/news-archive/tag/cyber-defense/ 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock Tue, 18 Jul 2017 14:34:56 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 /news-archive/2017/07/18/virtual-cybersecurity-lab/ Tue, 18 Jul 2017 14:34:56 +0000 /news/?p=67492 ... NSA funds 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock cybersecurity lab project]]> Dr. Mengjun Xie, 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock associate professor of computer science, is working to build a virtual cybersecurity lab. He recently received an $85,912 addition to his original NSA grant, bringing the total NSA funding for the project to $124,527. The cybersecurity lab project, 鈥淣etworking and Network Security in the Cloud (NetSiC),鈥� will address issues related to cloud-based computing environments and help students practice networking and cyber defense skills. 鈥淭his project is unique because it allows students to conduct networking and security practices in a computing cloud they choose, and the developed software will be free to use,鈥� Xie said. 鈥淲hile other cloud-based cybersecurity labs are available, they either do not provide enough flexibility or require users to pay in order to use their platform.鈥� The virtual lab will incorporate a group of learning modules that can help undergraduate students conduct cloud-networking experiments. A second group of modules will allow students to conduct network protection and defense experiments. When the project is completed, Xie will deliver the 12 lab modules to the NSA, where they will become part of a cybersecurity curriculum that will be accessible to the public. Xie has an extensive body of published research and is known for his work in cybersecurity, network systems, data analytics, and social network analysis in bioinformatics. He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the College of William and Mary. Xie will develop the NetSiC lab in the NEXUS (Networked and Complex Systems Security Research) Lab at 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock. 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock is among the institutions receiving the designation. The joint program of the NSA and the Department of Homeland Security is designed to reduce information infrastructure vulnerability through higher education and research. By creating聽the NetSiC lab, Xie and his team aim to increase students鈥� knowledge of virtual networks and their ability to successfully protect and defend cloud networks. This project is sponsored by the National Security Agency under Grant Number H98230-17-1-0273. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Security Agency.  ]]> /news-archive/2017/04/17/cyber-defense-competition-2/ Mon, 17 Apr 2017 16:51:39 +0000 /news/?p=66859 ... 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock team takes fourth place in cyber defense competition]]> Coached by Yanyan Li, an integrated computing doctoral student, the team of Connor Young, Aaron Mays, Hector Fernandez, Jeffrey Wooldridge, Josh Carlat, Malik El-Amin, Shijun Zhong, and Zachary Long took fourth place in the competition. 鈥淭he regional competition is a highly intensive cyber defense competition, and requires a lot of knowledge such as networking, server management, cybersecurity, and business operation as well as teamwork and communication skills,鈥� Li said. During the competition, each team served as the information technology department for Planet Express Trucking, Inc., a fictional company that provides freight services. The teams tasks included setting up an email server, running the company website, and developing social media policies as well as fulfilling assigned business tasks, such as adding a server to the company鈥檚 domain and writing policies about the use of external data storage devices on company property. 鈥淚t was a grueling competition in which all the teams faced, in two days, challenges that real world IT teams experience over weeks or months,鈥� said Fernandez, senior computer science major from North Little Rock. 鈥淥verall, it was a very satisfying experience in which the team as a whole practiced and developed leadership, organization, communication, and technical skills.鈥� Team Captain Connor Young said the problems began as soon as they stepped into their workspace. 鈥淥ur 鈥榖oss鈥� didn鈥檛 have the passwords for the computers, so we were forced to break into them ourselves,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e had a few unexpected surprises, such as when we learned we had no internet access.鈥� Since participants were barred from using outside devices, like their trusty smartphones, the team was left in a bind. 鈥淭hat means that until we fixed our network, we had to work without the luxury of Google to help solve our issues,鈥� Young said. Competitors also had to defend their work against the Red Team, whose members consist of professional penetration testers charged with sabotaging their work. Penetration testers are hackers hired by companies to find holes in their cybersecurity systems. Red Team members employed both technical and psychological attacks. 鈥淥ne of the more ridiculous and effective attacks was that they would go outside our rooms, type on a computer while maliciously staring into the room, and laugh as the teams ruined their computers trying to stop the Red Team’s attack,鈥� Young said. 鈥淪everal teams ended up letting the Red Team in during their rushed attempt to keep them out, but we responded by simply waving at them and continuing on with our work.鈥� The Red Team did pull one over on the 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock squad by tricking the competition hosts into having the Red Team temporarily serve as a judge, which gave it full access to the team鈥檚 workspace. 鈥淭hese are known as social engineering attacks, and they exist to remind us that the weakest part of a computer’s security is the person using it,鈥� Young said. The 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock team was one of eight to advance to the regional event after competing against 20 teams from Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and New Mexico during a virtual qualifying round on Feb. 18. ]]> /news-archive/2017/03/01/cyber-defense-competition/ Wed, 01 Mar 2017 19:51:20 +0000 /news/?p=66467 ... 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock team advances to regional cyber defense competition]]> Twenty teams from Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and New Mexico competed during a virtual qualifying round on Feb. 18. 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock and seven other teams advanced to compete in the March 17-19 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Coached by Yanyan Li, an integrated computing doctoral student, the team consists of Captain Connor Young, Aaron Mays, Hector Fernandez, Jeffrey Wooldridge, Josh Carlat, Malik El-Amin, Shijun Zhong, and Zachary Long. 