Department of Cyber Security Engineering faculty

Military 5G gets a security boost with anti-jamming research

Teresa Donnellan — Mon, 21 Oct 2024 19:01:12 +0000

Military 5G gets a security boost with anti-jamming research Teresa Donnellan Mon, 10/21/2024 - 15:01

As communication networks evolve, they present both opportunities and security challenges to military technicians. Over the past year, Assistant Professor Moinul Hossain from ��AV’s Department of Cyber Security Engineering has contributed to a research initiative aimed at ensuring the safety and integrity of 5G networks used by the United States military. Sponsored by the Army Research Laboratory (ARL) and led by the University of Maryland (UMD), the project focused on safeguarding military communications against potential threats such as jamming attacks.

Hossain’s colleagues will present their work, a research paper titled “Phantom Guard: An MDP-Based Anti-Jamming Defense Strategy for Military 5G Networks,” at the end of this month at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Military Communications Conference (MILCOM). As Hossain will be on leave during the conference, George Mason doctoral student Mahmudul Hassan Ashik, who contributed to the project, will join ARL’s Jeffrey Twigg and Fikadu Dagefu and UMD colleagues for the presentation.

Moinul Hossain. Photo provided

"As 5G technology becomes a cornerstone of global communications, safeguarding its security within military applications is crucial,” said Ashik, who is working on a PhD in cyber security engineering. “Our research tackles these complex challenges of protecting sensitive data transmitted over 5G networks in high-risk, adversarial environments."

While commercial 5G is already widely used for communication between devices, the military’s adoption of this technology necessitates additional measures to safeguard sensitive data and ensure secure communication, even in contested environments. Hossain’s project, which began in May 2023 and concluded in August 2024, centered on addressing this critical security concern.

"5G is a major pillar of national security, alongside emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and quantum computing,” Hossain explained. “Its high throughput and low latency make it ideal for various applications, including the military. However, military use of 5G requires certain modifications to meet security standards, particularly to defend against adversarial threats like jamming."

Jamming occurs when an adversary sends a disruptive signal to interfere with communication channels, making it difficult for a receiver to decode the intended message. While this threat is not normally a concern for commercial 5G users, it is a major risk in military settings, where communication must be maintained even in hostile environments.

The research team focused on developing anti-jamming strategies to ensure military communications networks could withstand such attacks. Hossain likened this issue to bad actors compromising a secure office building (say, a headquarters) by infiltrating a less-protected satellite office. In military applications, particularly those involving unmanned vehicles or robots, compromising such resource-constrained devices could result in the loss of critical information at headquarters or even control over sensitive devices.

As the military continues to integrate emerging technologies like 5G into its operations, safeguarding these networks from adversarial threats becomes increasingly important. The collaboration between George Mason, UMD, and ARL demonstrates the critical role academic research plays in fortifying national security.

At MILCOM, the team’s work will be shared with a wider audience of defense and communication experts, contributing to the ongoing efforts to secure military networks in a connected world.

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Moinul Hossain

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Department of Cyber Security Engineering faculty

5G/6G Wireless Communications

Vijay Shah joins $2M NTIA-funded project on 5G cybersecurity

Teresa Donnellan — Thu, 08 Feb 2024 21:06:24 +0000

Vijay Shah joins $2M NTIA-funded project on 5G cybersecurity Teresa Donnellan Thu, 02/08/2024 - 16:06

��AV researcher Vijay Shah has joined a $2 million project to develop a system to secure 5G Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) architecture.

Funded by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), the project "A Holistic Cybersecurity Testing Framework for 5G Radio Access Networks" is a collaboration with Virginia Tech, Penn State University, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Shah, who leads Mason’s NextG Wireless Lab, will be allocated nearly a quarter of the project’s budget and be working with Nishith Tripathi and Jeff Reed from Virginia Tech, Syed Rafiul Hussain from Penn State University, and Bo Tang from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Vijay Shah

Security vulnerabilities in O-RAN present a critical cybersecurity challenge in the era of 5G. The team aims to create “a holistic and automated cybersecurity testing framework for O-RAN,” per the project’s executive summary.

Shah will also receive funding from the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI) to investigate fingerprinting technology for 5G/NextG O-RAN supply chain risk management, additional funding that highlights the multifaceted approach taken by the NextG Wireless Lab to address 5G networks cybersecurity challenges.

