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CICS News and Announcements
13th November 2015 NSF Director Remarks Cyber Security Research in UNT
![cordova](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20160511044635im_/http://www.nsf.gov/news/speeches/cordova/_images/cordova_th.jpg) |
The University of North Texas' Ram Dantu (pronounced "Dan-Tu") is director of
the UNT Center for Information and Computer Security and researches
Voice over IP (VoIP) security. This research has led to a number of new companies:
Sipera Systems, VoIP shield Systems, Kagoor Networks (which was acquired by Juniper
Networks, a leading networking company with 2014 revenues nearly $5B) and Kayote Networks.
Link
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21st November 2015 Garima Bajwa wins Three Minute Thesis Competition
![garima](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20160511044635im_/http://www.cse.unt.edu/people/StudentNewsletters/2015Nov/3minuteThesis.jpg) |
Congratulations to Garima Bajwa on winning the Toulouse Graduate School’s
Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition held on November 21st at UNT! In this competition,
nine graduate students had three minutes to explain their research and dissertation
to a general audience. Garima presented her thesis "Neuro-Sign: NOT Just another Vital Sign".
3MT is not an exercise in trivializing or ’dumbing-down’ research, but challenges
students to consolidate their ideas and research discoveries so they can be presented
concisely to a non-specialist audience. The first 3MT competition was held in Australia
at the University of Queensland in 2008. More than 200 universities worldwide
now host competitions, including 40 in the U.S.
Garima won the first prize of $3,000 and will represent UNT at the regional competition,
which is scheduled for the Southern Council of Graduate Schools annual conference in February.
She is a Ph.D. student of Dr. Ram Dantu.
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19th August 2015 Congressman Michael Burgess hosts Cyber-Security Roundtable at CSE
![students](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20160511044635im_/http://www.cse.unt.edu/images/t_2015CyberSecurity.jpg)
![takabi students](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20160511044635im_/http://www.cse.unt.edu/images/t_Takabi-Students.jpg)
![panel](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20160511044635im_/http://www.dentonrc.com/local-news/local-news-headlines/20150819-drc_cybersecurity_081915_45549293.ece/BINARY/w460x307/DRC_CYBERSECURITY_081915_45549293) |
Congressman Michael C. Burgess, M.D., hosted a Cyber-Security Roundtable on August 19, 2015 at Discovery Park.
After UNT President Dr. Neal Smatresk welcomed everyone, Congressman Burgess gave his opening remarks.
Dr. Dantu, CSE Professor and Director of the UNT Center for Information and Computer Security,
participated on a Cyber-Security Panel with David Wagner, President of Entrust Datacard;
Stephen Bohanon, Founder, Chief Strategy and Sales Officer for Alkami Technology, Inc.
The panel was moderated by Larry Parker, Owner of the Denton Depot. James Elliott,
Assistant Regional Director of the Southwest Region of the Federal Trade Commission also made remarks
before a question and answer session with the audience.
Read more about this event in this
Denton Record-Chronicle article
.
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27th March 2015 UNT Center for Information and Computer Security hosts Workshop on Hot Topics in Networking and Security (HoNeST)
![Dr. Dantu welcoming people to HoNeST workshop](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20160511044635im_/http://www.cse.unt.edu/people/StudentNewsletters/2015Apr/HoNeST.jpg) |
On March 27, the UNT Center for Information and Computer Security hosted a Workshop on
Hot Topics in Networking and Security (HoNeST) at Ericsson, Inc. in Plano, TX.
Several experts in the field of cybersecurity talked to an audience of more than 220 people.
Seventy percent of the audience was from industry, which included managers, directors, and software developers.
More than 50 companies were represented at the event. Other attendees included faculty from community colleges
(more than 10 represented), faculty from universities and students.
UNT CSE Chair Dr. Barrett Bryant introduced the morning Keynote Speaker Jeremy Epstein, Program Director
at the National Science Foundation, who spoke on "Voting Security and Risk Management."
During lunch, UNT Graduate Students shared their research with attendees with their poster presentations.
Following lunch, Dr. Dantu introduced the afternoon Keynote Speaker Dr. Henning Schulzrinne,
Professor at Columbia University and Chief Technical Officer at the FCC.
Dr. Schlzrinne’s speech was "Insanity Is—Or How Can We Finally Make Progress on Securing our Computing Infrastructure?"
