Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

An Empirical Study Of Pre-Trained Model Reuse In The Hugging Face Deep Learning Model Registry, Wenxin Jiang, Nicholas Synovic, Matt Hyatt, Taylor R. Schorlemmer, Rohan Sethi, Yung-Hsiang Lu, George K. Thiruvathukal, James C. Davis

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) are being adopted as components in software systems. Creating and specializing DNNs from scratch has grown increasingly difficult as state-of-the-art architectures grow more complex. Following the path of traditional software engineering, machine learning engineers have begun to reuse large-scale pre-trained models (PTMs) and fine-tune these models for downstream tasks. Prior works have studied reuse practices for traditional software packages to guide software engineers towards better package maintenance and dependency management. We lack a similar foundation of knowledge to guide behaviors in pre-trained model ecosystems.

In this work, we present the first empirical investigation of PTM reuse. …

Robustembed: Robust Sentence Embeddings Using Self-Supervised Contrastive Pre-Training, Javad Asl, Eduardo Blanco, Daniel Takabi

School of Cybersecurity Faculty Publications

Pre-trained language models (PLMs) have demonstrated their exceptional performance across a wide range of natural language processing tasks. The utilization of PLM-based sentence embeddings enables the generation of contextual representations that capture rich semantic information. However, despite their success with unseen samples, current PLM-based representations suffer from poor robustness in adversarial scenarios. In this paper, we propose RobustEmbed, a self-supervised sentence embedding framework that enhances both generalization and robustness in various text representation tasks and against diverse adversarial attacks. By generating high-risk adversarial perturbations to promote higher invariance in the embedding space and leveraging the perturbation within a novel contrastive …

Assessing Security Risks With The Internet Of Things, Faith Mosemann

Senior Honors Theses

For my honors thesis I have decided to study the security risks associated with the Internet of Things (IoT) and possible ways to secure them. I will focus on how corporate, and individuals use IoT devices and the security risks that come with their implementation. In my research, I found out that IoT gadgets tend to go unnoticed as a checkpoint for vulnerability. For example, often personal IoT devices tend to have the default username and password issued from the factory that a hacker could easily find through Google. IoT devices need security just as much as computers or servers …

C2 Microservices Api: Ch4rl3sch4l3m4gn3, Thai H. Nguyễn

School of Computer Science & Engineering Undergraduate Publications

In the 21^st century, cyber-based attackers such as advance persistent threats are leveraging bots in the form of botnets to conduct a plethora of cyber-attacks. While there are several social engineering techniques used to get targets to unknowingly download these bots, it is the command-and-control techniques advance persistent threats use to control their bots that is of critical interest to the author. In this research paper, the author aims to develop a command-and-control microservice application programming interface infrastructure to facilitate botnet command-and-control attack simulations. To achieve this the author will develop a simple bot skeletal framework, utilize the latest …

Another Brick In The Wall: An Exploratory Analysis Of Digital Forensics Programs In The United States, Syria Mccullough, Stella Abudu, Ebere Onwubuariri, Ibrahim Baggili

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

We present a comprehensive review of digital forensics programs offered by universities across the United States (U.S.). While numerous studies on digital forensics standards and curriculum exist, few, if any, have examined digital forensics courses offered across the nation. Since digital forensics courses vary from university to university, online course catalogs for academic institutions were evaluated to curate a dataset. Universities were selected based on online searches, similar to those that would be made by prospective students. Ninety-seven (n = 97) degree programs in the U.S. were evaluated. Overall, results showed that advanced technical courses are missing from curricula. We …

Role Of Artificial Intelligence In The Internet Of Things (Iot) Cybersecurity, Murat Kuzlu, Corinne Fair, Ozgur Guler

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

In recent years, the use of the Internet of Things (IoT) has increased exponentially, and cybersecurity concerns have increased along with it. On the cutting edge of cybersecurity is Artificial Intelligence (AI), which is used for the development of complex algorithms to protect networks and systems, including IoT systems. However, cyber-attackers have figured out how to exploit AI and have even begun to use adversarial AI in order to carry out cybersecurity attacks. This review paper compiles information from several other surveys and research papers regarding IoT, AI, and attacks with and against AI and explores the relationship between these …

First Year Students' Experience In A Cyber World Course - An Evaluation, Frank Breitinger, Ryan Tully-Doyle, Kristen Przyborski, Lauren Beck, Ronald S. Harichandran

