Abstract: At the heart of all cyber security attribution challenges is the problem of data provenance tracking and its reconstruction. In this talk, Professor Ko will cover past, present and developing provenance research in computer science, and cover its relation and usefulness to accountability, traceability, trust, forensics and proactive cyber security. It will feature some of the data provenance research Professor Ko has conducted in the past decade, discuss unsolved (or seemingly unsolvable) problems, as well as some of the recent developments in academia, industry, and international standards.

Biography: Professor Ryan Ko is Chair and Director of UQ Cyber at the University of Queensland, Australia. He is also an adjunct professor at the Singapore Institute of Technology, and affiliate faculty member at the Idaho State University. With 15+ years of experience in applied research, commercialization, and ministerial advisory roles across Singapore, Australia, NZ, USA, Tonga, ISO, ORCID, and INTERPOL, his research focuses on restoring data control to users. His research has been adopted globally, including by CERN, INTERPOL, Hewlett-Packard, and Apple. He has led Australian and NZ competitive grants totalling $20 million as lead investigator, and contributed to $40+ million as co-investigator, published 100+ papers (including venues such as NeurIPS, WWW, ESORICS), and Q1 journals like IEEE Trans. on Dependable & Secure Computing, IEEE Trans. On Smart Grids), and 4 PCT patents. He authored NZ’s Level-6 National Cyber Security Curriculum, and co-founded the NZ (2014), Oceania (2021), and International Cybersecurity Challenges (2022). He is a regular expert commentator on the Australian and NZ media on major cybersecurity incidents, and has addressed the NZ Parliament, Republic of Korea National Assembly, and the UN Special Rapporteur on Data Privacy about data control, privacy and security. As editor of ISO/IEC 21878 (Virtualized Server Security) and ISO/IEC AWI 5181 (Data Provenance), Ko represents Enterprise Singapore as an expert at the ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27, the premier standards body for cybersecurity, and served as Co-Chair of Singapore TR106 Tiered cybersecurity standards for enterprises. Ko received his BEng (Hons) and PhD from Nanyang Technological University. For his contributions to the cloud security and cyber security industry, he was elected as a Fellow of Cloud Security Alliance, and a Fellow of the Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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Abstract: In this talk, Dr. Ibrahim Venkat intends to share some of his experiences which he encountered during his research journey with his PhD students, research group and collaborators. In the context of AI & machine learning, interesting facts and findings relevant to the discovery of intrinsic similarity maps for some potential Human-ID problems will be discussed. The significance of bridging ideas from disciplines such as cognitive psychology and forensic science will be shared.

Biography: Dr. Ibrahim Venkat is currently serving as an Associate Professor at the School of Computing and Informatics, Universiti Teknologi Brunei (UTB). He received his Ph.D. in Computing from Heriot-Watt Universit, Edinburgh, United Kingdom in 2010. His research interests include computational intelligence, uncertainty modeling and bio-inspired computing . He has secured and successfully executed several research and consultancy projects from bodies such as Authority for Info-Comm. Tech. Industry (AITI) of Brunei Darussalam and federal ministries such as Ministry of Education, Brunei and Malaysia. He has successfully guided several Ph.D. scholars, published some interesting journal and conference articles. He has received numerous honors including, Teaching excellence in Artificial Intelligence (UTB), James Watt Scholarship, Gold medals (Korea, Malaysia), Scottish Technology Prize and best paper awards.

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Abstract: Critical infrastructure becomes a strategic target in the midst of a cyber war. Maritime is a key sector in critical infrastructure. In this talk, I will first introduce the efforts taken by iTrust in protecting critical infrastructure. Then I will focus on our recent work in the maritime sector, especially the new guidelines being developed for cyber risk management of shipboard OT systems, and the new maritime testbed being built to fill the gap between the urgent need to develop and deploy cybersecurity technologies for maritime sector and the lack of a safe and realistic environment for testing and validating new cybersecurity technologies before being adopted.

Biography: Professor Jianying Zhou is a professor and center director for iTrust at Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD). He received PhD in Information Security from Royal Holloway, University of London. His research interests are in applied cryptography and network security, cyber-physical system security, mobile and wireless security. He is a co-founder & steering committee co-chair of ACNS. He is also steering committee chair of ACM AsiaCCS, and steering committee member of Asiacrypt. He is an ACM Distinguished Member. He received the ESORICS Outstanding Contribution Award in 2020, in recognition of contributions to the community.

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