CSE Professor Dr. Dantu is the Director of the UNT Network Security Lab. He was the Conference and Program Chair.
CSE Principal Lecturer David Keathly was the Proceedings and Publicity Chair.
Both Dr. Dantu and Mr. Keathly were on the Steering Committee, along with CSE Lecturer Dr. Mark Thompson.
This event was sponsored by the UNT Department of Computer Science and Engineering;
the National Convergence Technology Center, an NSF National Center hosted at Collin College;
Ericsson; and Master Computing in Denton. A media gallery page with pictures of the conference is here.
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5th December 2014 CSE Graduate Student wins Spirit of Innovation Competition
![Shanti Thiyagaraja](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20160511044635im_/http://www.cse.unt.edu/gallery/students/2014Fall_TATFs/thumbs/t_ShantiThiyagaraja.jpg) |
Congratulations to Shanti Thiyagaraja on winning the Spirit of Innovation Competition,
sponsored by the US India Chamber of Commerce DFW (USICOC), on December 4, 2014.
Shanti is a CSE graduate student in Dr. Ram Dantu’s Network Security Lab.
Shanti won $5,000 for her presentation on "Smart Phone Monitoring of Second Heart Sound Split."
Students from local universities, including Southern Methodist University (SMU),
the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA), the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD)
and the University of North Texas, participated in the competition.
This is the second year that the USICOC has hosted the Spirit of Innovation Competition.
This event brings together students from local universities
and gives them the opportunity to showcase their innovative business ideas.
This year 29 submissions were reviewed by a panel of judges
which included professors from all four universities, venture capitalists
and management from Texas Instruments and other companies.
Eight finalists were selected to present their concepts to the judging panel live at Texas Instruments.
The winners and more information are included in this USICOC press release.
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1st November 2014 UNT IA/CD Student Graduation
![pic_satyajeeth](ccdc/img/SatyajeetNimgaonkar.jpg) |
Satyajeet Nimgaonkar
UNT IA/CD student Satyajeet Nimgaonkar graduated with his PhD in computer
science in August 2014. He is attached to the department of Computer Science and
Engineering and his major professor is Dr. Mahadevan Gomathisankaran. His
dissertation title was "Secure and Energy Efficient Execution Frameworks
Using Virtualization and Light-Weight Cryptographic Components". |
">
![pic_fazeen](ccdc/img/t_Fazeen-Dantu.jpg) |
Mohamed Fazeen
UNT IA/CD student Mohamed Fazeen Mohamed Issadeen
defended his dissertation and will be graduated with his PhD in computer
science in December 2014. He is attached to the department of Computer Science and
Engineering and his major professor is Dr. Ram Dantu. His
dissertation title was "Modeling and Analysis of Intentional and
Unintentional Security Vulnerabilities in a Mobile Platform ". |
25th June 2014 The UNT Kuehne Speaker Series on National Security
![](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20160511044635im_/http://www.kuehneseries.unt.edu/sites/kuehneseries.unt.edu/files/images/slideshow/background-images/Kuehne-website-1.png) |
The UNT Kuehne
Speaker Series on National Security was established in 2013 to
showcase UNT’s nationally and internationally recognized programs
and faculty engaged in issues related to national and human
security. The series was established thanks to generous support from
UNT alumnus Ernie Kuehne (’66), an attorney and
president and board chairman of Kuehne Oil Co.
2014-15 Season Outlook - General Keith B.
Alexander (November 5, 2014 ) |
General Keith B.
Alexander has served as commander of the U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM)
and chief of the Central Security Service and is the longest-serving
director of the National Security Agency. A four-star Army general,
Alexander became head of the NSA and CSS in 2005, a pivotal time
period for American security due to the conflicts in Afghanistan and
Iraq and the increased threat of cyber attacks. In 2010, Alexander
was inaugurated under President Obama and Defense Secretary Robert
Gates as first commander of USCYBERCOM, a military institution
integral to the nation’s security and prosperity.
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3rd June 2014
Dr. Ram Dantu Presented under the topic "The Connected Car" at
TIA'2014 Netwrok of the Future conference
![TIA Logo](ccdc/img/tia-2012-logo.gif) |
Dr. Ram Dantu attended the TIA'2014 Network of the Future conference on June 3rd to 5th, 2014 at Dallas, TX and presented under the "Big Data & Privacy" track. His topic of the day was "The Connected Car".
