Invited Speaker 1: Prof. Arcangelo Castiglione, University of Salerno, Italy

Title: New Insights on Cryptographic Hierarchical Access Control: Models, Schemes, and Analysis

Abstract: Users are typically organized into hierarchies according to their respective roles and responsibilities. Key management for such hierarchies consists of assigning a key to each class of the hierarchy so that the keys for descendant classes can be efficiently obtained from users belonging to classes at a higher level.
This talk analyzes the security of hierarchical key assignment schemes according to different notions. Then, we explore the relations between all security notions and prove that security with respect to strong key indistinguishability is not stronger than the one with respect to key indistinguishability. Moreover, we define the concept of hierarchical key assignment schemes supporting dynamic updates. Finally, we propose a novel model that generalizes the conventional hierarchical access control paradigm by extending it to certain additional sets of qualified users.

Short-Bio: Arcangelo Castiglione received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Salerno, Italy. He is an Associate Professor at the Department of Computer Science, University of Salerno (Italy). He was a Visiting Researcher at the Laboratory of Cryptography and Cognitive Informatics, AGH University of Science and Technology (Poland), and at the Computer Science and Engineering Department, University Politehnica of Bucharest (Romania). His research mainly focuses on cyber-physical systems security, automotive security, network security, data security, watermarking, and cryptography. He is an Associate Editor for several Scopus-Indexed journals, such as Soft Computing (Springer), Connection Science (Taylor & Francis), International Journal of Embedded Systems (Inderscience Publishers), Journal of High-Speed Networks (IOS Press), and IET Cyber-Physical Systems: Theory & Applications (IET). He has been Guest Editor for several Special Issues and Volume Editor for Lecture Notes in Computer Science (Springer). He has been involved in several organizational roles (steering committee member, program chair, and publicity chair) for many international conferences. He has been a reviewer for several top-ranked scientific journals and conferences. He serves as the IEEE Technical Committee on Scalable Computing (TCSC) secretary. He is a founding member of the IEEE Technology and Engineering Management Society (TEMS)’s Technical Committee (TC) on Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT). He has been appointed as a member of the IEEE Technical Committee on Secure and Dependable Measurement.

Homepage: https://docenti.unisa.it/026260/en/home

Invited Speaker 2: Prof. Scott Fowler, Linköping University, Sweden

Title: Optimizing Industrial IoT HVAC using Machine Learning

Abstract: Researchers have developed many state-of-the-art techniques that link thermal comfort, productivity, and health over the last 50 years. These techniques are commonly applied to heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC), With the development of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) technologies, and the use of intelligent data analysis known as Machine Learning (ML), there is a renewed interest in techniques for HVAC, especially in saving energy and cutting emissions while maintaining thermal levels. However, due to the high uncertainty of the environment that IIoT HVAC needs to work in, actors’ demands, and extremely nonlinear building thermal characteristics, developing effective energy management is a great challenge. The talk will present a high overview of the use of ML for HVAC and its possible challenges.

Short-Bio: Dr. Scott Fowler received his Ph.D. from Wayne State University, the USA in 2006. From 2006 to 2010, he was a Research Fellow at Aston University, UK, and Sony Ericsson R&D lab, UK, where the research focused on multiple services in Next Generation Networks (NGNs) in both wireless and wired. Since 2010, he has been an universitetslektor (Associate Professor (US)) at Linköping University (LiU), Sweden, as a member of Communications and Transport Systems (KTS) a division at the Department of Science and Technology (ITN) at LiU. Dr. Fowler's research interests include NGN, Cloud Computing, Internet of Things, Optimization, Machine Learning, Analytics of Systems, and Security. Agencies and industries that have been funding and/or supporting his research are European Union, Smart Built Environment, Cementa, PEAD, Swerock, and Ericsson. Dr. Fowler is a Senior Member of IEEE, Senior Member of ACM, and has served on several IEEE conferences/workshops as TPC to Chair, including Symposium Chair for ICC.

Homepage: https://liu.se/en/employee/scofo47
https://sites.google.com/site/scofo47

Invited Speaker 3: Prof. Wenjun Jiang, Hunan University, China

Title: Online user analysis and learning optimization

Abstract: Online learning platforms provides an open and flexible learning opportunity for many learners. However, there are usually high dropout rate and poor learning effect in online learning. In this talk, I will share our recent works on online user analysis and learning optimization for smart learning, including the method of learning pattern recognition and performance prediction based on learners' behavior evolution, learning task allocation with bipartite graph, fine-grained learning partner recommendation, and course recommendation considering user suitability and course matching degree. I would also like to discuss some future directions on learning optimization and lifelong learning.

