Cyber security research excellence course

Introduction

Objective

The objective of the Cyber security research excellence course is to strengthen Estonia's position on international cyber security research excellence. The main purpose is to give the cyber security students a concrete experience in academic research, academic writing and presenting their work to an international audience, also to build the basis for the students to establish long-term collaborations on an international level. The starting point for this will be solving some concrete problems in cyber security in an international collaborative way.

Outcome

The students will write a paper to be published at a conference or in a journal on original research done over the year. They will gain experience in conducting research and academic writing, build international long-term collaborations with students and supervisors at TalTech University as well as the partner universities.

Partners

This course will take place in collaboration between three universities:

• TalTech University
• University of Adelaide (Australia)
• University of Applied Sciences Ravensburg-Weingarten (Germany)

Organisation

Timeline

It is expected from the students that they will actively "drive" the course, set their own milestones and be responsible for their progress. Throughout the course the students will be constantly mentored on a one-to-one basis. Furthermore, the students can get help from mentors participating in this collaboration, which currently includes academics working at the University of Adelaide, TalTech University and University of Applied Sciences Ravensburg-Weingarten.

• October 2018 Getting acquainted with the course, signing up
• November - December 2018 Selecting the topic area, literature review
• February - May 2019 Regular meetings with the supervisors. During the spring, the students will meet with the supervisors regularly and discusses progress and questions arising from the work. This also includes discussions on topics such as 'how to conduct a literature review', 'research methodology', 'how to select a conference or journal', etc. Also submitting a 1,000 word research abstract and initial findings to the Interdisciplinary Cyber Research workshop (ICR)
• July 2019 Attend at ICR and present (if accepted) ongoing research at the workshop
• Autumn 2019 In the second half of the year we will more focus on analysing data, writing-up a paper using latex, etc
• October 2019 Poster presenting research methodology, and results.
• January 2020 Research paper draft ready to submit to journal or conference

Research topics

The proposed research topics are as follows:

• Application of Machine Learning to the Cyber Security Problems

In this project, the student(s) will apply machine learning algorithms to solve a cyber security problem which is mainly detecting a cyber attack in the selected network environment. There exist various publicly available datasets that include legitimate and attack records obtained from enterprise networks, SCADA systems, IoT networks, mobile systems. The student will select a problem domain (such as internal threat, IoT botnet, mobile malware, SCADA attacks) and create machine learning classifiers that discriminate attack records from legitimate ones with high accuracy detection rates.

• Establishing an IoT Security Test Setup

In this project, the student(s) will establish a test setup that resembles a realistic IoT network. The main goal is to launch the cyber attacks in the environment where the normal traffic is also simulated and create a dataset that can be used by the other researchers. This test setup can be also utilized in an attack-defence type of course and may enable us to deal with some research problems about cyber security exercises/games.

• Establishing a SCADA Security Test Setup

In this topic, the student(s) will create a test setup that includes physical/virtual components of SCADA networks. The main goal is to launch the cyber attacks in the environment where the normal traffic is also simulated and create a dataset that can be used by the other researchers. This test setup can be also utilized in an attack-defence type of course. The further study can be conducted for understanding how to create a totally virtual system that can be easily replicated for cyber security exercises. One other interesting question could be the comparison of the degree of fidelity provided by the physically established system and totally virtual one.

• Conducting a Study in the Area of Cyber Doctrine Development

On 14 June 2016 the defence ministers of NATO countries agreed to recognise cyberspace as a domain of warfare at that year’s Warsaw Summit. However, although now regarded as equal to operations on land, sea, air and space, cyber doctrine is still immature and developing. The production of coherent strategy is further hindered by a lack of alignment in a definition of cyberspace. In this topic, the student(s) will have an opportunity to study in this area.

The students are welcome to propose their own topic.

Grading

TBD

ECTS

The course is running through all 2019 and valued at 15 ECTS (6 ECTS for spring semester 2019, 6 ECTS for autumn semester 2019, 3 ECTS C3S Summer School).

Participants

Target group

The course is targeted at Cyber Security MSc students, who have a strong interest in pursuing an academic career, conducting research, and publishing papers. Furthermore, we encourage MSc students to participate in this course in order to understand the more academic perspective early on and then join our PhD program and thereby strengthens Estonia's Cyber Security research.

Important dates

Please keep track of the following dates and deadlines:

In 2018

• Indicate interest in this course by 29 October 2018
• Briefing on the course structure and topics, Q&A 5 November 2018

In 2019

• ICR2019: 5th Interdisciplinary Cyber Research workshop 29 June 2019

Further deadlines TBD

Administrative matters

Contacts

• Kristi Ainen kristi.ainen[at]taltech.ee Project Manager at TalTech University, Administrative Support

• Prof. Dr Olaf Maennel olaf.maenne[at]taltech.ee Professor of Cyber Security at TalTech University, Scientific Lead

• Dr Matthew Sorell, University of Adelaide, Representing partner university, and Adjunct Professor in Digital Forensics at TalTech University

• Prof. Dr Tobias Eggendorfer, University of Applied Sciences Ravensburg-Weingarten, Representing partner university