriate, psychologically based learning strategies. The tool will focus solely on the unique risks faced by IPV survivors. Applying human-centered design principles and ethical standards to the AI design will be a top priority for the team.

The team is working to develop AI-assisted interventions that are psychologically informed and made specifically to focus on the unique risks faced by survivors. These interventions will be designed to take place alongside traditional methods of support, such as mental health and community resources.

“It’s important to understand that abusive relationships are complicated. While some people can escape them, many can’t,” said Crooks. “Or they may physically escape, but resources like their phones, online accounts, or finances may still be vulnerable to their abusers. Survivors may also need to continue to communicate with their abuser, like in instances in which they share children.”

Regardless of circumstances, it is often difficult for survivors to stop communicating with their abusers once they escape the relationship. This inability to disconnect is because of the psychological connections reinforced while they were with their former partner.

The AI technologies Crooks and Talwalkar propose will not act like a ChatGPT chatbot. Instead, it will act like a coach, learning from abusive behavior tactics and potential survivor responses.

The tool will then make suggestions based on each user’s specific recovery progress and goals while factoring in potential risks. To improve its coaching performance and general knowledge base, the AI will continue to learn from the outcome of each incident survivors face.

“The model provides the necessary intervention to assist in the recovery of an IPV survivor,” said Talwalkar. “We want to use artificial intelligence for good, and this project is a step in that direction.”

The classes in the SCP master’s program played a pivotal role in shaping Talwalkar’s research in this area. While exploring internet censorship and language models, she recognized the emerging challenges posed by AI in security. After an insightful conversation with SCP Professor Peter Swire, Talwalkar gained the confidence to shift her focus towards investigating malicious intent in immersive environments. With Crooks’ guidance, she began exploring the socio-technical environment of IPV.

Designing User-Centered Artificial Intelligence to Assist in Recovery from Domestic Abuse was accepted as an extended abstract and presented to the 2023 World Congress Computer Science, Computer Engineering, and Applied Computing event this summer. Proceedings of the IEEE is publishing the work in an upcoming issue.

In May, Crooks, Talwalkar, and others from their research team presented their findings at the Health Sciences Research Day hosted on the Emory University campus by the Emory School of Medicine. Crooks presented her study of the lived experience of coercive control in domestic abuse, from which this current research is derived, at the February 2023 National Meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association.

October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month and National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. For more information about domestic abuse and resources to help, please visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website.

Summary sentence

Summary

Cybersecurity master’s student Sneha Talwalkar and GTRI Principal Research Scientist Courtney Crooks are working to build the framework of an AI tool with the goal of providing support and protection to domestic abuse survivors. Their premise for this project is the area of cognitive security has been under studied when it comes to intimate partner violence. In other words, abusers often use the internet as well as other electronic tools to extend the reach of their abuse. Having an AI based tool to help survivors through the recovery process and protect them from potential attacks would have a tremendous societal impact.

Dateline

Wed, 09/27/2023 - 12:00

jpopham3@gatech.edu

Contact

JP Popham

Communications Officer | School of Cybersecurity and Privacy

Georgia Institute of Technology

Desk: (404) 894-6260

jpopham3@gatech.edu | scp.cc.gatech.edu

Associated importer

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cyber

Cybersecurity

cyberabuse

domestic abuse

artificial intelligence

artificial intelligence (AI)

cognitive psychology

cognitive

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College of Computing

a GTRI principal research engineer

go-researchnews

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Society and Culture

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Computer Science/Information Technology and Security

Research

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Student Research

Mercury ID

669968

Source updated

Thu, 09/28/2023 - 13:20

Georgia Tech Researchers to Lead Pioneering Space Wargaming Series

admin — Mon, 26 Jun 2023 19:15:12 +0000

Georgia Tech Researchers to Lead Pioneering Space Wargaming Series admin Mon, 06/26/2023 - 15:15

Space is, thankfully, a peaceful place. But that lack of conflict high overhead also obscures how little scholars down here know about the ways a conflict in orbit might play out, much less how to deter it.

