The Cyber Security and Critical Infrastructure Protection (CyS&CIP) Research Center is the first of its kind in Morocco, and among the two first in Africa. It is a house for interdisciplinary research in cyber security, systems security, and physical systems security.

Attacks on computer systems and networks are on rise. Corporation, governments, and industrials are witnessing an augmentation of ransomwares, a threat to their operations and disruption to the services they provide. Risks incurred by individual, small and medium corporations, as well as industrials and government are higher and higher. The cyber security domains are about the three pillars: prevention, detection, and defense (passive and active). The CyS&CIP research center contributes to the international effort to advance research in cyber security and infrastructure protection and train highly qualified resources.

The Vision and ambition of CyS&CIP

• Lead in Cyber Security and Critical Infrastructure Protection in Morocco, Africa and be among the best in the world.

• Position UM6P in in the fields at national and regional levels.

• Advance theoretical and applied research in cyber security and critical infrastructure protection.

• Train highly qualified personnel in this multidisciplinary domain.

• Offer research assistance to stakeholders and industrial partners.

• Foster collaboration between researchers from different institutions, countries, and industrial and government organizations.

• Engage international community to not leave Africa behind in these critical research areas.

The Mission of CyS&CIP:

• Advance theoretical and applied research in cyber security and critical infrastructure protection.

• Explore Interdisciplinary research in cyber security and critical infrastructure protection.

• Develop and promote excellence in the selected areas of research.

• Establish strong collaboration with Academia, Industry, Government, and Corporations.

• Encourage internal and external collaboration.

• Create new synergies among researchers.

• Attract and retain outstanding faculty and graduate students.

• Offer PhD degree and master’s degree programs in interdisciplinary domains.

• Train students in cutting edge technologies.

Supervisors: Mustapha Hedabou (UM6P), Mohamed Mannan and Amr Youssef (Concordia University)

Identity management in recent years has expand much beyond user-to-device and user-to-server authentication. Each user typically interacts with several devices and multiple enterprises. User-to-device authentication is also often connected to backend services (e.g., account and app data management as in Microsoft Windows, Apple iOS and Google Android). User devices also often authenticate each other, and many home/enterprise IoT devices for data and operational management purposes. Users also authenticate themselves to remote accounts - both for personal use and for work. Some of existing authentication mechanisms rely on trusted hardware - such as Apple security chip, which improves user authentication and device management in a significant way, albeit for Apple devices alone. However, such hardware backed identity management across different vendors (e.g., Apple, Samsung) could benefit far greater number of users. Another significantly unexplored area of research is: how to leverage trusted hardware for enabling data sharing and access control between users and organizations (both directly from user devices and from backend servers). These topic areas can have big impact on the current identity and authentication landscape, and enable more robust and controllable data sharing.

References:

https://users.encs.concordia.ca/~mmannan/publications/Safekeeper-main.pdf
https://users.encs.concordia.ca/~mmannan/publications/CKS-secpid2018.pdf
https://users.encs.concordia.ca/~mmannan/publications/Inuksuk-ndss2019.pdf
https://users.encs.concordia.ca/~mmannan/publications/ROIoT-acsac20.pdf
(ARM TrustZone) https://developer.arm.com/ip-products/security-ip/trustzone
(Intel SGX) https://software.intel.com/content/www/us/en/develop/topics/software-guard-extensions.html
(AMD SEV) https://developer.amd.com/sev/
(IntelTXT) https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000025873/technologies.html
(Apple Secure Enclave) https://support.apple.com/en-ca/guide/security/sec59b0b31ff/web
(Samsung Knox) https://www.samsungknox.com/en