Qiben Yan, Michigan State University, will present a Department of Computer Science Colloquium lecture, “Securing Cyber Physical Systems Against Novel Physical-Layer Attacks,” on Friday, March 31, 2023, from 3-4 p.m., in Rekhi Hall Room 214 and virtually via Zoom.
Yan’s research interests include IoT systems, blockchain system security, mobile and IoT security, and wireless communication and security. His research has been reported in a number of high-impact media outlets.
Talk Title: Securing Cyber Physical Systems Against Novel Physical-Layer Attacks
Talk Abstract: Society’s broad adoption of Internet-of-Things (IoT) and Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) has been driven, in part, by decades of research and development in the advanced sensing technologies, which now provide fine-grained physical data to the IoT devices. These devices are revolutionizing every industry and transforming our lives. However, their heterogeneous sensing modality and tight coupling with the physical world introduce new attack vectors that could compromise cyber and/or physical information through the physical interfaces. Recent reports on targeted attacks towards cars, yachts, and medical devices have confirmed the practicality of these emerging threats. Therefore, there is an urgent and critical need for securing cyber and physical interactions among IoT devices.
In this talk, I will describe our recent work on the attack and defense of cyber physical systems. Specifically, I will describe our work on attacking voice assistant systems through physical-layer signal injection attacks via solid media and charging cables. I will talk about the adversarial attacks towards AI-driven voice systems. I will then talk about our research on camera systems security of drones and unmanned ground vehicles. Our proposed attacks exploit the vulnerability in the vision systems and aim to create fake obstacles. Finally, I will present our research on the threat detection in smart home IoT systems. I will conclude with a cross-layer view and practice in IoT security, which is important to address the practical security challenges in a wide range of real-world scenarios.
Speaker Biography: Qiben Yan is an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Michigan State University. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Virginia Tech. He was a security researcher in a cybersecurity startup company, Shape Security, where he participated in building the first “botwall.” Before joining MSU, he was an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Yan’s current research interests include IoT systems, blockchain system security, mobile and IoT security, and wireless communication and security. His research has been reported in various high-impact media outlets, including BBC Radio, Scientific American, Science Daily, Forbes, Popular Mechanics, Gizmodo, and The Register. His recent research has been supported by NSF under the SaTC, NeTS, and SpecEES programs, DoE, and Ford. Yan was the recipient of a NSF CRII award in 2016. He won IEEE SECON 2021 and ACM SenSys 2021 best paper awards.