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

Although cybersecurity is a major present concern, it is not a required subject in University. In response, we developed Cyber World which introduces students to eight highly important cybersecurity topics (primarily taught by none cybersecurity experts). We embedded it into our critical thinking Common Course (core curriculum) which is a team-taught first-year experience required for all students. Cyber World was first taught in Fall 2018 to a cohort of over 150 students from various majors at the University of New Haven. This article presents the evaluation of our Fall taught course. In detail, we compare the performance of Cyber World …

Internet Of Things For Sustainability: Perspectives In Privacy, Cybersecurity, And Future Trends, Abdul Salam

Faculty Publications

In the sustainability IoT, the cybersecurity risks to things, sensors, and monitoring systems are distinct from the conventional networking systems in many aspects. The interaction of sustainability IoT with the physical world phenomena (e.g., weather, climate, water, and oceans) is mostly not found in the modern information technology systems. Accordingly, actuation, the ability of these devices to make changes in real world based on sensing and monitoring, requires special consideration in terms of privacy and security. Moreover, the energy efficiency, safety, power, performance requirements of these device distinguish them from conventional computers systems. In this chapter, the cybersecurity approaches towards …

Technological Challenges And Innovations In Cybersecurity And Networking Technology Program, Syed R. Zaidi, Ajaz Sana, Aparicio Carranza

Publications and Research

This era is posing a unique challenge to the Cybersecurity and related Engineering Technology areas, stimulated by the multifaceted technological boom expressed in accelerated globalization, digital transformation, the cloud, mobile access apps, and the Internet of Things (IoT)—where more and more devices are connected to the Internet every day. As the use of new Internet-based technologies increase; so does the risk of theft and misuse of sensitive information. This demands the awareness of cyber-criminality and the need for cyber hygiene in corporations, small businesses, and the government. As the need for experienced cybersecurity specialists has skyrocketed in recent years and …

Survey Results On Adults And Cybersecurity Education, Frank Breitinger, Joseph Ricci, Ibrahim Baggili

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

Cyberattacks and identity theft are common problems nowadays where researchers often say that humans are the weakest link in the security chain. Therefore, this survey focused on analyzing the interest for adults for ‘cyber threat education seminars’, e.g., how to project themselves and their loved ones. Specifically, we asked questions to understand a possible audience, willingness for paying / time commitment, or fields of interest as well as background and previous training experience. The survey was conducted in late 2016 and taken by 233 participants. The results show that many are worried about cyber threats and about their children exploring …

Cyber Security And Risk Society: Estonian Discourse On Cyber Risk And Security Strategy, Lauren Kook

Copyright, Fair Use, Scholarly Communication, etc.

The main aim of this thesis is to call for a new analysis of cyber security which departs from the traditional security theory. I argue that the cyber domain is inherently different in nature, in that it is lacking in traditional boundaries and is reflexive in nature. Policy-makers are aware of these characteristics, and in turn this awareness changes the way that national cyber security strategy is handled and understood. These changes cannot be adequately understood through traditional understanding of security, as they often are, without missing significant details. Rather, examining these changes through the lens of Ulrich Beck’s risk …

Teaching Cybersecurity Using The Cloud, Khaled Salah, Mohammad Hammoud, Sherali Zeadally

Information Science Faculty Publications

Cloud computing platforms can be highly attractive to conduct course assignments and empower students with valuable and indispensable hands-on experience. In particular, the cloud can offer teaching staff and students (whether local or remote) on-demand, elastic, dedicated, isolated, (virtually) unlimited, and easily configurable virtual machines. As such, employing cloud-based laboratories can have clear advantages over using classical ones, which impose major hindrances against fulfilling pedagogical objectives and do not scale well when the number of students and distant university campuses grows up. We show how the cloud paradigm can be leveraged to teach a cybersecurity course. Specifically, we share our …

Framing The Question, "Who Governs The Internet?", Robert J. Domanski

Publications and Research

There remains a widespread perception among both the public and elements of academia that the Internet is “ungovernable”. However, this idea, as well as the notion that the Internet has become some type of cyber-libertarian utopia, is wholly inaccurate. Governments may certainly encounter tremendous difficulty in attempting to regulate the Internet, but numerous types of authority have nevertheless become pervasive. So who, then, governs the Internet? This book will contend that the Internet is, in fact, being governed, that it is being governed by specific and identifiable networks of policy actors, and that an argument can be made as to …