- University News Archive - ��Vlog��ý Little Rock

Google grant allows ��Vlog��ý Little Rock to provide free cloud-based cybersecurity labs for Arkansas students

Ajani Oyindamola — Wed, 28 Aug 2019 14:58:47 +0000

A University of Arkansas at Little Rock professor has received a $10,000 Google grant that will help provide free cloud-based cybersecurity labs for junior high and high school students in Arkansas. Philip Huff, assistant professor of computer science and research associate with the Emerging Analytics Center, received $10,000 in Google Cloud Platform credits from Google’s education grants team. The credits will be used to host online cybersecurity labs in development at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock. Funded by a three-year from the National Science Foundation, the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Emerging Analytics Center is developing a free open-source, cybersecurity curriculum for students in Arkansas with assistance from the Arkansas Department of Higher Education. “Gov. Asa Hutchinson has expanded computer science education in Arkansas, and now the state wants to expand cybersecurity education as well. We want to play a central role in educating cybersecurity students and getting them ready for the workforce.” The new curriculum is part of ��Vlog��ý Little Rock’s effort to create a pipeline for students to fill cybersecurity positions in the workforce. Set to be launched later this fall, the curriculum will provide a variety of cybersecurity labs that teachers can provide to their students at no cost. The online lab environment, known as the Cyber Gym, will be placed on Google Cloud. ��Vlog��ý Little Rock students who are developing the Cyber Gym workouts include Andrew Bombberger, Chance Melby, Ryan Ronquillio, and Verdin-Pol Gaétan. “The main benefit of the grant is that it enables us to run the Cyber Gym for middle and high school teachers for most of the 2019-20 school year,” Huff said. “With the $10,000, we have the ability to run 2,000 distinct classroom labs a month for six months. We are extremely grateful to Google for helping us provide these no-cost labs to students and their teachers.” In the upper right photo, Philip Huff (left), ��Vlog��ý Little Rock assistant professor and research fellow at Emerging Analytics Center, leads a cybersecurity workshop for high achool teachers from around the state. Photo by Ben Krain.

��Vlog��ý Little Rock researcher receives $2.4 million for cybersecurity research

Ajani Oyindamola — Fri, 19 Jul 2019 14:48:25 +0000

Dr. Nitin Agarwal, director of the Collaboratorium for Social Media and Online Behavioral Studies () at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, has been awarded a $2.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to develop ways to track emerging cyber-social threats and strengthen social cybersecurity research infrastructure. The funding will support the development of research infrastructure to assess social media and blogs in real time and respond to the growing weaponization of online discourse in influencing peacekeeping, and tactical, operational, and strategic operations. The research infrastructure will include development of models, software applications, and training programs. Military units at all levels will benefit from the intended goals of the project in identification of threats and opportunities within the information environment. “We appreciate the support from Sen. John Boozman for the social networking research at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock,” Agarwal said of the three-year grant. “The senator recognizes the importance of developing new approaches, software tools, and training programs for national security in cyberspace, and this grant was enabled through his support of funding for the Navy’s Social Networks Analysis program.” Boozman serves as chairman of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies and has a seat on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense. “��Vlog��ý Little Rock continues to be an outstanding partner in the Navy’s efforts to track and counter our adversaries’ use of social media to bring harm to American interests at home and overseas,” Boozman said. “This award will expand capabilities at ��Vlog��ý Little Rock and create opportunities for students to develop new skills and expertise in this important area of information science.” Agarwal’s proposed research infrastructure will enable rapid and appropriate response that can neutralize propaganda and mitigate its negative effects. Social media platforms that are manipulated by adversarial campaigns can shift international and regional opinions about the use of military force or validity of military operations in a region. At the tactical level, social media propaganda could potentially be used to persuade susceptible targets to disrupt or delay military operations through protests or other “non-lethal” resistance. “The aim of this project is to examine, evaluate, measure, and predict the threat level of the adversarial information campaigns,” Agarwal said. Agarwal and his team will develop a multi-model approach to analyze adversarial information campaigns conducted online. Their research will identify key actors, groups, narratives, media integration strategies, and tactics deployed by those who disseminate disinformation and conduct influence operations. The research approach will adopt a blend of computational modeling, big social data, and social science theoretical principles to examine cyber campaigns and assess the threats they pose. More specifically, the effort will bridge big data and social computing research communities to advance big data research infrastructure and security for the modern social and communication space. COSMOS will develop research-informed solutions to surmount challenges in curating and analyzing social media data characterized by its volume, velocity, and variety. Training exercises will be conducted that will help enhance the U.S. workforce with skills in the challenging and changing domain of big data analytics, data management, machine learning, and artificial intelligence with applications in security. “We hope to spark innovation and entrepreneurial aspirations in big data and its applications aligning with the knowledge-based economic development mission of the state of Arkansas,” Agarwal said. “This will not only help develop talent within Arkansas but also retain and acquire new talent.” About the Collaboratorium for Social Media and Online Behavioral Studies (COSMOS) At COSMOS, researchers study various aspects of social media and online behavior under the direction of Dr. Nitin Agarwal, who is directing several projects with funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation, U.S. Army Research Office, U.S. Office of Naval Research, U.S. Air Force Research Lab, and the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Research at COSMOS has contributed to computational social network analysis and advanced the studies in social cyber security, cyber campaign coordination, identifying powerful actors and groups, disinformation dissemination across social media, cyber threat monitoring, social-cyber forensics, health informatics, data mining, and privacy. COSMOS has developed publicly available social media mining tools, Blogtrackers and YouTubeTracker, used during NATO’s military exercises. COSMOS participates in the national Tech Innovation Hub launched by the U.S. Department of State’s Global Engagement Center to defeat foreign-based propaganda. For more information, visit .

