Academics in the driving seat at major European cyber conference

An academic and a PhD student from the University of Wolverhampton presented at one of Europe’s biggest Cybersecurity conferences in London.

Dr Haider Al-Khateeb, Senior Lecturer in Cybersecurity and Gabriela Ahmadi-Assalemi, PhD student at the University of Wolverhampton Cyber Research Institute (WCRI) were invited to present their research at the Forensics Europe Expo at London Olympia on 5^th March 2019.

Supported by the Cabinet Office and the Digital Forensics magazine, the Forensics Europe Expo is the only event of its kind dedicated to forensic science and is the primary meeting place for thousands of cyber security professionals, researchers and senior buyers looking to source the latest technological innovations on the market.

The presented work was titled “Driver Attribution for Digital Forensic Investigations in Connected Cars”.

Dr Al-Khateeb said: “We’re delighted to have been asked to present at this prestigious conference. The presentation was based on some of our investigative experiments. We looked at near-real time data extraction from Connected Cars. We analysed driving behaviour from existing in-car sensor data to answer questions such as: who is driving? what else can we tell about the driver? And what is the minimum amount of time we need to identify the driver based on the way he drives?

“This information can be very useful. If your car is stolen while the engine is on, wouldn’t it be nice that the hijacker will shortly be rejected by your car? Alternatively, a police investigation could use recorded data to show evidence of who was driving at a particular time in the past.”

Gabriela said: “A real car was used in our experiment driven by 19 different derivers collecting 153.9 miles of data to support our conclusions.

“As part of our ongoing work, we have also discussed how we can understand the behaviour of other type of connected devices within the context of a smart city. This helps to detect anomalies and provide a safer environment for everyone.”

The forensics part of this work will soon be published in a special issue of the Digital Forensics Magazine, a quarterly features and news magazine from the world of computer and cybercrime.The Wolverhampton Cyber Research Institute (WCRI) works closely in collaboration with academic, industrial and government organisations in relation to all aspects of security and privacy and this platform will offer us the chance to showcase some of our research to an international audience.

The WCRI is a team of over twenty academic staff based in the School of Mathematics and Computer Science at the forefront of developing and leading an international Cyber Knowledge Hub to tackle threats in the cyberspace.

Anyone interested in studying in the School of Mathematics and Computer Science should register for the next Open Day on Saturday 15^th June 2019.

Picture caption from left to right: Dr Haider Al-Khateeb, Senior Lecturer in Cybersecurity, Gabriela Ahmadi-Assalemi, PhD student at the University of Wolverhampton, and Roy Isbell, Conference chair and Editor in Chief for the Digital Forensics Magazine.

ENDS