A team of cybersecurity experts from Singapore Management University (SMU) and University of Surrey has received 2-year funding from UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and Singapore’s National Research Foundation (NRF) to undertake research on Computational Modelling and Automatic Non-intrusive Detection Of Human Behavior-based Insecurity.

It was among the six new joint research projects selected under the inaugural Singapore-UK Joint Grant Call for Cybersecurity Research which was launched in May 2015 with the objectives of strengthening knowledge and capabilities in cybersecurity, as well as fostering closer collaboration in cybersecurity research between researchers from Singapore and UK.

The SMU-University of Surrey project aims to prove that human behaviour related insecurities in cyber security can be detected automatically, by applying human cognitive models. The project will apply human understanding and thought process in order to model and simulate humans involved in security systems. This will then support automated detection by developing general-purpose computational framework, with supporting software tools.

It will focus on human user authentication systems, and produce new knowledge on the role of human behaviours in such systems and security systems in general.

Software framework and new knowledge of human behaviours can also help address other challenges, such as detection of intruders or extremists which requires knowledge of how they behave. The project will demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed framework. The framework will be applied to selected human user authentication systems to automatically discover or rediscover known and unknown human behaviour related attacks.

Professor Robert Deng, Director of Secure Mobile Centre and Professor for School of Information Systems at SMU and Dr Shujun Li, Deputy Director of Surrey Centre for Cyber Security (SCCS) in University of Surrey are coordinating partners for this project.

Professor Deng said, “It has been known that human factors are a very important aspect of cybersecurity. SMU has a strong track record in user authentication systems, while the University of Surrey is a leader in the research of human behavior related insecurity issues. This joint project aims to systematically understand how human factors influence cybersecurity system design in general, and the security properties of user authentication systems in particular.”

Besides Prof Deng, Associate Prof Yingjiu Li from SMU School of Information Systems will also be involved in this research project.

EPSRC is the main funding agency for engineering and physical sciences research in UK. By investing £800 million a year in research and postgraduate training, it is building the knowledge and skills base needed to address the scientific and technological challenges facing UK.

NRF sets the national direction for research and development in Singapore, funds strategic initiatives and builds up R&D capabilities by nurturing research talent.