Georgia Tech space policy expert Mariel Borowitz thinks she has a way to help clear up some of that confusion. Under a new $1.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense, Borowitz plans to help lead a major series of public space wargaming exercises. They’re meant to tease out how current U.S. deterrence strategies might fall short when it comes to stopping a conflict in space and what can be done to improve them.

“When it comes to conflict in space, the stakes are enormously high and the challenges are extremely complex,” said Borowitz, an associate professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, a unit of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts. “This project will better equip us to understand whether existing deterrence models can help hold the line in space or whether another model is necessary to prevent a potentially devastating outbreak in orbit.”

Jon Lindsay, an associate professor in the Nunn School with a joint appointment in the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy, will work with Borowitz on the project, as will U.S. Space Force Lt. Col. Brian Stewart — a Nunn School Ph.D. graduate who now teaches at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Jacquelyn Schneider — a Hoover Fellow at The Hoover Center at Stanford University — rounds out the team.

A central theme of the project will be trying to understand how the concept of integrated deterrence applies to conflict in space. Integrated deterrence essentially boils down to a country using everything at its disposal to prevent conflict from escalating too far, from applying diplomatic and economic pressure to bringing the military into the mix.

Using such means to deter conflict in a global hotspot on the ground is tricky enough. Look no further than Ukraine for contemporary evidence of that.

But when that hotspot is space, conflict doesn’t just threaten stability in one part of the planet. It could quickly become a serious threat to civilian communications, commerce, and military operations across the globe. Despite the high stakes, trying to understand how to tamp down such conflict is something government officials and scholars are only beginning to tackle.

Much of the work in this space focuses on improving military technology to sense what adversaries are doing and improving the ability of militaries to destroy incoming attacks quickly. But this project highlights how no complex problem can be solved without considering both technological and human factors — a core competency of the Nunn School and the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.

“We understand entanglement from a technological standpoint, but we need to better understand how these entanglements affect perceptions and decisions, which ultimately shape deterrence,” Borowitz said. “And we need to have more clarity on how decisions to separate military and civilian systems or choices to integrate different sectors within the space domain more closely might affect deterrence, before billions of dollars are spent on these efforts.”

Borowitz and her colleagues have already staged versions of space conflict scenarios in the classroom at Georgia Tech. They are now broadening the scope and preparing for the first exercises, which could come as soon as September.

The team plans to hold wargaming sessions across the globe over the next few years, including at Georgia Tech and the Air Force Academy and in Washington, Brussels, Taiwan, and Tokyo. The sessions will include national security figures, scholars, students, and international partners.

The project is expected to generate a significant dataset of use to scholars, as well as a book, game design materials, and other assets to help other researchers continue the work, Borowitz said

Subtitle

Summary sentence

Mariel Borowitz and Jon Lindsay of the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs will help lead a series of public wargaming exercises to test the limits of U.S. deterrence strategies in space.

Summary

Under a new $1.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense, Mariel Borowitz plans to help lead a major series of public space wargaming exercises. They’re meant to tease out how current U.S. deterrence strategies might fall short when it comes to stopping a conflict in space and what can be done to improve them.

Dateline

Mon, 06/26/2023 - 12:00

michael.pearson@iac.gatech.edu

Contact

Michael Pearson
Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts

Associated importer

Keywords

wargaming

space

wargaming exercises

Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts; Sam Nunn School of International Affairs

U.S. Department of Defense

school of cybersecurity and privacy

Military Technology

National Security

united states air force

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Earth and Environment

Science and Technology

Categories

Military Technology

Policy, Social Sciences, and Liberal Arts

Research

Computer Science/Information Technology and Security

Mercury ID

668227

Source updated

Mon, 06/26/2023 - 15:15

New Research Gives Users Another Reason to Hate Unwanted Ads

admin — Fri, 11 Nov 2022 16:14:40 +0000

New Research Gives Users Another Reason to Hate Unwanted Ads admin Fri, 11/11/2022 - 11:14

New research released this week reveals the process used by third party advertisers to target online users can be viewed or manipulated by online adversaries using only their target's email address.