鈥淭his was a great achievement for our CCDC team, considering that only two members participated in last year’s competition, and we had as many as six new members join this year,鈥� Li said. 鈥淭hey played as a team helping each other and secured our servers from being attacked.鈥� During the competition, students assume the administrative and protective duties for a commercial network. While the team runs the companies, it must defend its networks against attacks from a professional team of penetration testers, who find security vulnerabilities in web-based applications, networks, and systems. 鈥淲e play the part of a newly hired IT team for a small, web-based company,鈥� Young said. 鈥淪ome example of difficulties we faced include dealing with missing passwords on our computers, writing policies such as a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) policy, and providing services for our company. This last challenge includes maintaining a web page, managing our coworkers鈥� accounts, and providing useful file sharing inside and outside of our company.鈥� In 2016, the 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock team finished third in the Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition at Texas A&M University-San Antonio. In the upper right photo, the 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock Cyber Defense Team includes, from left to right: Back Row:聽Yanyan Li,聽Josh Carlat,聽Connor Young, and Shijun Zhong. Front Row:聽Zachary Long,聽Malik El-Amin,聽Aaron Mays, and Hector Fernandez.聽  ]]> /news-archive/2016/11/14/ualr-nato-nitin-agarwal/ Mon, 14 Nov 2016 17:54:19 +0000 /news/?p=65757 ... 糖心Vlog传媒LR researchers present findings at NATO conference]]> A University of Arkansas at Little Rock professor and two doctoral students recently got a chance to unveil their research on cyber defense at an international NATO conference.聽 Dr. Nitin Agarwal, the 糖心Vlog传媒LR Jerry L. Maulden-Entergy endowed chair and a professor of information science, and his doctoral students, Samer Al-Khateeb and Nihal Hussain, presented their research at the NATO Technology for Information, Decision, and Execution (TIDE) Sprint Conference Oct. 26 in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The conference serves as an initiative to achieve and maintain technology, information, and decision making in support of NATO鈥檚 command and control development efforts. The talk, 鈥淯nderstanding Influence Operations of Novorossiya through Blogs and Twitter,鈥� detailed the research team鈥檚 monitoring of social media responses to NATO exercises Operation Brilliant Jump and Anakonda over the summer. Specifically, they tracked how anti-NATO groups reacted to information released by NATO and media coverage of the exercises via social media. 鈥淲e documented and described various case studies pertaining to the Novorossiya context, especially the anti-NATO narrative propagated by the pro-Russian media outlets,鈥� Agarwal said. It鈥檚 important to monitor misinformation spread through social media, since deviant groups can coordinate cyber campaigns to influence thinking and media coverage of events, Agarwal said. 鈥淚n today鈥檚 information technology age, our thinking and behaviors are highly influenced by what we see on our smartphone screens,鈥� Agarwal said. 鈥淢isinformation is rampant. Complemented with the availability of inexpensive and ubiquitous mass communication tools, such as social media, conducting deviant acts becomes both convenient and effective.鈥� The researchers used social network analysis and cyber forensics to develop tools and methodologies to find hidden relations between different groups and track deviant groups across social media websites, Al-Khateeb said. For instance, their research can identify the influential people in a social network who are most responsible for spreading false information in a cyber campaign. They can also track how this information is spread from one social network to another. For example, narratives can be framed on blogs and YouTube videos and then that information can be disseminated through Twitter and Reddit. 鈥�Blogs provide a rich medium for presenting a story with half-truths and misinformation, which are then disseminated using Twitter or Facebook. Identifying these cross-media affiliations is important to build a complete picture,鈥� Hussain said. The work is funded in part by a $186,692 grant from the U.S. Office of Naval Research, titled 鈥淎nalyzing Integrated Social Media-Facilitated Propaganda Campaigns Using Social Network Analysis and Cyber Forensics,鈥� and a $300,000 grant from the U.S. Army Research Office, titled 鈥淭owards Predictive Modeling Deviant Cyber Flash Mobs: A Socio-Informatics Driven Hypergraph Framework.鈥� The grant builds on Agarwal鈥檚 already significant body of social media research and behavioral modeling. It is part of a larger research program in his Center Of Social Media and Online behavioral Studies (COSMOS) lab. More information on these projects can be found on Agarwal鈥檚 project website. More information about the researchers: Agarwal is the Jerry L. Maulden-Entergy Chair Professor of Information Science at University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He is the director of Center of Social Media and Online Behavioral Studies. His research interests include social computing, data mining, privacy, social-cyber security, and health informatics. He has published widely in top-tier forums with several best paper awards. His research is supported by grants from the U.S. NSF, ONR, AFRL, and ARO. Agarwal obtained his Ph.D. from Arizona State University with outstanding dissertation recognition in 2009. He was awarded Top 20 in 20s by Arkansas Business Magazine in 2012. 糖心Vlog传媒LR awarded Agarwal the 2015 Faculty Excellence Award for Research and Creative Endeavors.聽 Al-Khateeb is pursuing his doctorate in computer and information sciences. His research includes deviant behavioral modeling, deviant cyber flash mobs, cyber propaganda campaigns, social cyber forensics, social computing, data mining in social media, and collective action. He received a bachelor鈥檚 degree in computer science and a master鈥檚 degree in applied science from 糖心Vlog传媒LR and is a recipient of the outstanding master’s student award from the College of Arts, Letters, and Sciences. Hussain is pursuing his doctorate in integrated computing at 糖心Vlog传媒LR. He earned a bachelor鈥檚 degree in engineering from Osmania University. He also works as a research assistant in the information science department, and his research interests include text mining and unstructured data mining. In the upper right photo, Dr. Nitin Agarwal (left) and his doctoral students, Nihal Hussain and Samer Al-Khateeb, presented their research at the NATO Technology for Information, Decision, and Execution (TIDE) Sprint Conference Oct. 26 in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Photo by Lonnie Timmons III/糖心Vlog传媒LR Communications.]]>