SMU School of Information Systems Associate Dean and Professor of Information Systems Robert Deng, an expert in information research, is constantly trying to beat hackers at their own game. For example, a confidential document may be accessible to the public due to poor encryption schemes, despite the owner’s efforts at protecting its privacy. Even smartphones, which are perceived by some to be the greatest industrial innovation of the 21st century, are vulnerable to unauthorised access by third parties or hackers. This underscores the significance of one of his latest research projects that has given him immense satisfaction: exposing the security flaws of Apple’s iPhone Operating System (iOS). Prof Deng and his team then devised mitigation strategies to allow Apple’s engineers to vet third party applications. Apple’s Product Security team incorporated these strategies into the iOS7 system update.