Introduction
The Secure and Privacy (SnP) lab at Michigan Technological University was established in early 2018. The mission of SnP lab is to promote research and education of cybersecurity. For research, we aim to tackle cutting-edge security and privacy problems, protecting safety and assets of people from malicious attacks. For education, we are enthusiastic about broadcasting cybersecurity knowledge among graduate and undergraduate students. We are also dedicated to promoting cybersecurity training among underrepresented groups and future cybersecurity professionals through various outreach efforts.
News
April 2024: Dr. Bo Chen and Dr. Niusen Chen have recevied the 2024 MTU Bhakta Rath Research Award!
April 2024: We receive 7.8K seed grant from GLRC/ICC Rapid Seedling Research Funding (PI: Niusen Chen, co-PI: Bo Chen) for our smart vehicle security research. Congratulations, Niusen!
Oct 2023: Four research posters (led by Josh Dafoe, Harsh Singh, Caleb Rother, Niusen Chen) from SnP lab were presented in the MTU Showcase [AI] Poster Session.
August 2023: Dr. Chen has been appointed as the Director of ICC Center for Cybersecurity. The center currently consists of 8 faculty members from Department of Computer Science, Department of Applied Computing, Department of Mechanical Engineering—Engineering Mechanics, College of Business.
August 2023: Josh Dafoe gave a talk ``Ransomware Defense via File System Forensics and Flash Data Extraction'' in Flash Memory Summit 2023.
April 2023: Dr. Chen received $16,000 REU supplement from National Science Foundation for his NSF Award "SaTC: CORE: Small: Hardware-assisted Self-repairing in Decentralized Cloud Storage against Malicious Attacks". The grant will support more undergradute students into the fundamental research of secure data recovery in critical systems.
March 2023: Josh Dafoe from our lab was awarded 2023 Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF). The SURF fellowship is highly competitive, and typically only 16 undergraduate students from the entire university receive this fellowship each year. Congratulations, Josh!
March 2023: Ryan Klemm from our lab was awarded 2023 Computer Science Departmental Scholar. The Computer Science Departmental Scholar Award, established by the Office of the Provost, recognizes an undergraduate student who will have senior status the next academic year and who represents the best of student scholarship in the department, especially in the areas of intellectual curiosity, creativity, and communication. Department Scholars are nominated for the Provost’s Award for Scholarship to be selected later this spring. Well deserved, Ryan!
February 2023: Dr. Chen is founding a new International Conference on Security and Privacy in Cyber-Physical Systems and Smart Vehicles (SmartSP 2023). The conference will be held in Chicago in October 2023. The conference will specifically focus on the security and privacy research of the emerging cyber physical systems, especially smart vehicles.
February 2023: Niusen Chen received the Outstanding Scholarship Award from the graduate school. The scholarship award is limited to top 1% of enrolled students in each department/college/interdisciplinary program. Congratulations, Niusen!
November 2022: Niusen Chen received the Finishing Fellowship (full support for Spring 2023 semester) from the graduate school. Congratulations, Niusen!
October 2022: Two students (Niusen Chen, Josh Dafoe) from SnP lab presented posters in Fall 2022 Computing[MTU] Showcase Poster Session.
October 2022: Dr. Chen received 4K seed grant from MTU Institute of Computing and Cybersystems (ICC) to support his malware research.
August 2022: Dr. Chen has received a grant (around $600K) from NSF SaTC core program which will support his research on building secure decentralized cloud by leveraging trusted execution environment and flash translation layer.
August 2022: Dr. Chen presented the flash memory security research in Flash Memory Summit 2022, the leading flash memory industry conference in the world! Flash Memory Summit has attracted hundreds of flash memory manufacturers and vendors from Silicon Valley and the other parts of the world including Intel, AMD, Samsung, SK Hynix, KIOXIA, IBM, Western Digital, Marvell, Microchip, etc.
June 2022: We got two papers accepted by SecureComm 2022. Congratulations, Niusen!
June 2022: Dr. Chen presented the PDE and the secure data recovery projects in the poster session of 5th NSF SaTC PI Meeting, held in Arlington, Virginia during June 1 - 2, 2022.
April 2022: A few students (Niusen Chen, Mezbahul Islam, Thomas Grifka) from SnP lab presented posters in Computing[MTU] Showcase Poster session. Thomas Grifka (undergraduate student) won a Third Place for his poster "Image Steganography: Unknown Information".
February 2022: Mezbahul's project "Ultrasound Password Vault" has got the Black Hole Award from MTU Winter WonderHack 2022. Congrautions, Mezbahul!
February 2022: Niusen has a paper accepted to AsiaCCS 2022, with acceptance rate 18.4%. Congratulations, Niusen!