Part of his discussion was described as follows; "Most automakers are developing multimedia for infotainment, mobile device support and such functions as touch and voice recognition, radar, video, way-finding, real-time diagnostics and online services. Vehicle automation will find its apex in autonomous driving cars that integrate sensory input from the environment, other vehicles and the wireless carrier infrastructure. "
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8th April 2014 Mohamed Fazeen, Garima Bajwa and Shanti Thiyagaraja attended the 9th Annual Cyber and Information Security Research Conference (CISRC 2014) held at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
![](ccdc\img\ORNL_2014.jpg) |
Mohamed Fazeen presented the following paper at the conference and he received a $500 travel grant from CENG Graduate Student Travel Funds for the travel;
Mohamed Fazeen, Garima Bajwa, Ram Dantu, “Context-Aware Multimedia Encryption in Mobile Platforms,” Cyber and Information Security Research (CISR '14), Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA, April 2014.
Dr. Ram Dantu, and his students Garima Bajwa and, Shanti Thiyagaraja were also attended the conference.
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9th March 2014 CSE Cyber Defense team places third in Southwest Regional CCDC
![](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20160511044635im_/http://www.cse.unt.edu/images/2014-3_CCDCcompetition.jpg) |
Congratulations to the CSE Cyber Defense Team on their third place finish in
the Southwest Regional Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (CCDC), on March 8 and 9 in San Antonio,
TX. Dr. Mahadevan Gomathisankaran is the faculty mentor for the team. For more information see this
Trusted Secure Systems Lab page.
The team was featured in this
news video about the competition.
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1st February 2014 : CSE Cyber Defense Team qualifies for Southwest Regional CCDC
![](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20160511044635im_/http://www.cse.unt.edu/images/CCDC1_1024.jpg) |
Computer Science and Engineering Cyber Defense Team passed the qualifying round on February 1 and became one of only four teams to compete in the Southwest Regional Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (CCDC), on March 8 and 9 in San Antonio, TX. Dr. Mahadevan Gomathisankaran is the faculty mentor for the team.
(Picture: Back row (L-R): Alex Breinig, Chad Saye, Philip Becker, Jimi Mills; Front row (L-R): Tawfiq Shah, Junkai Sun, Dr. Mahadevan Gomathisankaran, Srujan Kotikela, Kevin Ray. Two members missing are Patrick Kamongi and Tim Page.)
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25th October 2013: Mohamed Fazeen attended the conference Research in Attacks, Intrusions and Defenses (RAID 2013) in St. Lucia to present following two poster abstract.
![](ccdc\img\RAID_LOGO.jpg) |
CSE graduate student Mohamed Fazeen attended the conference, Research in Attacks, Intrusions and Defenses (RAID 2013) in St. Lucia on October 23-25, 2013 to present the following two posters. Cynthia Claiborne, Jagannadh Vempati, Mohamed Fazeen and their major professor Dr. Ram Dantu authored/co-authored the publications.
-
Cynthia Claiborne,
Mohamed Fazeen, and Ram Dantu, "Android Sensor Data Anonymization,"
In S.J. Stolfo, A. Stavrou, and C.V. Wright (Eds.): Research in
Attacks, Intrusions, and Defenses (RAID) 2013, Volume 8145 of
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pp. 469–471, 2013.
-
Jagannadh Vempati, Garima Bajwa, and Dr. Ram Dantu, "NFC Based
Two-Pass Mobile Authentication," In S. Angelos, and W. Charles
(Eds.): Research in Attacks, Intrusions, and Defenses (RAID) 2013,
Volume 8145 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pp. 467–468, 2013.
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25th October 2013: CSE Students winning awards at the LeadingAge HackFest held at the Dallas Convention Center
![](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20160511044635im_/http://www.cse.unt.edu/people/StudentNewsletters/2013Nov/DavidAdamo_QuentinMayo.jpg) |
CSE graduate students Quentin Mayo and David Adamo, Jr., and computer engineering undergraduate student Mahsa Kia won awards at the LeadingAge HackFest held at the Dallas Convention Center October 25-27. Quentin and Mahsa were on the Amaze team which won the People's Choice Award for $1,000. David was on Team Global EngAge which won the top prize of $5,000 for their creation of the Engage Platform, which allows retirement communities to offer their activities online so that home-bound elderly can participate. Congratulations to all of them!
