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Research
interests
My current research interests include the
following:
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Digital forensics
Traditionally the art of forensics involves gathering of evidence related to
some kind of crime that is being investigated. This involves finding clues
by an investigation squad in order to determine who the perpetrator of the
crime is. The most well-known example of evidence in such a case is to find
DNA of a suspected perpetrator on a crime scene in a bid to find out if it
matches. If a positive DNA match is found, it is used as evidence in a court
of law. Digital forensics is no different from traditional forensics, except
that the evidence being searched for by a digital forensics investigation
squad, resides on digital devices and/or media, such as a computer hard
drive or a cell phone. The big difference here is that one attempts to find
evidence that is intangible and, hence, it is more difficult to prove the
evidence in a court of law. There are many other interesting challenges in
digital forensics, such as preserving the data on a digital device in order
to prove that it was not modified by the investigation squad, as well as
challenges in applying common law to digital forensic investigations.
One of my main areas of interest within the field of digital forensics
involves attempting to standardise the digital forensic investigation
process model on ISO level. Sufficient number of countries voted the project
to go ahead in 2011, so I am looking forward to the result of this effort in
about 5 year's time.
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Information privacy
As the Internet is growing at such a rapid rate, more and more businesses
turn to the Internet to provide their services through this information
superhighway. However, at the same rate, one's privacy is compromised due to
your information being transferred over this public network. Information
privacy encompasses a wide field of study, and I am pursuing avenues of
information privacy in the medical environment, as well as in the banking
environment.
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Wireless security
systems
Currently wireless technology is
taking the world by storm. It is convenient to connect to the Internet in a
wireless fashion, but alas, the security treats are legion. Althoug much
research has been devoted 802.11 wireless security, other wireless standards
are emerging in micro devices, such as wireless sensor networks. The nodes,
also called motes, in a wireless sensor networks are often extremely small,
which results in very limited processing power. Since encryption requires
much processing power, security is often neglected in such networks. More
efficient ways of securing wireless sensor networks are explored in this
research interest.
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Network security
A field of study that has always
interested me, is that of network security. The field of network security is
vast, however, the particular avenues of network security that I have
explored thus far includes network security health checking, Web services
security, intelligent network reconfiguration and many more. The topic above
(wireless security systems) is actually one of my latest interests, which
stems from the field of network security.
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Vulnerability scanning and intrusion
detection in distributed systems
The subject field of intrusion detection systems has been
researched thoroughly up to now. However, vulnerability scanners and
intrusion detection systems have similar properties. The main difference is
that vulnerability scanners follow a proactive approach in detection
security vulnerabilities whereas intrusion detections systems follow a
reactive approach. This research area investigates the differences between
current vulnerability scanners and intrusion detection systems. Which of the
two security technologies is going to “win” in the future? Will the two
technologies probably merge?
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