SCC News

SCC News

SCC Joins FutureTPM Project

Academics from the Smart Card Center at the Information Security Group  (ISG) at Royal Holloway, University of London, are part of an international consortium focusing on developing the next generation TPM (Trusted Platform Module) – which is embedded into computing systems to make its host computer platform trustworthy and secure.

TPMs are currently incorporated into over a billion computers worldwide but the team working on the new H2020 Project ‘FutureTPM‘ will be focusing on developing next generation security solutions to mitigate against quantum computers. These computers are anticipated to be able to  break some of the cryptographic algorithms currently used in existing TPMs.

Royal Holloway’s project activities will be led by Dr Daniele Sgandurra, who has received a grant of €375,065 from the European Commission to carry out the work alongside Professor Konstantinos Markantonakis, Professor Chris Mitchell, and Dr Elizabeth Quaglia, also from the ISG.

Dr Sgandurra said: “We are thrilled to be part of this project that will combine the expertise of high calibre industrial and academic partners from across Europe to develop quantum-resistant algorithms suitable for inclusion in future TPMs. We hope this project will positively affect people’s everyday lives, in terms of building their trust in securely using online services, such as online banking and Cloud storage.”

The FutureTPM project partners are:

  • Royal Holloway, University of London, United Kingdom
  • Huawei Technologies Düsseldorf GmbH, Germany
  • IBM Research GmbH, Switzerland
  • INESC-ID – Instituto de Engenhariade Sistemas e Computadores, Investigacao e Desenvolvimento em Lisboa, Portugal
  • Infineon Technologies AG, Germany
  • Infineon Technologies Austria AG, Austria
  • Suite5 Data Intelligence Solutions Limited, Ireland
  • TECHNIKON Forschungs- und Planungsgesellschaft mbH, Austria
  • UBITECH Limited, Cyprus
  • University of Birmingham, United Kingdom
  • Université du Luxembourg, Luxembourg
  • University of Piraeus Research Center, Greece
  • University of Surrey, United Kingdom
  • VIVA Payment Services SA, Greece

Responsible Disclosure: Firmware Vulnerabilities in iSmartAlarm CubeOne

As part of the final MSc project, one of our MSc students, Yee Ching Tok, supervised by Daniele Sangdurra, investigated the firmware of a popular smart home security device – the iSmartAlarm CubeOne. Two vulnerabilities (CVE-2017-13663 and CVE-2017-13664) were found and disclosed responsibly to the vendor. A detailed explanation of the vulnerabilities and of disclosure timeline is available here: https://poppopretn.com/2017/11/30/public-disclosure-firmware-vulnerabilities-in-ismartalarm-cubeone/

Presentation at 7th INFOCOM SECURITY CONFERENCE in Athens

The ISG Smart Card and Internet of Things Security Centre (SCC) was invited to deliver a presentation in the

7th INFOCOM SECURITY CONFERENCE (http://www.infocomsecurity.gr/en/),

29 – 30 March 2017 – Athens, Divani Caravel, Athens, Greece.

 

K MarkantonakisProfessor Konstantinos Markantonakis presented the main findings of the recently completed “Secure High-Availability Avionics Wireless Network” (SHAWN) project funded by Innovate UK, in terms of the security and privacy challenges on the wireless networks in the Avionics environments. Along with the newly started three-year project, “Data to Improve the Customer Experience” (DICE), funded by EPSRC. The project, among others aims to examine new challenges in security and privacy that were not present in the exiting smart ticketing infrastructures.

 

 

ISG Stand

The ISG was offered a stand among the conference exhibitors. It was an excellent opportunity to disseminate the ISG’s promotional material and to meet prospective students.

 

 

 

 

“It is now the top annual event for information security in Greece. Since 2011, it has been charting a rising course, mirrored by numbers and attendance statistics, as well as the overall recognition by this industry, the scientific and technology community of IT professionals. The 2017 event attracted more than 2.200 visitors and was supported by more than 45 sponsor companies, covering a wide range of subjects on information security, through 40 main presentations and 15 parallel-running workshops, that took place.”

Daniele Sgandurra joins the Smart Card Centre

We are delighted to welcome Daniele Sgandurra to the Smart Card Centre. DanieleHe will be lecturing on the MSc Module Computer Security (IY5512), and will also be Deputy Director for Distance Learning. Daniele will be supervising MSc projects and undertaking research on IoT security.

 

 

Sarah AbuGhazalah passes her PhD Viva

Satah AbughazalahCongratulations to Dr Sarah AbuGhazalah!

Sarah successfully defended her PhD thesis (Mutual Authentication Protocols for  RFID Schemes) and passed subject to minor corrections.

Keith Mayes becomes Head of School

Keith MayesFounder Director of the Smart Card Centre, Professor Keith Mayes becomes Head of the School of Mathematics and Information Security on Sept 1st 2016

ISG/SCC will host WISTP 2012 in June 2012.

The ISG/ Smart Card Centre (SCC) is proud to be selected as the host of the 6th Workshop in Information Security Theory and Practices (WISTP 2012). The event will be held in June 19-22 in Royal Holloway. The ISG Smart Card Centre (SCC) played a pivotal role (along with colleagues from France, Belgium and Greece) in bringing this workshop into existence. The workshop’s steering committee has managed to make this event successful, recognised and equally important an event that bridges theory and practice in the field of Information Security. It is a testimony to this success that every year the conference presents a strong academic programme, the publisher for the conference proceedings is Springer and the event’s programme committee along with the invited speakers are drawn from international experts in the field. Visit the WISTP website at (www.wistp.org)