REU Site: Secure and Privacy-Preserving Cyber-Physical Systems: Software and Hardware Approaches

本科生研究经验(REU)网站奖资助田纳西科技大学的一个更新网站，专注于培养能够保护国家关键基础设施的未来研究人员。该网站的重点是网络物理系统(CPSS)，这是一类使用计算和通信网络来监测和控制物理组件的工程系统。CPSS在智能和安全城市、自动驾驶汽车、工业物联网(IIoT)和智能电网等现代系统和倡议的设计和开发中发挥着重要作用。CPSS中的安全漏洞可能通过软件或硬件发生。任何一个都可以停止关键基础设施并揭示公民的位置和活动，使CPSS的安全对美国国家安全至关重要。一个由教员组成的专家组将指导这些REU参与者构思、设计、实施和评估CPSS中与安全和隐私相关领域的研究项目。该小组计划与少数群体服务机构合作，在全国范围内开展招聘工作，并接触来自代表性不足社区的优秀学生、妇女、残疾学生和科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)研究有限机构的优秀学生。该网站将调查CPS中的软件和硬件内在攻击。本科生将有机会学习不同的主题，包括区块链保护CP，对IIoT的硬件和软件攻击的挑战，对资源受限硬件上部署深度学习架构的对抗性学习攻击的威胁。学生将接触到密码学、基于图的异常检测和卷积神经网络等领域的不同工具集。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Site award funds a renewal site at Tennessee Technological University focused on preparing future researchers who can protect the nation's critical infrastructure. The site's focus is on Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs), a class of engineering systems where computation and communication network are used to monitor and control physical components. CPSs play a major role in the design and development of modern systems and initiatives, such as smart and safe cities, self-driving cars, industrial internet of things (IIoT), and smart power grid. Security breaches in CPSs can occur through software or hardware. Either one can halt critical infrastructures and reveal citizens' locations and activities, making the security of CPSs crucial for U.S. national security.An expert group of faculty members will mentor these REU participants to conceive, design, implement, and assess research projects in the areas related to security and privacy in CPSs. The team plans to conduct nationwide recruitment efforts in partnership with Minority Serving Institutions, and to reach out to meritorious students from under-represented communities, women, students with disabilities and from institutions limited in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) research. The site will investigate both software and hardware intrinsic attacks in CPS. Undergraduate students will have the opportunity to learn diverse topics including, Blockchain for securing CPS, challenges with hardware and software attacks on IIoT, threats of adversarial learning attacks on the deployment of deep learning architectures on resource constraint hardware. Students will get exposure to different toolsets in domains such as cryptography, graph-based anomaly detection, and convolutional neural networks.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.