NextGen Cyber Security Research Group (NCSRG)

Introduction:

The NextGen Cyber Security Research Group (NCSRG) is a collaborative and multidisciplinary team focused on advancing the field of cybersecurity through research, innovation, and development. As cyber threats continue to evolve and increase in complexity, the group is dedicated to finding cutting-edge solutions to secure digital infrastructure, protect sensitive information, and ensure the safety of individuals and organizations from cyberattacks.

Objective

The objectives of the Cyber Security Research Group can be divided into several key areas, all of which contribute to a comprehensive approach to addressing current and future cybersecurity challenges:

Enhance Cyber Defense Mechanisms:

  • Develop advanced security techniques and systems to protect digital assets and critical infrastructure.
  • Research into proactive defense methods that anticipate and neutralize cyber threats before they can cause damage.

Promote Data Privacy and Protection:

  • Ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of sensitive information by designing robust encryption, access control, and data protection protocols.
  • Study legal, ethical, and regulatory aspects of privacy to align with global standards and policies.

Identify and Mitigate Cyber Threats:

  • Analyze and classify different types of cyberattacks, including malware, ransomware, phishing, and zero-day attacks.
  • Conduct real-time threat monitoring and develop automated systems for early detection and response.

Innovate in Security Technologies:

  • Explore emerging technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) for their potential use in cybersecurity.
  • Investigate new security paradigms like quantum cryptography and post-quantum encryption.

 

Research Areas:

The research group focuses on a wide range of topics that are critical to understanding and solving cybersecurity challenges:

Network and Information Security:

  • Securing networks from unauthorized access, attacks, and misuse.
  • Investigating protocols and architectures that ensure safe and reliable communication in wired and wireless environments.

Cryptography and Secure Communications:

  • Exploring new cryptographic techniques, encryption methods, and key management systems to protect data in transit and at rest.

Artificial Intelligence Driven Cybersecurity Solutions:

  • Leveraging AI and machine learning for designing advanced intrusion detection systems and Malware detection platforms.
  • Research into adversarial attacks on AI systems and building resilient AI models that withstand cyber manipulation.

Cloud Security:

  • Design of Advanced Cryptography Solutions for data security in Cloud Network- Homomorphic Encryption and Attribute Based Encryption
  • Design of Intrusion Detection Systems using Advanced Machine Learning Concepts for Cloud Networks- Reinforcement Learning, Federated Learning, Continual Learning and Adversarial Machine Learning.

IoT Security:

  • Securing IoT devices and networks to prevent unauthorized access and data breaches.
  • Design of lightweight cryptographic methods suitable for resource-constrained IoT devices.
  • Design of Lightweight Intrusion Detection Systems for application layer IoT Protocols

SDN Security

  • Develop robust defense solutions for software defined networks.
  • Enhance the security of network environments by leveraging the programmability and centralized control that SDN offers.
  • Optimize the performance of SDN-enabled 5G networks.

UAV Security

  • Securing UAV communications using lightweight post-quantum Cryptography.
  • Develop lightweight defense mechanisms for securing resource constrained devices.

 