As part of these initiatives, the NextG Wireless Lab is actively growing its research team, with opportunities for postdoctoral researchers and PhD students interested in O-RAN cybersecurity, testing, and supply chain management.

Those interested in contributing to cutting-edge research in this field should email Shah.

Topics

Department of Cyber Security Engineering

Department of Cyber Security Engineering faculty

Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI)

5G/6G Wireless Communications

Giuseppe Ateniese

Tama Moni — Tue, 14 Feb 2023 20:05:54 +0000

Giuseppe Ateniese Tama Moni Tue, 02/14/2023 - 15:05

Professor and Eminent Scholar, Department of Cyber Security Engineering and Department of Computer Science

Contact Information

Building: 339 Research Hall, Fairfax
MSN: 6B1
Phone: (703) 993-6758
Email: ateniese@gmu.edu

Personal Websites

Professional Webpage

In the News

Mason professors are researching hacker psychology to defend against cyberattacks
May 2, 2024
Cybersecurity faculty participate in multidisciplinary projects
February 1, 2022

Biography

In addition to being a Professor and Eminent Scholar in Cyber Security Engineering, Giuseppe Ateniese is also a CCI Faculty Fellow in the Computer Science and Cyber Security Engineering departments. Ateniese was a Farber Endowed Chair in computer science and department chair at the Stevens Institute of Technology. In addition, he was with Sapienza-University of Rome, an assistant/associate professor at John Hopkins University, and one of the John Hopkins University Information Security Institute founders.

Degrees

PhD, Computer Science, University of Genoa (2000)

Research Interests

Cloud Security
Cybersecurity
Applied Cryptography

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Moinul Hossain

Tama Moni — Thu, 11 Aug 2022 14:49:05 +0000

Moinul Hossain Tama Moni Thu, 08/11/2022 - 10:49

Assistant Professor, Department of Cyber Security Engineering

Contact Information

Campus: Fairfax
Building: Research Hall, Room 326A
Mail Stop: 6B1
Email: mhossa5@gmu.edu
Phone: 703-993-6760

Personal Websites

Professional Website

Biography

Dr. Hossain is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Cyber Security Engineering at ��AV. Before joining George Mason, he was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences at Towson University, Maryland. His current research interests include but are not limited to, security assessment of wireless network protocols, threat modeling and counter-mechanism design, cross-technology spectrum sharing, dynamic spectrum access, and vehicle-to-vehicle communications.

Degrees

PhD, Electrical Engineering, University of North Carolina at Charlotte (2020)
BSc, Electronics and Communications Engineering, Khulna University of Engineering and Technology (2011)

Henry Coffman

Rena Malai — Wed, 15 Sep 2021 16:14:18 +0000

Henry Coffman Rena Malai Wed, 09/15/2021 - 12:14

Professor, Department of Cyber Security Engineering

Contact Information

Email: hcoffman@gmu.edu

Biography

Dr. Henry Coffman gained more than 31 years of experience in Information Technology (IT) and cyber security through the Department of Defense and Interpol. He later served as the Cybersecurity Program Lead for Lord Fairfax Community College (LFCC) for 17 years. His cybersecurity degree program received the NSA Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense designation and the ABET accreditation, one of two programs first in the world with such distinction. His primary focus at GMU is academic instruction in the CYSE undergraduate degree program. Dr. Coffman is certified as a CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional) and is also affiliated with the International Security Consortium (ISC)2, the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), the Virginia Cyber Range Executive Committee (at Virginia Tech), and the International Technology Honor Society (EPT).

Degrees

Ph.D., Information Security, ��AV (2007)

Mingkui Wei

Martha Bushong — Wed, 07 Apr 2021 17:40:46 +0000

Mingkui Wei Martha Bushong Wed, 04/07/2021 - 13:40

Associate Professor, Department of Cyber Security Engineering

Contact Information

Phone: 703-993-1861
Campus: Fairfax
Building: Research Hall, Room 340
Mail Stop: 6B1
Email: mwei2@gmu.edu

Personal Websites

Professional Webpage

Biography

Mingkui Wei is an associate professor in the Department of Cyber Security Engineering. His current research interests focus on network security, especially on the application layer. He takes approaches including mathematical modeling and analysis, simulation and experiment, and machine learning, to identify and address security threats on the Internet.

His research results have been published in top-tier venues including IEEE INFOCOM, Usenix Security, and ACM CCS. He was a faculty in Computer Science at Sam Houston State University before joining Mason in 2021.

