Associate ProfessorKanchana Thilakarathna

Project Opportunities

Title: Resilient and Secure Federated Learning

Summary of opportunity:

Research Area:

Computer Science, Cybersecurity, Distributed Systems.

Opportunity synopsis:

Billons of intelligent devices (“things”) capable of communicating are being deployed in our physical environment, and embedded in device being worn by humans. This led to the new era of Internet of Things (IoTs) where these lightweight devices - some are intelligent and some only marginally so - collecting and sending vital information to Cloud Data Centres (CDCs) for further processing and decision making. IoT has already begun to transform our industries and many mission critical tasks such as in electricity networks, in crisis response, in factories, in supply chain networks. The data collected from the sensors will enable optimised operations to automate and support various critical tasks such as coordinated defensive actions, ISR operations (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) and rescue missions. The continuous coordination of thousands, if not millions, of heterogenous things will place strict latency bounds and security requirements in dynamically changing often untrusted environments.

To address these concerns, it has been proposed to bring cloud-like resources closer to the edge of the network (Edge Computing), as it allows the delivery of delay-sensitive context-aware services by pushing the frontier of applications, data, and services away from centralised models and to distributed extremes of a network. The benefits of EC also come with additional risks: adding more data-generating devices to a network in more locations—particularly those that are physically remote or aren't well monitored—can lead to additional cyber security risks. Security at the edge remains a huge challenge, primarily because most IoT devices do not have software and hardware support for standard security protocols as such the security software updates which are often needed through the lifecycle of the device may not be present. This project focuses on developing resilient and secure distributed edge technologies with an improved performance, cheaper operating cost, and ease of deployment.

Further Information:

This scholarship is only available for Australian citizens, Australian Permanent Residents or New Zealand Special Category Visa holders.

Successful candidates will have:

• A bachelor's degree in a relevant discipline

How to Apply:

To apply, please email kanchana.thilakarathna@sydney.edu.au, with the subject line"PhD Application” and your name. Include the following:

• CV and cover letter
• Transcripts (can be unofficial)