Short-Bio: Wenjun Jiang received her Bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Hunan University, P. R. China, in 2004, Master's degree in Computer Software and Theory from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, P. R. China, in 2007, and Doctor's degree in Computer Software and Theory from Central South University, P. R. China, in 2014. She has been a visiting Ph. D student at Temple University for two years. After graduation, she was an assistant professor in Hunan University. Since January 2017, she was an associate professor and a Doctoral Supervisor in Hunan University. Since January 2022, she is a professor and a Doctoral Supervisor in Hunan University. Her research interests include social network analysis, recommendation systems, and smart education and learning optimization. She has published more than 40 technical papers in the above areas, including top international journals like ACM CSUR, IEEE TC, IEEE TPDS, ACM TKDD, ACM TOIT, ACM TWeb and top international conferences like WWW, INFOCOM, AAAI, CIKM. Her research is supported by Key Project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, National Natural Science Foundation of China, National Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province, Open project of Zhejiang Lab, and Science and technology program of Changsha city. Dr. Jiang is a Senior Member of CCF, and Member of the IEEE and ACM.

Homepage: http://csee.hnu.edu.cn/people/jiangwenjun

Invited Speaker 4: Prof. Ryan Ko, University of Queensland, Australia

Title: Operational Technology (OT) and Supply Chain Cyber Security: The Storm Approaching US

Abstract: Operational Technology (OT) automates several processes in our critical infrastructure and economy. This talk will discuss current OT security situation and challenges, and some recent approaches and demos by UQ Cyber’s Industry 4.0 Energy TestLab. We will also discuss another related challenge: supply chain security. We will cover the current supply chain security situation and hot topics which researchers can work towards, in tandem with approaches in industry.

Short-Bio: Professor Ryan Ko is Chair and Director of Cyber Security at the University of Queensland (UQ), Australia. At UQ, he established UQ Cyber - UQ's interdisciplinary cyber security education programme and research centre. Professor Ko has held scientific leadership roles at Hewlett-Packard Labs and academia, and technical advisory roles for ministers, listed companies and the INTERPOL. His OT security research helped to spin off First Watch Ltd, which is helping agricultural and utilities sectors to actively protect their assets from cyber attacks. His cyber security research has also been commercialised into security products of HP, ArcSight, Kali Linux (world’s most popular security testing distro) and OpenStack. An expert in the ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27 (the premier global standards body of cybersecurity), he edited ISO/IEC 21878 and other national standards, and drafted the NZ national Level-6 cybersecurity curriculum for the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

Homepage: https://itee.uq.edu.au/profile/1409/ryan-ko

Invited Speaker 5: Prof. Qin Liu, Hunan University, China

Title: Secure Search in Cloud Computing and Emerging Applications

Abstract: Cloud computing centralizes storage and computation resources and offers pay-as-you-use services over the Internet. Because cloud computing provides overwhelming benefits to consumers, such as elasticity and scalability, sensitive data ranging from personal health records to emails are increasingly outsourced to the cloud. To protect user privacy from the cloud service provider (CSP), existing research suggests encrypting data before outsourcing. This makes traditional data services like keyword-based searches very challenging. The simple solution of downloading all the encrypted data and decrypting them locally is extremely expensive. Therefore, investigating an efficient search service over ciphertexts becomes a paramount urgency. This talk will investigate security and privacy issues in cloud computing, and attempt to identify possible solutions to achieve secure search services in cloud computing.

Short-Bio: Qin Liu received her B.S. in Computer Science in 2004 from Hunan Normal University, China, received her M.S. in Computer Science in 2007, and received her Ph.D. in Computer Science in 2012 from Central South University, China. She has been a Visiting Student at Temple University, USA. Now, she is an Associate Professor in the College of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering at Hunan University, China. Her research interests include security and privacy issues in cloud computing and social networks, and big data security. She has published more than 60 technical papers and books/chapters in the above areas, including top international journals and conferences like IEEE TPDS, IEEE TSC, ACM CCS, IEEE INFOCOM, and so on. She has been serving as a Guest Editor, Conference vice Co-chair, Workshop Co-Chair, Publicity Chair/Co-Chiar, TPC, and reviewer for international journal/conference proceedings.

Homepage: https://qinliu-hnu.github.io/

Invited Speaker 6: Prof. Sabu M. Thampi, Kerala University of Digital Sciences, Innovation and Technology (KUDSIT), India

Title: Security and Privacy Issues in the Internet of Drones

Abstract: TBD.