Degrees

PhD, Computing Engineering, North Carolina State University, 2016
MS, Information Systems, Southeast University (China), 2008

Mohamed Gebril

Martha Bushong — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 12:19:49 +0000

Mohamed Gebril Martha Bushong Tue, 09/08/2020 - 08:19

Associate Professor, Department of Cyber Security Engineering

Contact Information

Phone: 703-993-6509

Campus: Fairfax
Building: Research Hall 341

Mail Stop: MS 6B1
Email: mgebril@gmu.edu

In the News

Mason students build drones as part of Commonwealth Cyber Initiative
June 1, 2022

Biography

Mohamed Gebril is an associate professor in the Cyber Security Engineering department. He joined Mason after working as a primary patent examiner for the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). In his seven years at USPTO, he was involved in patent examination and prosecution areas in the data storage and networking fields, where he worked in intellectual property matters directed to computer security, enterprise network security and authentication, databases, data processing, and memory storage devices.

Gebril completed his PhD in electrical engineering at North Carolina A&T State University in 2011 in the area of big data indexing, machine learning, and AI applications. He received his MS in electrical engineering from North Carolina A&T State University in May 2008 in the area of robotics navigation and optimization and completed his undergraduate studies in electrical engineering at Alexandria University, Egypt.

Degrees

PhD, Electrical Engineering, North Carolina A&T State University

Research Interests

Threat Modeling
Cyber-Physical Systems
UAV security

Duminda Wijesekera

admin_alpha — Tue, 20 Oct 2015 23:27:01 +0000

Duminda Wijesekera admin_alpha Tue, 10/20/2015 - 19:27

Professor, Department of Cyber Security Engineering and Department of Computer Science

Contact Information

Building: ��AV, Fairfax

Research Hall

Room 330

Mail Stop: 6B1

Phone: 703-993-5030

Email: dwijesek@gmu.edu

Personal Websites

Professional web page

In the News

Mason named to top 100 list for patents awarded in 2022
October 12, 2023
��AV Professor Duminda Wijesekera wins CCI Impact Award
April 11, 2022
Secure manufacturing saves energy and protects businesses
April 15, 2021
Taking it to the streets: Commonwealth Cyber Initiative funds research for autonomous cars
March 25, 2021
University researchers receive grants from the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative for cyber and arts and design research
February 3, 2021

Biography

Duminda Wijesekera is a professor in the Cyber Security Engineering and Computer Science departments at ��AV. He was the inaugural chairman of the Cyber Security Engineering Department until December 2022, and a visiting research scientist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) between 2007-2022. He leads the Mason Innovation Laboratory at Mason Square. He is also a fellow at the Potomac Institute of Policy Studies.

His current research addresses multiple areas. The first is the security and safety of cyber-physical systems. Research in this area includes the safety and security of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) that include trains, aircraft, and connected/automated automobiles. Another area is digital forensics. Research in digital forensics includes creating potential scenarios from evidence and creating frameworks for argumentations, error management of forensic data, and adding odds ratio between different scenarios that fit the evidence. A third area is applying formal methods to CPS safety and security.

He was a visiting research scientist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) between 2007-2022 and a fellow at the Potomac Institute of Policy Studies in Arlington, Virginia. Before joining Mason as an assistant professor in 1999, he was a senior systems engineer in the Military Avionics and Space Systems divisions of Honeywell Inc. in Clearwater, Florida. He has been a visiting post-doctoral fellow at the Army High-Performance Research Center at the University of Minnesota. He received a PhD in computer science from the University of Minnesota in 1997 and a PhD in mathematical logic from Cornell University in 1990.

Degrees

PhD, Computer Science, University of Minnesota
PhD, Mathematical Logic, Cornell University

Research Interests

Safety and security of networked control systems overall
Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS),
Next G-based Edge services,
Building digital twins and vulnerability detection
Mitigation and applying formal methods to ensure cybersecurity

Research

2014 - 2015: Using the Policy Machine to Enforce Access to Health Records. Funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

2013 - 2014: Mapping GSM-R Into US Wireless Frequency Intervals for High-Speed Rail. Funded by the US Department of Transportation (US.

2014 - 2014: A Survey and Taxonomy on the Roots of Trust in Cyber-Physical Systems. Funded by Cyber Security Research Alliance.