Emerging Analytics Center hosts teacher workshop to promote cybersecurity education

Ajani Oyindamola — Wed, 26 Jun 2019 12:31:34 +0000

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock Emerging Analytics Center hosted a three-day workshop for secondary education teachers who teach cybersecurity in Arkansas June 5-7. Funded by a from the National Science Foundation, the workshop is part of a program to promote cybersecurity education in Arkansas high schools. The 20 participating teachers learned about the fundamentals of cybersecurity, including spoofing, network protection, cryptography, cyberattacks, web application security, and password cracking. Additionally, the teachers evaluated an open-source cybersecurity curriculum currently in development by ��Vlog��ý Little Rock professors and graduate students. Members of the ��Vlog��ý Little Rock Cybersecurity Club are creating cybersecurity exercises through cloud technology that high school teachers will be able to provide to their students at no cost beginning in the fall. This is part of ��Vlog��ý Little Rock’s effort to create a pipeline for students to fill cybersecurity positions in the workforce. “This workshop meets a significant need since the state of Arkansas is very interested in utilizing cybersecurity in secondary education,” said Philip Huff, a research associate with the Emerging Analytics Center who ran the workshop. “Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s has expanded computer science education, and now they want to expand cybersecurity education. We want to play a central role in educating cybersecurity students and getting them ready for the workforce.”

Philip Huff (right), ��Vlog��ý Little Rock assistant professor and research fellow at the Emerging Analytics Center, leads a cybersecurity workshop for high school teachers from around the state. Photo by Ben Krain.

Workshop participant Scott Maddox just finished up his first year as a cybersecurity instructor at Vilonia High School. He was inspired to make the switch from band director to cybersecurity teacher after Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed Arkansas Act 187, which required all of the state’s public and charter high schools to offer a course in computer coding. “When Gov. Hutchinson came out with the computer science education initiative, I really jumped on it, took a lot of training courses, and learned as much as I could,” Maddox said. “It’s been a very rewarding transition.” Maddox said the most valuable part of the workshop has been gaining access to tools, programs, and activities that he can incorporate into his future classes. “Overall, the fact that we are getting some really good tools to use in the classroom is a great benefit,” Maddox said. “The big thing is the virtual lab environments that enables the students to utilize a lot of the techniques they are learning to defend against cyberattacks without negative consequences on our school’s network. That is very valuable for someone like me who doesn’t have a computer science background.”