The 2013 LeadingAge HackFest, co-sponsored by Ziegler and LeadingAge, is an event designed to bring together participants with a variety of backgrounds to create technology-driven tools aimed at improving the lives of older adults and their caregivers. Learn more about LeadingAge Hackfest in this
UNT news release.
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16th October 2013: Srujan Kotikela receives ACSAC 2013 Conferenceship Award
![](ccdc\img\ACSAC_logo-118.gif) |
Srujan Kotikela, Ph.D. student of TSSL, has received a conferenceship award of $1000 to attend the
ACSAC 2013 conference. He presented a work-in-progress paper about our PRIUS (PRIvacy against Unlawful Surveillance) mobile application.
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16th October 2013: Garima Bajwa, Quentin Mayo attended the
2013 LASER Workshop to discuss their
research work in progress (WIP)
Graima Bajwa presented the following work at the workshop
Garima Bajwa and Ram Dantu, "Cryptographic Key Generation using Electroencephalograms" In Proceedings of the 2013 Workshop on Learning from Authoritative Security Experiment Results (LASER 2013), Arlington, VA,
USA [Work in Progress Workshop Presentation]
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Summer 2013: Enkh-Amgalan Baatarjav received the 2013 Toulouse Dissertation Award in the Physical Sciences, Mathematics and Engineering field of competition.
![](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20160511044635im_/http://www.cse.unt.edu/people/StudentNewsletters/2013Nov/Baatarjav_Dantu.jpg) |
As a winner of the Toulouse Dissertation Award, he will receive a $1000 cash prize. The title of his dissertation is "Privacy Management for Online Social Networks." He was nominated by the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and selected by a university-wide faculty committee because of his outstanding demonstration of individual and innovative work in his dissertation.
Dr. Baatarjav graduated in Summer 2013 and is now an adjunct instructor for the CSE Department. Congratulations to him on winning this award and being recognized for this scholarly achievement!
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12th June 2013: Dr. Dantu Featured in the National Science Foundation Web Cast
![](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20160511044635im_/http://www.cse.unt.edu/member_pics/DantuWebcast.jpg) |
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has recognized Dr. Ram Dantu's research by promoting it on the front page of its website with this
article. The NSF also invited Dr. Dantu and Dr. Henning Schulzrinne, Chief Technology Officer for the United States Federal Communications Commission and Professor at Columbia University, to do a webcast which is the first time that research from the DFW area has been featured in a NSF
webcast. Dr. Dantu is presented his app software to aid 9-1-1 operators at the 2013 National Emergency Number Association Conference in the same week in Charlotte, NC. The Denton Record-Chronicle also featured this
news on the front page of its June 17th, 2013 edition.
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5th April 2013: SoMiC Workshop: Security on the Move and in the Clouds on April 5
![](ccdc/img/CTC.jpg) |
The Department of Computer Science and Engineering, in collaboration with the National Convergence Technology Center at Collin College, will host the 2nd SoMiC Workshop: Security on the Move and in the Clouds on April 5, 2013 at UNT’s Discovery Park campus. Speakers from area Faculty, Graduate Students, and Industry Professionals are all welcome and encouraged to attend. Proposed session or poster titles should be submitted before March 10, 2013. Please see the website for more details. - News on UNT CSE |
26th January 2013: CSE Cyber Defense team qualifies for Southwest Regional CCDC
![](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20160511044635im_/http://www.cse.unt.edu/people/StudentNewsletters/2013Feb/CCDCteam.jpg) |
The Cyber Defense Team from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering has passed the qualifying round and will compete in the Southwest Regional Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (CCDC) on March 9 and 10 in San Antonio, TX. The qualifying round was held on January 25 and 26.
Dr. Mahadevan Gomathisankaran is the faculty sponsor for the team. The following CSE Students will participate in this competition:
- Yernat Yestekov (MS)
- Rajesh Reddy Pinniti (MS)
- Christa Holt
- Tawfiq Shah
- Santiago Serrato
- Jimi Mills
- Srujan Kotikel (PhD)
Congratulations to the team on passing the qualifying round and good luck in the final competition in March!