A four-person team of researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), and New York University (NYU) presented their findings Wednesday at the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), a premier security venue.

Today, much of the advertising that appears online is specifically tailored to individuals based on their browsing history, location, and a variety of other factors that have been collected by third party advertising networks.

This data is collected by tracking cookies, which are sent out by third party ad networks and correlated with unique identifiers like email addresses. These cookies allow advertisers to create extensive profiles of internet users, however as the researchers found, this system can be influenced by bad actors.

Once an attacker knows a user’s email address, they can tap into the information being collected by any third-party advertiser observing a specific user’s targeted ad stream. This could allow bad actors insight into to an individual’s detailed browsing history, such as online retailers and travel websites.

“Third party ad networks have no direct relationship with users. Thus, if they want to track user activity across devices, they must rely on identity information, such as email addresses, given to them from other various websites,” said Paul Pearce, assistant professor in the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy (SCP) at Georgia Tech. “Our work shows the way that information is passed to the ad networks is both insecure and hard to verify. If an attacker knows a victim’s email address, they can lie to the ad network pretending to be a user, leading to very real privacy problems.”

The researchers describe this susceptibility as advertising identity entanglement and it happens when attackers confuse ad networks into correlating the attacker’s tracking cookies with a targeted person’s email address, looping them into the data being gathered by third parties. As Pearce and his colleagues state in their paper, adversaries can also leverage the process to send ads of any kind to their targets.

"When I use the Internet on my own private device, like a phone or a laptop, I don't expect that anyone who knows my personal email could manipulate what I see,” said Chris Kanich, associate professor at UIC. “This attack is particularly disturbing, and I am relieved that I use ad and tracking blockers in my web browsers."

To test the scale of this problem, researchers created an artificial users and profile for their experiment, at no time was a real person targeted. By knowing only, the experimental user’s email address, the team was able to Identify specific items and websites the victim interacted with.

Along with shopping habits, the test also showed retargeted advertisements can contain sensitive location information. For example, if a victim interacted with some hotel and travel websites, the attacker could then receive retargeted ads for the specific hotel the victim viewed.

“An ad network potentially leaking travel plans to anyone with a target’s email address is a significant privacy threat and potentially dangerous to people being stalked,” said Damon McCoy, associate professor at NYU.

The researchers indicate that combatting this problem without the support of ad networks is challenging, but ad blockers provide a reasonable initial option to limit exposing a user’s private data. Mitigation of this threat shouldn’t just fall on the users, however. The team also suggests that if third party ad networks encrypted the process of exchanging identity information and ensured the data was verified and correct it would help mitigate the threat.

The research was presented at ACM CCS’22. The paper, Cart-ology: Intercepting Targeted Advertising via Ad Network Identity Entanglement, is co-authored by SCP Ph.D. student ChangSeok Oh, Kanich, McCoy, and Pearce. In accordance with ethical research guidelines, the threat was disclosed to Criteo, one of the largest third-party ad networks on the market, as well as Yahoo.

Summary sentence

Cybersecurity Researchers Show How Attackers Can See Your Online Ads Knowing Only Your Email Address

Dateline

Thu, 11/10/2022 - 12:00

jpopham3@gatech.edu

Contact

John Popham

Communications Officer for School of Cybersecurity and Privacy

Keywords

Cybersecurity

Data Privacy

unwanted ads

vulnerabilities

school of cybersecurity and privacy

Research

News room topics

Science and Technology

Categories

Research

Core research areas

Cybersecurity

Mercury ID

663088

Source updated

Fri, 11/11/2022 - 10:11

school of cybersecurity and privacy

Cybersecurity Student Applies Studies to Win School-Led Chess Tournament

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New Resource for Domestic Abuse Survivors Combines AI, Cybersecurity, and Psychology

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Georgia Tech Researchers to Lead Pioneering Space Wargaming Series

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New Research Gives Users Another Reason to Hate Unwanted Ads

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