Short-Bio: Sabu M. Thampi is a Professor at the School of Computer Science & Engineering (SoCSE), Kerala University of Digital Sciences, Innovation and Technology (KUDSIT), Trivandrum, Kerala, India. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from the National Institute of Technology Karnataka. His current research interests include the Internet of Things (IoT), Cognitive Security, Social Networks, Endpoint Security and Smart Cyber-Physical Systems. Sabu is also coordinating the Connected Systems and Intelligence (CSI) Lab at KUDSIT. Dr. Sabu has been actively involved in funded research projects and published papers in book chapters, journals, and conference proceedings. He has authored and edited a few books, as well as edited 45+ conference proceedings published by Springer in various series, as well as a few others published by IEEE, ACM, and Elsevier. Sabu has served as Guest Editor for special issues in a few journals and program committee member for many international conferences and workshops. He has co-chaired several international workshops and conferences. He has initiated and is also involved in the organization of several annual conferences/symposiums. Sabu is currently serving as Editor for Elsevier Journal of Network and Computer Applications (JNCA), Elsevier Journal of Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence (2022), Connection Science - Taylor & Francis, and Associate Editor for IEEE Access and International Journal of Embedded Systems; and reviewer for several reputed international journals. Sabu is a Senior Member of IEEE and ACM. He is the founding Chair of the ACM Trivandrum Professional Chapter.

Homepage: http://www.sabumthampi.in

Invited Speaker 7: Prof. Tian Wang, Beijing Normal University, China

Title: Green Offloading: from “Eastern Data, Western Computing” to Edge Computing

Abstract: Data processing depends on computing power. In this talk, we will introduce the three laws of computing power, especially the relationship between computing power and economics. However, computing also consumes a lot of electricity resources. From 2017 to 2022, the data center racks have grown to 6.7 million, leading to a large amount of energy consumption. To this end, we should take measures from two levels in China. The first is called Eastern Data Western Computing, initiated by the government, which is a kind of offloading from east to west physically. The second is edge computing, another kind of offloading from cloud to edge logically. At last, we will introduce some ongoing work by our group.

Short-Bio: Prof. Wang received his BEng and MEng degrees in computer science and technology from Central South University and his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the City University of Hong Kong. He is currently a full professor at Beijing Normal University. Prof. Wang is the top 2% scientist according to "World's Top 2% Scientists 2021," published by Stanford University. He was supported by the "Hundred-Thousand-Ten Talent Project" and the Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars of Fujian Province. His research covers a wide range of topics, including the Internet of Things, Edge Computing, Mobile Computing. He has published over 200 papers in reputed high-level journals and conferences, including 30 IEEE/ACM Transactions papers. He has more than 11000 citations (H-Index is 59), according to Google Scholar.

Homepage: https://cist.bnu.edu.cn/xygk/szdw/zgj/104104.html

Invited Speaker 8: Prof. Carlos Becker Westphall, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Brazil

Title: Mutual Authentication with Multi-factor and Hybrid Approach to Intrusion Detection in IoT-Fog-Cloud Environment

Abstract: Authentication of restricted memory devices presents significant problems since memory consumption is high in mutual authentication using cryptographic protocols in IoT environments. The development of a multi-factor mutual authentication method that can be used in fog and cloud computing remains a challenge, according to previous studies. The present work aims to improve a method of mutual authentication with multi-factor using an adjustable variable response time, challenge-response function, and nonce. So, with these factors, the same method can be regulated for both the Fog and Cloud Computing contexts. In the Internet of Things (IoT) systems, information of various kinds is continuously captured, processed, and transmitted by systems generally interconnected by the Internet and distributed solutions. Attacks to capture information and overload services are common. This fact makes security techniques indispensable in IoT environments. Intrusion detection is one of the vital security points, aimed at identifying attempted attacks. We present an intrusion detection architecture that operates in the fog computing layer. It has two steps and aims to classify events into specific types of attacks or non-attacks, for the execution of countermeasures. Our work presents a relevant contribution to the state of the art in this aspect. We propose a hybrid binary classification method called DNN-kNN. The approach is based on Deep Neural Networks (DNN) and the k-Nearest Neighbor (kNN) algorithm.

Short-Bio: Carlos Becker Westphall is Full Professor (since 1993) in the Department of Informatics and Statistics at the Federal University of Santa Catarina - Brazil, where he acts as the leader of the Network and Management Laboratory and also coordinates some projects funded by the Brazilian National Research Council (CNPq). Obtained a degree in Electrical Engineering in 1985 and a M.Sc. degree in Computer Science in 1988, both at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Obtained a D.Sc. degree in Computer Science (Network Management) at the Université Paul Sabatier, France, in 1991. He is the author and/or co-author of more than 500 publications. He is (and was) a member of the Editorial Board of more than a dozen journals. Serves (and has served) as a member of the organizing and/or program committee for hundreds of conferences. Has experience in Computer Science and Telecommunications, with emphasis on Administration and Management of Networks and Services, acting mainly on the following themes: security, autonomic computing, cloud computing and Internet of Things. He founded the LANOMS conference (Latin American Network Operations and Management Sym- posium). He also provided services: for IEEE acting on CNOM (Committee on Network Operation and Management); for IFIP acting in “WG6.6 - Management of Networks and Distributed Systems”; to Elsevier as editor of COMNET (Computer Networks Journal); and to Springer as senior editor at JNSM (Journal of Network and Systems Management).

