Centre for secure information technologies - CSIT - overview Gavin McWilliams

1. CSIT: Overview
Gavin McWilliams
Director of Engineering
A Global Innovation Hub for Cyber Security
19th September 2017

3. “We are solving some of the world’s technology
challenges, as well as creating a dynamic environment
that fosters entrepreneurship.”
Prof. Sir John McCanny, CSIT Principal Investigator

4. Intelligent Multifactor Endpoint Security (iMES)
Secure Remote Working Competition
iMES successfully incorporated a video based lip movement
biometric authentication method to supplement traditional
methods such as username/password.
• 1 x Academic, 1 x Engineer, 2 x PhD students over two years
• Total project £750k, Grant aide £500k of which CSIT £140k
• Dual application via Je-S
• One training session ‘New Projects Workshop’ in London
• Quarterly progress reviews with Programme Officer
• Project Completion Report, May 2017
Benefits
• Liopa incorporated and employed a KTP
• Real world engineering:
Devices, Illumination, API’s
• Hugely positive experience for CSIT staff

5. Research Area: Device authentication
A Global Innovation Hub for Cyber Security
Professor Máire O’Neill
Research Director
• Efficient quantum-safe cryptographic architectures
• High-speed integer-based fully homomorphic encryption
• M2M and IoT authentication techniques and architectures using PUF
technology

6. Horizon2020: SAFEcrypto
Secure Architectures of Future Emerging Cryptography
A Global Innovation Hub for Cyber Security
SAFEcrypto will provide a new generation of practical, robust
and physically secure post-quantum cryptographic solutions that
ensure long-term security for:
• Protecting information passed via satellites,
• Protecting public-safety communications systems, e.g. those used by
police, fire and ambulance services,
• Safeguarding the privacy of data collected by municipal authorities.
• Duration – 4 years. Budget - €3.8M
• www.safecrypto.eu @SAFEcrypto

7. Spin Out: Sirona Technologies Ltd
Incorporated 21 January 2016
A Global Innovation Hub for Cyber Security
Sirona is an early stage CSIT spin-out whose mission is to secure
the Internet of Things by creating a unique, unclonable, digital
fingerprint for every electronic device.
• Physical Unclonable Function (PUF) technology
• PicoPUF, generates a random identification string for an electronic device
inherent to the device itself, hence it cannot be cloned providing a strong
layer of security
• This enables lightweight methods to secure the data and communications
of IoT devices
• www.sirona.io @Sirona_io
WINNERS

8. Research Area: Secure Ubiquitous Networking
A Global Innovation Hub for Cyber Security
Professor Sakir Sezer
Research Director
• Securing real-time connectivity between devices, sensors and cloud
resources
• Mobile malware detection methods to counteract advanced evasion
technologies such as polymorphic and metamorphic obfuscation
• Securing highly distributed networks for critical infrastructures
• Securing software defined and highly virtualised networks

9. Spin Out: Titan IC Systems Ltd
Incorporated 14 June 2007
A Global Innovation Hub for Cyber Security
Titan IC Systems is a world leader in the development of
hardware engines for content and network processing. The
solutions offered include:
• 40G Hyperion PCI Express RegEx Acceleration Card
• RXP Regular eXpression Processor Soft IP
• Technologies or use in all aspects of network security including: Intrusion
Detection/Prevention, application detection, anti-virus, content/URL
filtering.
• www.titanicsystems.com @TitanICSystems

10. Industrial Control Systems
SCADA security
Demonstration
Sites
AIT SmartEST
Laboratory
Nimbus
Microgrid
SWW Wunsiedel
Smart Grid
AIT Austrian
Institute of
TechnologyFraunhofer
AISEC
EMC
RSA
Landis + Gyr
The Queen’s
University
Belfast SWW
Wunsiedel
GmbH
United
Technologies
Research
Centre
Royal Institute
of Technology
(KTH)
Consortium
Energy Institute at
the J. Kepler
University Linz
Budget:
3.4M €
Start date:
1st
April, 2014
Duration:
3 years
Key
Figures

11. Malware Detection: NIMBUS
Network in Internet and Mobile Malicious Software
A Global Innovation Hub for Cyber Security
NIMBUS is an EPSRC funded project which will act as a catalyst
to develop a balanced programme of both blue skies research
and near term applied research that will assist in the fight
against cyber crime in the UK.
• PI Professor Sakir Sezer
• Co-investigators – Dr Kieran McLaughlin, Gavin McWilliams
• Duration – 4 years. Budget - €100k

12. Research Area: Security Analytics
A Global Innovation Hub for Cyber Security
Dr Paul Miller
Research Director
• Forensic data clustering and anomaly detection
• Online graph-based mining algorithms to process data in real-time
• Data mining approaches to learn inference rules about events and engage
multi-criteria decision making for autonomous cyber security threat
assessment
• Multi-criteria decision making tools which operate under incomplete
information to respond to real-time threat indicators and to derive
strategies for effective intervention

13. Spin Out: Liopa Ltd
Incorporated 26 Nov 2015
A Global Innovation Hub for Cyber Security
Liopa Ltd is bringing a novel, robust and convenient person
authentication solution to the biometric security market.
• Can verify a user’s identity by analysing the appearance and movement of
their lips as they speak into a camera
• These movements are known as their viseme profile and have been
shown to be highly speaker-specific.
• Requires no additional hardware and will work on any device with a
standard forward facing camera (e.g. smartphone, tablet, laptop, desktop)
• Research translation supported by Innovate UK SBRI
• www.liopa.co.uk @Liopa_me

14. Question & Answer
Gavin McWilliams
www.csit.qub.ac.uk
A Global Innovation Hub for Cyber Security