Information Security (KAU)

Introduction:
This research group has been established officially on Sep 1, 2012. The Group shall focus on research activities in two major challenging areas information security and cryptology. The theme of the group is to find innovative security solutions that will help to make emerging technologies safe for use in low computational time and storage. Emerging problem areas will be digital forensics, analysis and design of Cryptographic Protocols/Cryptographic primitives, Cryptanalysis, Security proving, data fusion, secure wireless mobile computing applications, intrusion detection as well as workflow security.  In addition, the group focuses on the issues associated with the design and development of early warning systems that are capable of detecting and responding to a variety of cyber-based attacks, and on the security issues associated with the field of computer forensics and cryptographic protocols.

Aims:
The plan of the group has to establish a research lab on Information Security and Cryptology as the name “Information Security Research Lab” (ISRL). This will contain network that simulates the Internet and various wireless network environments for mobile devices such as smart card, PDA, cellular phone etc which works in very restricted resources like low power, low processor, bandwidth, memory and battery life. The simulation will analyze various attacks, find vournability of previous protocols to trace threat and security issues associated with the field of computer forensics.

Vision:

• To find Security/Cryptographic solution of existing protocols for various attacks.
• Design and development of Security Protocols/primitives for Mobile devices such as PDA, Smart card, Wireless Sensor Networks, etc.

Mission:
Information is the cooked data becoming a vital and sensitive. It differs radically from other resources for instance, it can be easily pirated without cost, it can be communicated at the speed of light, and it can be destroyed without leaving traces. It needs to find solution for secure computing, records management, privacy, and protect restricted information. This poses a new scientific challenge. The mission of Information Research Group (ISRG) will be

• To contribute  and finding practical solutions for, known and emerging information security problems
• To develop techniques for securing tomorrow's global information infrastructure by exploring theoretical foundations, near-term practical applications, and long-range speculative research.
• To analyze the theoretical power of cryptography and the practical engineering of secure information systems, from appropriate definitions and proofs of security, through cryptographic algorithms and protocol design
• To implementations and testing of real applications with easy-to-use security features.

Objectives:

• Develop a model to understand the emerging concept of energy security of smart phones.
• Develop low cost methodologies and techniques to  achieve energy security of smart  phones;
• Validate the methodologies and techniques by means of analysis, simulations, and implementations.
• Improving the security and/or efficiency of cryptographic applications.
• Designing new, provably secure cryptographic primitives and protocols for mobile devices.
• Formalizing and analyzing common cryptographic practices.

Research Interest:
Some of the suggested research areas are given below, but are not limited to :

1. Designing new, provably secure cryptographic primitives and protocols using Elliptic Curve and Pairing based Cryptography.
2. To analyze the theoretical power of cryptography and the practical engineering of secure information systems, from appropriate definitions and proofs of security, through cryptographic algorithms and protocol design.
3. Develop a model to understand the emerging concept of energy security of smart phones and mobile devices.
4. Develop low cost methodologies and techniques to  achieve energy security of smart  phones and mobile devices.
5. Validate the methodologies and techniques by means of analysis, simulations, and implementations of the designed  protocols and improve its security and efficiency.