Homepage: https://lrg.ufsc.br/westphal/

Invited Speaker 9: Prof. Yulei Wu, University of Exeter, UK

Title: Trustworthiness of anomaly detection for IIoT

Abstract: With fast development and growth of IIoT, Industry 4.0 brings increasing automation, self-monitoring and diagnosing abilities than traditional manufacturing and industrial practices. However, a small number of anomalies during any stages of Industry 4.0 can make a huge impact on the IIoT infrastructure. Effective anomaly detection has become a crucial process for the success of Industry 4.0 and has been studied for several years. Many anomaly detection schemes adopted advanced machine learning techniques and have achieved excellent performance results. However, they are still facing some burning issues on trustworthiness of detection results, due to lack of explainability and instability of the explanation. In this talk, I will first have a brief review about the current literature on anomaly detection in IIoT, identifying some challenges and issues in relation to trustworthiness of anomaly detection. Then, I will introduce our recent work that addresses some of the challenges and issues, making trustworthy anomaly detection for IIoT.

Short-Bio: Yulei Wu is a Senior Lecturer with the Department of Computer Science, College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences, University of Exeter, United Kingdom. He received the B.Sc. degree (First Class Honours) in Computer Science and the Ph.D. degree in Computing and Mathematics from the University of Bradford, United Kingdom, in 2006 and 2010, respectively. His research interests include networking, Internet of Things, edge intelligence, privacy and trust, and AI and ethics. He is an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management and IEEE Transactions on Network Science and Engineering, as well as an Editorial Board Member of Computer Networks and Future Generation Computer Systems. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE and the ACM, and a Fellow of the HEA (Higher Education Academy).

Homepage: http://empslocal.ex.ac.uk/people/staff/yw433/

Invited Speaker 10: Prof. Yang Xu, Hunan University, China

Title: Blockchain-enabled Cloud Security: Frameworks and Solutions

Abstract: Cloud computing is a flexible network-based service provisioning scheme, which enables users to acquire abundant on-demand services from distributed servers through various terminals anytime anywhere conveniently. However, this service-provisioning paradigm is confronted with severe security challenges because there exist dishonest entries that will violate the service agreements for their own interests. Many traditional security solutions fail in practice because centralized trusted third parties they need are hard to achieve in such decentralized scenarios. Fortunately, the emergence of blockchain technology provides a new way to solve these problems. In this talk, we present a series of blockchain-enabled security schemes to improve the trustworthiness of cloud computing from multiple layers, including data tier, service tier and middle platform tier. In our approaches, the dependable blockchain network is introduced as an interaction platform with self-recording features for users, service providers and even cloud organizers. And with the aid of homomorphic cryptography techniques, a series of security protocols are designed respectively to ensure that the blockchain can collect adequate evidence about service disputes. Moreover, triggerable smart contracts are implemented as impartial decentralized arbitrators that can render fair and credible verdicts based on mere lightweight on-chain evidence when resolving service disputes. We believe that our blockchain-empowered security mechanisms will help to protect cloud computing systems and will certainly play a more important role in promoting its further development and application.

Short-Bio: Yang Xu received the Ph.D. degree in Computer Science and Technology from Central South University, China. From 2012 to 2013, he was a Software Engineer in Intel Cooperation (Asia Pacific R&D Center). From 2015 to 2017, he was a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University, USA. He is currently an Associate Professor and Deputy Director of the Department of Cyberspace Security at the College of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering, Hunan University, China. His research interests include cloud computing, blockchain, data security and privacy, and artificial intelligence security. His research is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province, etc. He has published over 50 articles in international journals and conferences, including IEEE TSC, TCC, TETC, TCBB, TNSE, TII, etc. He was the awardee of the Best Paper Award of IEEE International Conference on Internet of People (IoP 2018). He serves/has served as a Program Committee Chair for UbiSec 2021 and IWCSS 2022, and a reviewer for over 20 international journal/conference proceedings. He is a Senior Member of CCF, a Member of Blockchain Technical Committee of CCF and CSIAM.

Homepage: http://csee.hnu.edu.cn/people/xuyang