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20th Aug 2012: UNT receives National Science Foundation's (NSF), FED CYBER SERV: SCHLAR FOR SER (SFS) award
NSF granted this award under the title ‘SFS-NEW: Advancing Learning and Leadership Through an Integrated Multidisciplinary Doctoral Program in Information Assurance’. This award will be supporting six Ph.D. students during the coming 5 years. For more details contact Prof. Ram Dantu
12th June 2012: Dr. Dantu helps UNT to obtain the National Center for Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Research (CAE-R) and Education (CAE-IAE)
"Dr. Ram Dantu, Director of the Center For Information and Computer Security (CICS) and Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, has been informed that the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security have designated the University of North Texas as a National Center for Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Research (CAE-R) for the academic years 2012 through 2017. CICS is ranked as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education (CAE-IAE) from 2003-2017.
UNT is one of 36 universities in the nation and one of four universities in Texas designated as CAE-R and CAE-IAE by the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security. The Center for Information and Computer Security offers research expertise in Internet-based technologies, protocol security, digital forensics, watermarking, cryptography, secured electronic commerce and secured mobile applications and VoIP security." - News on UNT CSE
NSA link
April 2012: UNT to organize a
workshop on information security in Denton in April 10-12, 2012
The workshop will address several state of the art topics in
information assurance, security informatics,
computer crime, network security, cryptography and trusted platforms.
The workshop
is open to all the faculty and students of the community colleges in
DFW metroplex.
Jan 2012: Denton is named one of
the ten cities
for data security operations, 30th January, 2012.
http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/print-edition/2012/02/03/denton-becomes-a-hot-spot-for-data.html
Jan 2012: Dr. Ram Dantu has
published an article in the book titled
“Handbook on Securing Cyber-Physical Critical Infrastructure”.
The book was published by the Elsevier and the book reference number is
(ISBN:9780124158153).
Sept 2011: The paper titled
"Unveiling Hidden Patterns to Find Social
Relevance" by Enkh-Amgalan Baatarjav and Dr. Ram Dantu was nomimated
for
best paper award in
Sociocom'2011.
This paper was accepted in one of the prestigious conferences, and had
an acceptance rate of 9.8%. Reference: Enkh-Amgalan Baatarjav and Ram
Dantu, “Unveiling Hidden Patterns to Find Social Relevance”,
The Third IEEE International Conference on Social Computing, MIT campus
in Cambridge, MA, October 2011.
2011: Issues and challenges in
securing VoIP paper
was one of the top most downloaded papers in the Journal of Computers
and Security.
Reference: R. Dantu, S. Fahmy, H. Schulzrinne, J. Cangussu, “Issues and
challenges in securing VoIP”, Computers & Security, Vol. 28,
No. 8, pp. 743-753, 2009.
Nov 2011: Texas Community College
Technology
Forum, Collin College Plano, TX Track
Manage and Secure Mobile Technologies. This session
discussed current trends and strategies to manage and secure mobile
technologies in higher education. We explored the Symantec security
strategy around embracing consumerization of IT and mobility in higher
education. We covered aspects of asset management, and security, and
information-centric approaches to empowering the user to utilize the
full capabilities of new technology, while mitigating the risks
associated with sensitive information. Travis Krischke, Endpoint
Management and Mobility Specialist from Symantec spoke in this
workshop.
Nov 2011: Faculty Member, Dr.
Gomathisankaran in CSE presented in University of Texas at Dallas in
2011 on Homomorphic Cyptographic System
Link: http://nsl.cse.unt.edu/~dantu/cae/e/Gomathisankaran_UTDallasLecture.pdf
Aug 2011: UNT student, Adamo Oluwayoni
graduated with her
Ph.D.
Her dessertaion title was "Joint Schemes for Physical
Layer
Security and Error Correction"
http://nsl.cse.unt.edu/~dantu/cae/attachments/Adamo_yomi_dissertation.pdf
Aug-2011:
UNT was re-designated for 4011, 4012 and 4013 security certificates for
another 4 years by NSA/DHS
May 2011: UNT student, Roopa
Vishwanathan graduated with her Ph.D.
Her dissertation title was "Exploring Privacy in
Location-Based Services using Cryptographics Protocols". http://nsl.cse.unt.edu/~dantu/cae/attachments/vishwanathan-r.pdf
2010 - 2011: Seminar series in
Information Security and Privacy.