��Vlog��ýLR student researches how to keep cars safe from hacking

Ajani Oyindamola — Fri, 12 Aug 2016 18:04:06 +0000

In 2015, two researchers a Jeep Cherokee being driven by a reporter who documented how the researchers controlled everything from the car’s radio and media console to its brakes and steering. For Dr. Shucheng Yu, an associate professor of computer science at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, the exercise demonstrated how vulnerable smart cars with GPS, Bluetooth, and internet connections are to cyberattacks. “These cars have become the trend of the future,” Yu said. “There could be some very severe consequences if someone hacked into the car. A car can be fully controlled by the hacker if it is not protected.” So Yu and his student, Zachary King, a junior majoring in computer science at ��Vlog��ýLR, spent the summer researching how to keep cars safe from cyberattacks. They worked on the project during an intensive eight-week summer research program at ��Vlog��ýLR. King was one of 10 college students from across the country recruited through a National Science Foundation grant-funded project, “REU Site: CyberSAFE@��Vlog��ýLR: Cyber Security and Forensics Research at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.” The goal of the program is to decrease cyberattacks on people using mobile technology and social networking sites, said Dr. Mengjun Xie, an associate professor of computer science and director of the CyberSAFE@��Vlog��ýLR program. “The basic idea is to integrate cybersecurity and cyber forensics research with the latest technology in mobile cloud computing and social media to provide research opportunities to students,” Xie said. More than 130 students applied for 10 spots. Participants included undergraduate college students with a grade point average of 3.0 or higher who are majoring in computer science, computer engineering, math, physics, or electrical engineering. Those selected spent eight weeks conducting research full time with a faculty mentor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Participants received a $4,000 stipend, on-campus housing, a meal plan, and travel expenses.

How to protect your smart car

In his project, “Investigating and Securing Communications in the Controller Area Network (CAN), King created a security protocol to protect smart cars from hacking. He also built an experimental environment that simulates the communication system in a smart car, which allows the security protocol to be tested through simulations. The research focuses on the development of a security protocol to protect the Controller Area Network (CAN), an internal communications system in vehicles. “There are many ways that hackers can control CAN,” King said. “Once they access it, hackers can pretty easily control your car however they want. We are proposing to add a layer of security, so if an unauthorized person accesses it, they still wouldn’t be able to control your vehicle.” The security protocol protects the CAN in two ways. It authenticates messages sent through the network by creating an authentication code. This authentication code allows nodes on the network to differentiate between a valid message and an attacker’s message. The second security feature protects against replay attacks, when a hacker attempts to breach the network by repeatedly sending an old message. The protocol uses a timestamp to calculate when the network last received the message, which verifies the message’s “freshness.” Yu and King are continuing their research this fall. In the future, Yu hopes to collaborate with industry and funding agencies to implement the security protocol in commercial vehicles and protect cars from hackers. As for King, participating in this summer research program has left him considering a career in cybersecurity once he graduates in 2018. “Three months ago, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you much about cybersecurity and what a security protocol would look like,” he said. “After having completed this program, I am more interested in cybersecurity than I was before, and I may end up going that route.”

A summer of innovative research

The CyberSAFE@��Vlog��ýLR participants were honored during a commencement ceremony July 29 at the ��Vlog��ýLR Engineering and Information Technology Building. Their research topics range from utilizing cybersecurity and social network forensics to understanding cyber warfare to the use of facial emotion recognition for security purposes. The participants, faculty mentors, and projects included:

Jonathan Ming, a junior at Azusa Pacific University (mentor: Mengjun Xie): “Remote Live Forensics for Android”
Monica Bebawy, a junior at Azusa Pacific University (mentor: Mariofanna Milanova): “Facial Emotion Recognition for Security”
Dennis Frank, a junior at Georgia Institute of Technology, and Jasmine Mabrey, a sophomore at Norfolk State University (mentor: Kenji Yoshigoe): “Neurological User Authentication: Security Framework”
Antwane Lewis, a senior at Philander Smith College (mentor: Mengjun Xie): “Real Time Motion-based Authentication for Smartwatch”
Brandon Dalton, a sophomore at Wentworth Institute of Technology (mentor: Nitin Agarwal): “Utilizing Cyber and Social Network Forensics for the Understanding of Cyber Warfare”
Edsel Paula-Aquina, a senior at Warren Wilson College, and Ying Vang, a senior at California State University-Fresno (mentor: Chia-Chu Chiang): “Computer on Encrypted Data”
Diana Anguiano, a senior at California State University-San Marcos (mentor: Mengjun Xie): “Comparison between Fingerprint Authentication and Behavioral Biometric Authentication using 2D and 3D Gestures”