May 2021: Niusen received a Student Registration Grant from 42nd IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (S&P '21). Congratulations, Niusen!
May 2021: Our paper "MobiWear: A Plausibly Deniable Encryption System for Wearable Mobile Devices" received the Best Paper Award from The First EAI International Conference on Applied Cryptography in Computer and Communications (EAI AC3 2021). Congratulations, Niusen!
May 2021: Dr. Chen received $15,900 REU supplement from National Science Foundation for his NSF Award "SaTC: CORE: Small: Collaborative: Hardware-assisted Plausibly Deniable System for Mobile Devices". This REU supplement aims to involve more undergraduate students into PDE and steganography research.
February 2021: MTU will receive a five-year, $3.3 million NSF grant from the CyberCorps: Scholarship for Service program (NSF announcement). Dr. Chen is a co-PI of this project (Dr. Yu Cai is the PI).
January 2021: We have received 3.5K seed grant (PI: Dr. Xiaoyong Yuan, co-PI: Dr. Bo Chen) from MTU ICC. This seed grant will support us to investigate AI security in mobile devices.
December 2020: Dr. Chen has received an Research Excellence Fund Award (REF) from MTU. This $25K award will support his research on protecting sensitive data in cloud storage systems.
August 2020: Dr. Chen is a co-PI for an NSA/NSF Gencyber grant which aims to promote cyberseurity education and training among K-12 students and teachers in Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
June 2020: Dr. Chen is a guest editor for Thematic Series: Applied Cryptography in Computer and Communications of Cybersecurity. Look forward to your submissions!
June 2020: Dr. Chen is the founding general chair for the First EAI International Conference on Applied Cryptography in Computer and Communications (AC3), which will be held in Xiamen, China during May 2021. Look forward to your submissions!
May 2020: Niusen Chen presented a poster "A Secure Plausibly Deniable System for Mobile Devices against Multi-snapshot Adversaries" in IEEE S&P '20. Wen Xie presented a poster "Incorporating Malware Detection into The Flash Translation Layer" in IEEE S&P '20.
April 2020: Dr. Chen has received a seed grant ($5K) from MTU College of Computing. This grant willl help promote study of leveraging mobile devices to help mitigate COVID-19 spread.
September 2019: Dr. Chen has received a grant ($250K) from NSF SaTC core program which will support his project on building secure and practical deniable storage system for mobile devices. This is a collaborative project between Michigan Tech and Wayne State University.
August 2019: Wen Xie joined Michigan Technological University CS department as a PhD student. Wen received his MS and BS both from Wuhan University. Welcome, Wen!
August 2019: Niusen presented a poster "Secure Deletion in Flash Storage Media" in 2019 Flash Memory Summit, held in Santa Clara, California during August 6-8, 2019.
July 2019: Dr. Chen has received an NSF EAGER grant ($200K) which will support his project on leveraging flash memory hardware features to defend against OS-level malware in mobile devices.
July 2019: Our research work eHIFS was presented in the 14th ACM ASIA Conference on Computer and Communications Security (ASIACCS '19). eHIFS is an efficient history independent file system which can ensure both secure deletion and order privacy of the stored data in the file system level.
July 2019: Dr. Chen delivered an invited talk "Towards Data Protection in Flash-based Solid State Storage" in the International Workshop on Cyber Security and Data Privacy, held in Hangzhou, China during July 6-7, 2019.
May 2019: Dr. Chen is the co-PIs for two NSA/NSF Gencyber grants which aim to promote cyberseurity education and training among K-12 students and teachers in Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
April 2019: Dr. Chen received MTU ICC Achievement Award for his exceptional contributions to research and education in cybersecurity of mobile devices.
April 2019: SnP lab hosted the security track in 2019 MTU Workshop to Expose Undergraduate Women to Computer Science Research. The workshop was held during April 5 - April 7, sponsored by Google, etc. We guided a few female students (from local universities and colleges in Upper Peninsula of Michigan and Northern Wisconsin) on conducting research on flash memory security.
March 2019: A Research Assistant Professor from Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dr. Shijie Jia, visited SnP lab. Welcome, Dr. Jia!
March 2019: Our research work MimosaFTL was presented in The 9th ACM Conference on Data and Application Security and Privacy (CODASPY '19). MimoFTL explores the special nature of flash memeory to enable data recovery from ransomware attacks.
August 2018: Niusen joined Michigan Technological University CS department as a PhD student. Niusen received his MS from University of Florida, and his BS from Harbin Institute of Technology, Weihai. Niusen will work on flash memory security. Welcome, Niusen!
June 2018: Dr. Chen gave talks about flash memory security in a few prestigious International Universities including Tsinghua University, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan University.
March 2018: Our research published in ACSAC '17 was featured in MTU Unscripted: Science and Engineering Research.
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