Four experts from the industry were invited to talk
on the information security, threats, frauds, compliance, privacy, and
emerging technologies. http://nsl.cse.unt.edu/~dantu/cae/e/CDIT%20Seminars%202010-2011.pdf
Feb
2010:
UNT CSE PhD Graduate Joins MIT SENSEable City Lab
Santi Phithakkitnukoon received his Ph.D. in Computer
Science and
Engineering at the December 2009 graduation. Santi has defended his
dissertation "Inferring Social and Internal Context using a Mobile
Phone" in October 2009. His major professor was Ram Dantu, Associate
Professor in the UNT Department of Computer Science and Engineering.
Santi has joined MIT SENSEable City Lab as a Postdoctoral Research
Fellow. He is currently working with other MIT researchers to create
an innovative navigation system with new interactive capabilities that
will assist drivers in identifying and planning activities in
real-time and determining optimal routes for commuting between
destinations.
Jan 2010:
Faculty Member, Dr. Dantu NSF-IUSSTF Workshop on Distributed
Infrastructure for Security Monitoring and Intelligence Extraction.
Link: http://nsl.cse.unt.edu/~dantu/cae/e/Infrasec_2010_Bangalore.pdf
Dec 2009: UNT student, Santi
Phithakkitnukoon graduated with his Ph.D.
His dissertation title was "Inferring Social and
Internal Context using a Mobile Phone". http://nsl.cse.unt.edu/~dantu/cae/attachments/InferringSocialandInternalContextusingaMobilePhone.pdf
Sept 2009: Dr. Mahadevan
Gomathisankaran joined the Department of Computer Science and
Engineering, UNT.
Dr. Gomathisankaran received his B.E. degree in
Electronics and Communications Engineering from National Institute of
Technology (formerly a Regional Engineering College) in Trichy, India
in the year 1998. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from
Iowa State University in the year 2006 under the guidance of Prof.
Akhilesh Tyagi. He was a Post-Doctoral Research Associate at the
Princeton University working with Prof. Ruby Lee in PALMS from December
2007 to Aug 2009.
March 2009: UNT CSE faculty, Dr.
Ryan Garlick featured in the National Geographic program "Code
Breakers".
link: http://www.cse.unt.edu/site/node/217
May 2008: UNT student,
Vandana Gunupudi graduated with
her Ph.D.
Her dissertation title was "Exploring
Trusted Platform Module Capabilities: A Theoretical and
Experimental Study". http://nsl.cse.unt.edu/~dantu/cae/attachments/vandana%20Dissertation.pdf
Dec 2007: UNT student, Prakash
Kolan graduated with his Ph.D.
His dissertation title was "System
and Methods for Detecting Unwanted Voice Calls". http://nsl.cse.unt.edu/~dantu/cae/attachments/SystemandMethodsforDetectingUnwantedVoiceCalls.pdf
Jan 22,
2007:
UNT to host the 2007 Southwest Regional Collegiate Cyber Defense Contest
The University of North Texas will be hosting the 3rd
Southwest
Regional Collegiate Cyber Defense Contest
this year, to be held March 23-25. In this contest, student teams
take over a running and configured (or perhaps mis-configured!)
network, and must keep systems and services running in the presence of
ongoing attacks. In addition, students are given tasks to solve
throughout the contest, which involve typical IT tasks such as setting
up new accounts, enabling remote access, and installing new software.
For more information, see the contest web site.
Sept 5,
2006:
Prof. Dantu receives two new grants
Prof. Ram Dantu received two more grants from the National
Science
Foundation for research projects beginning in September 2006. For the
first grant, "Detecting Spam in IP Multimedia Communication Services,"
Dr. Dantu will collaborate with Dr. Henning Schulzrinne from Columbia
University for two years. UNT will receive $131,392 of this $250,000
research grant. Dr. Dantu also received a second NSF grant for
$300,000 for a three year research period for "Development of a
Flexible Platform for Experimental Research in Secure IP Multimedia
Communication Services." More information on these and other projects
can be found on the Network
Security
Laboratory web site.
Aug 16,
2006:
Grant received for collaborative information assurance project
The National Science Foundation has awarded $128,106 for the
project
"Collaborative Project: A Regional Partnership to Build and Strengthen
IA in North Texas", with Prof. Tate as PI and Prof. Dantu as
co-PI. This project is funded through the NSF Scholarship for Service
program, which UNT is eligible for as a result of being designed a
"Center for Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education" by
the National Security Agency (NSA). Additional funding was provided to
the University of Texas at Arlington as part of a regional partnership
on this project, and a regional alliance known as ASCENT (Alliance for
Secure Computing Education in North Texas) has been created with UNT
and UTA as the initial members. More information can be found at the
ASCENT web site.