For more information, contact Mengjun Xie at 501.569.8134 or mxxie@ualr.edu. In the upper right photo, CyberSAFE@��Vlog��ýLR participants and faculty mentors, from left to right, are: Front row: Monica Bebawy, Brandon Dalton, and Diana Anguiano; Second row: Dr. Mengjun Xie, Dennis Frank, and Jasmine Mabrey; Third row: Jonathan Ming, Ying Vang, Antwane Lewis, and Dr. Kenji Yoshigoe; and Back row: Edsel Paula-Aquino, Zachary King, graduate assistant Yanyan Li, and Dr. Mariofanna Milanova.

��Vlog��ýLR team takes third place in Cyber Defense Competition

Ajani Oyindamola — Wed, 23 Mar 2016 14:38:39 +0000

The University of Arkansas at Little Rock Cyber Security Club recently earned the highest finish ever for an Arkansas university at the . ��Vlog��ýLR’s Cyber Security Club team, comprised of captain Andrew Lewis as well as Blaise Koch, Connor Young, Dylan Hailey, Jeffery Wooldridge, John Henry, Tommy Haycraft, and Yanyan Li, finished third in the March 12-13 competition at Texas A&M University-San Antonio. The team initially competed in a virtual qualifier with 22 other squads and was one of eight that advanced to the regional competition. During the regional event, participants spent two days simulating an information technology department at an imaginary health insurance company called Insuracomm. Each team was assigned a room with six computers and charged with tasks like running the company website, setting up an email server, developing social media policies, and handling information technology requests. However, their assignments got more complicated as professional testers constantly tried to sabotage their efforts. “We were asked to keep a bunch of industry services up and running, and that in itself is very difficult,” Koch said. “Professional penetration testers were tasked with bringing our services down. Think of them as legal hackers. They are the ones companies pay to find holes in their security before the bad guys do.” Mengjun Xie, faculty advisor of the Cyber Security Club, said the competition demonstrates to students how their cyber security skills can be used in the real world. “Everything is online. Data often becomes the most valuable asset for most companies, universities, and all types of organizations,” Xie said. “Once the students participate in this competition, they have a very strong motivation to learn. This national competition attracts so much attention.” One of the real-world problems the team had to investigate was the company’s vulnerability to an attack similar to what happened to Ashley Madison, the online dating website for married people that was hacked in 2015. Since the competition’s fake insurance company deals with health insurance, the team had to follow strict national laws that protect personal health information. “Every competition I have gone to you face a challenge in modern-day security,” Lewis said. “You never know what you will get with these competitions. Sometimes we build an entire network and then defend it against hackers. It is always changing. The idea is to learn about modern vulnerability and security issues. Everyone knows what happened at Ashley Madison. One of our assignments was to see if our website was vulnerable to the Ashley Madison attacks.” The College of Engineering and Information Technology and the Department of Computer Science sponsored the Cyber Security Club’s trip to the competition. Dr. Kenji Yoshigoe, chair of the ��Vlog��ýLR Department of Computer Science, noted a team from the university first competed in a regional qualifier merely three years ago. “Since then, the team has come a long way and became one of the dominating teams in the Southwest region,” Yoshigoe said. “On behalf of the Computer Science Department, I would like to congratulate them on their great accomplishment.” In the upper right photo, pictured in the front row, from left to right, are Mengjun Xie, Andrew Lewis, Blaise Koch, John Henry, and Yanyan Li. Pictured in the back row, from left to right, are Tommy Haycraft, Connor Young, Jeffery Wooldridge, and Dylan Hailey.

- University News Archive - ����Vlog��ý Little Rock

Google grant allows ����Vlog��ý Little Rock to provide free cloud-based cybersecurity labs for Arkansas students

����Vlog��ý Little Rock researcher receives $2.4 million for cybersecurity research