Michael Hieb

admin_alpha — Tue, 20 Oct 2015 23:24:01 +0000

Michael Hieb admin_alpha Tue, 10/20/2015 - 19:24

Research Professor, C5I Center, College of Engineering and Computing

Contact Information

Campus: Fairfax
Building: Nguyen Engineering Building
Room 4453
Mail Stop: 4B5

Email: mhieb@gmu.edu

Biography

Dr. Hieb is a Research Associate Professor at ��AV’s Center for Excellence in Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence (C4I Center), a Technical Evaluator for NATO’s Modeling and Simulation Group, and a Technical Director for the Army’s Simulation to C4I Overarching IPT (SIMCI OIPT). Dr. Hieb has over 120 Publications and has presented his research on Command Intent to many international C2 Forums. In 2017 Dr. Hieb performed a study on Megacities for DARPA. Dr. Hieb also was the Principal Investigator for several major projects at the C4I Center, including a large 8 8-year Research Project from the Army Geospatial Center on integrating C2, M&S, and Geospatial functionality. He received his PhD in Information Technology from ��AV in 1996, an MS in Artificial Intelligence & Human Factors from George Washington University, and a BS in Nuclear Engineering from UC Santa Barbara.

Paulo Costa

admin_alpha — Tue, 20 Oct 2015 23:24:01 +0000

Paulo Costa admin_alpha Tue, 10/20/2015 - 19:24

Professor and Chair, Department of Cyber Security Engineering | Director, Center of Excellence in C5I

Contact Information

Phone: 703-993-9989
Campus: Fairfax
Building: Research Hall 330
Mail Stop: MS 6B1

Email: pcosta@gmu.edu

Personal Websites

Paulo Costa

Mason Competitive Cyber scores multiple wins at CyberForge 2024
February 14, 2024
The Cybersecurity Manufacturing Innovation Institute receives national recognition by the White House
August 27, 2021
Secure manufacturing saves energy and protects businesses
April 15, 2021

Biography

Paulo Costa has applied his significant experience as a fighter pilot to a career specializing in the field of electronic warfare and flight safety, which in conjunction with his research on probabilistic reasoning has led to applications in cyber and transportation security, heterogeneous data fusion, and decision support systems in healthcare, defense, and other areas. These topics are at the core of his classroom activities at both graduate and undergraduate levels, as well as his research path. Costa leads the research of graduate-level students in understanding security objectives and verification protocols, bringing in the science of probabilistic reasoning and challenging PhD-level candidates to consider theory and methods for building computationally efficient software agents that reason, act, and learn in environments characterized by noisy and chaotic traffic.

Costa is a key researcher in the field of probabilistic ontologies and has developed innovative applications and extensions that aid in the fight against cyber-warfare. In addition to his Mason assignments as Chair of the Cyber Security Engineering Department and Director of the C5I Center, Dr. Costa is Vice President for Securing Automation and Supply Chain Security (cymanii.org). He is a former President and current elected member of the Board of Directors of the International Society of Information Fusion (isif.org), as well as an IEEE Senior Member (SM13).

Degrees

PhD, Information Technology, ��AV
MS, Systems Engineering, ��AV
BS, Engineering, Brazilian Air Force Academy

Research Interests

Probabilistic Ontologies
Decision Support Systems
Cybersecurity
Information Fusion
Cyber-Physical Systems Security

Recent Grants

Cybersecurity Energy and Emissions Quantification Framework, sub-award from DOE’s Cybersecurity Manufacturing Innovation Institute (CyManII), 2020-2025.
Recombinant AI Engineering Seedlings, sub-award from Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security, ODNI.
Design Space Characterization and Analytical Techniques for Adaptive Kill-Web Analysis, sub-award from Linquest, Inc., DARPA Safe-Sim program.
DALNIN: Dependency-based Assessment of Litigious Network Events Impacting the Mission, sub-award from VTech, Korean Agency for Defense Development.

Publications

Google Scholar

Patents

ADS-Bsec – A Holistic Framework to Secure ADS-B. US Patent No. US11,022,696 B1, Jun 2021

Department of Cyber Security Engineering faculty

Military 5G gets a security boost with anti-jamming research

In This Story

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Vijay Shah joins $2M NTIA-funded project on 5G cybersecurity

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Giuseppe Ateniese

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Moinul Hossain

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Henry Coffman

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Mingkui Wei

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Mohamed Gebril

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Duminda Wijesekera

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Michael Hieb

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Paulo Costa

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