June
27, 2006:
Prof. Dantu's research on "top ten" list in Network World
Prof. Ram Dantu's VoIP research has been named one of "the
ten most
interesting projects" at university and other labs in this
article in Network World (Prof. Dantu's research had been previously
written about in Network World in an April
article). The article notes that "the University of North
Texas
and others are creating a testbed to explore VoIP spam,
denial-of-service attacks and other threats."
April
6, 2006:
Prof. Dantu receives grant for VoIP security project
Prof. Dantu has received a grant from the National Science
Foundation
to lead a multi-university project in VoIP security, and has been
highlighted in an NSF
press
release. This press release quotes Rita Virginia Rodriguez,
the
NSF program director who oversees the project, as saying, "VoIP
security
requires immediate attention, and this research addresses a number of
critical aspects needed to help prevent imminent threats."
April
25, 2005:
Ke Xu receives "Best Dissertaion Award" in College of Engineering
Ke Xu has received the Research Dissertation Award for
Research
Achievement in Engineering. Dr. Xu graduated in Spring 2004, with
Dr. Steve Tate as his major professor. The title of his dissertation
was "Mobile Agent Security through Multi-Agent Cryptographic
Protocols."
In his research, Dr. Xu showed how mobile code can be
protected while
on remote hosts in a provably secure way, through innovative use of
cryptography and interaction. This work formed the basis for a
successful $250,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. Dr. Xu
now works as part of the security group at NEC Unified Solutions in
Irving.
April
18, 2005:
UNT students participate in first ever Collegiate Cyberdefense
Competition
A team of 8 students, 6 from Computer Science and
Engineering and 2
from Business Computer Information Systems, traveled to San Antonio to
compete in the first ever Collegiate Cyberdefense Competition. In
this contest, students managed a network for a fictional company and
earned points for keeping network services up and running while a
professional red team was launching attacks. Prof. Tate and
Prof. Jensen coached and traveled with the students, and travel
expenses were generously paid for by Microsoft.
March
1, 2005:
"Digital Crime and Digital Terrorism" book by UNT authors published
Robert W. Taylor, Tory J. Caeti, Kall Loper, Eric J.
Fritsch, and John
Liederbach of the Department of Criminal Justice have published a book
entitled "Digital
Crime and Digital Terrorism" through Prentice-Hall
(Taylor and Loper are faculty affiliates of CICS). This book explores
both technical aspects of digital crime as well as behavioral aspects
of computer hackers, virus writers, terrorists and other offenders,
and is available in major bookstores and through online booksellers.
Sept.
20, 2004:
CICS receives Governor's recognition and Prof. Tate receives
UNT National Security Award
UNT and CICS have received a commendation from Governor Rick
Perry for
CICS's work in cybersecurity. Prof. Tate accepted the commendation at
the Fall 2004 faculty convocation, where he received the UNT "National
Security
Award".
April
13, 2004:
NSA designates UNT a "Center of Academic Excellence in Information
Assurance Education"
The National Security Agency, or NSA, has awarded the
University of
North Texas with the designation of a "Center of Academic Excellence
in Information Assurance Education" for its strong computer and
information security program. This prestigious designation recognizes
UNT's commitment to excellence in information assurance, and places
UNT among the top academic programs in computer security in the
nation. UNT was among 10 new designees for 2004, bringing the total
to 60 institutions nationwide designated as centers of excellence.
For more information, see here.
November
11, 2003:
UNT receives NSA certification for computer security courses.
The computer science and security courses offered by the
University
of North Texas have been certified as a 100% mapping to the Committee
on National Security Systems (CNSS) National Standards 4011 (for
Information Security Professionals) and 4013 (for Security System
Adminstrators). This certification is made by the Information
Assurance Courseware Evaluation (IACE) Program, part of the National
INFOSEC (Information Security) Education and Training Program
administered by the U.S. National
Security Agency (NSA). UNT students successfully completing
the
required courses will receive certificates demonstrating their
qualifications as security professionals.
For more information,
see here.
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