Faculty
No Name of Faculty Email-id Area of Specialization
1. Dr. Kamalakanta Sethi kamalakanta.s@iiits.in AI driven Cyber Security,  Intrusion Detection System, Malware detection Framework, Homomorphic Encryption and Attribute Based Encryption
2. Dr. Neha Agrawal neha.a@iiits.in Cloud Security, SDN Security, IoT Security, UAV, Industry 4.0
Research Projects:
No Title PI and Co-PI Duration Amount Funding Agency
1 Secure Drones: Analyze, Deploy and Decide Cryptographic modules in UAVs Dr. Neha Agrawal (PI) 3 Years Rs. 37,00480/- National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems programs funded by C3iHUB, IHUB NTIHAC Foundation, IIT Kanpur
Publications (Journals)
  • Rohit Kumar & Neha Agrawal (2024) “EDMA-RM: An Event-Driven and Mobility-Aware Resource Management Framework for Green IoT-Edge-Fog-Cloud Networks” IEEE Sensors Journal, (SCIE Indexed, IF = 4.3) DOI: 10.1109/JSEN.2024.3404470 (*Q1-Journal)
  • Rohit Kumar & Neha Agrawal (2024) “Shaping the Future of Industry: Understanding the Dynamics of Industrial Digital Twins” Computers & Industrial Engineering, Elsevier, (SCI Indexed, IF = 6.7) DOI: 10.1016/j.cie.2024.110172 (*Q1-Journal)
  • Suruchi Karnani, Neha Agrawal & Rohit Kumar (2023)“Defense Approaches for the Low and High Rate DDoS Attacks in SDN: A Survey” Multimedia Tools and Applications, Springer, (SCIE Indexed, IF = 3.0) DOI: 10.1007/s11042-023-16781-0 (*Q1-Journal).
  • Rohit Kumar, Neha Agrawal (2023) “Analysis of Multi-Dimensional Industrial IoT (IIoT) Data in Edge-Fog-Cloud based Architectural Frameworks : A Survey on Current State and Research Challenges.” Journal of Industrial Information Integration, (SCIE Indexed, IF = 11.71). DOI: 10.1016/j.jii.2023.100504 (*Q1-Journal)
  • Rohit Kumar, Neha Agrawal (2023). “Software Defined Networks (SDNs) for Environmental Surveillance : A Survey.” Multimedia Tools and Applications, Springer, (SCIE Indexed, IF = 2.757). DOI: 10.1007/s11042-023-15729-8 (*Q1-Journal)
  • Neha Agrawal, Rohit Kumar (2022). “Security Perspective Analysis of Industrial Cyber Physical Systems (I-CPS): A Decade-wide Survey.” ISA Transactions, Elsevier, (SCIE Indexed, IF = 5.911). DOI: 10.1016/j.isatra.2022.03.018 (*Q1-Journal)
  • Rohit Kumar, Neha Agrawal (2022). “A Survey on Software Defined Vehicular Networks (SDVNs): A Security Perspective.” The Journal of Supercomputing, Springer, (SCIE Indexed, IF = 2.557). DOI: 10.1007/s11227-022-05008-y (*Q2-Journal)
  • Rohit Kumar, Neha Agrawal (2022). “RBAC-LBRM: An RBAC based Load Balancing assisted Efficient Resource Management Framework for IoT-Edge-Fog Network.” IEEE Sensors Letters, 6(8). DOI: 10.1109/LSENS.2022.3191388 (*Q2-Journal)
  • Neha Agrawal (2021). “Autonomic Cloud Computing based Management and Security Solutions: State-of-the-Art, Challenges, and Opportunities.” Transactions on Emerging Telecommunications Technologies, Wiley, (SCIE Indexed, IF = 2.638). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ett.4349
  • Neha Agrawal (2021). “Dynamic Load Balancing assisted Optimized Access Control Mechanism for Edge-Fog-Cloud Network in IoT Environment.” Concurrency and Computation: Practice and Experience, Wiley, (SCIE Indexed, IF = 1.831). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/cpe.6440
  • Neha Agrawal, Shashikala Tapaswi, (2021). “An SDN-Assisted Defense Mechanism for the Shrew DDoS Attack in a Cloud Computing Environment.” Journal of Network and Systems Management, Springer, 29(2), (SCIE Indexed, IF = 2.25). DOI: 10.1007/s10922-020-09580-7
  • Neha Agrawal, Shashikala Tapaswi, (2020). “A Proactive Approach for the Detection and Mitigation of Stealthy Economic Denial-of-Sustainability (EDoS) Attack.” International Journal of Network Management, Wiley (SCIE Indexed, IF = 1.914). DOI: 10.1002/nem.2094
  • Neha Agrawal, Shashikala Tapaswi, (2020). “Detection of Low-rate Cloud DDoS Attacks in Frequency Domain using Fast Hartley Transform”. Wireless Personal Communications, 112, Springer, 1735–1762 (SCIE Indexed, IF = 2.017). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-020-07125-4
  • Neha Agrawal, Shashikala Tapaswi, (2019). “Defense Mechanisms against DDoS Attacks in a Cloud Computing Environment: State-of-the-Art and Research Challenges.” IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials, 21(4), 1-27 (SCI Indexed, IF = 35.6). (*Q1-Journal 2020) DOI: 10.1109/COMST.2019.2934468
  • Neha Agrawal, Shashikala Tapaswi, (2019). “A Trustworthy Agent-Based Encrypted Access Control Method for Mobile Cloud Computing Environment.” Pervasive and Mobile Computing, Elsevier, 52, 13-28 (SCIE Indexed, IF = 3.848). (*Q1-Journal 2020) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmcj.2018.11.003
  • Neha Agrawal, Shashikala Tapaswi, (2018). “Low Rate Cloud DDoS Attack Defense Method Based on Power Spectral Density Analysis.” Information Processing Letters, Elsevier, 138, 44-50 (SCIE Indexed, IF = 0.959). (*Q2-Journal 2021) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ipl.2018.06.001
  • Neha Agrawal, Shashikala Tapaswi, (2017). “Defense Schemes for Variants of Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Attacks in Cloud Computing: A Survey.” Information Security Journal: A Global Perspective, Taylor and Francis, 26(2), 61-73 (Scopus Indexed, IF = 0.38). DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19393555.2017.1282995
  • Neha Agrawal, Shashikala Tapaswi, (2017). “The Performance Analysis of Honeypot Based Intrusion Detection System for Wireless Network.” International Journal of Wireless Information Networks, Springer, 24(1), 14-26 (Scopus Indexed, IF = 0.69). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10776-016-0330-3
  • Neha Agrawal, Shashikala Tapaswi, (2015). “Wireless Rogue Access Point Detection using Shadow Honeynet.” Wireless Personal Communications, Springer, 83(1), 551-570 (SCIE Indexed, IF = 2.017). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-015-2408-0
  • Kamalakanta Sethi, Ankit Pradhan, Padmaolochan Bera, “PMTER-ABE: A Practical Multi-authority CP-ABE with Traceability, Revocation and Outsourcing Decryption for Secure Access Control in Cloud Systems”  Cluster Computing (Springer), vol. 24(2), pp: 1525-1550, 2021
  • Kamalakanta Sethi, E Sai Rupesh, Rahul Kumar, Padmalochan Bera, Y Venu Madhav, “A context-aware robust intrusion detection system: a reinforcement learning-based approach” International Journal of Information Security, Springer, Vol. 19, pp: 657-678, 2020.
  • Kamalakanta Sethi, Ankit Pradhan, Padmalochan Bera, “Practical traceable multi-authority CP-ABE with outsourcing decryption and access policy updation” Journal of Information Security and Applications, Elsevier, Volume 51, 2020.
  • Kamalakanta Sethi, Venu Madhav, Rahul Kumar, Padmalochan Bera, “Attention based Multi-agent Intrusion Detection Systems using Reinforcement Learning” Journal of Information Security and Applications, Elsevier, Vol. 61, 2021
  • Sai Prasath, Kamalakanta Sethi, Dinesh Mohanty, Padmalochan Bera and subhransu Ranjan Samantaray, Analysis of Continual Learning Models for Intrusion Detection System," in IEEE Access, vol. 10, pp. 121444-121464, 2022, doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2022.3222715
  • Sreekanth Vadigi, Kamalakanta Sethi, Dinesh Mohanty, Shom Prasad Das, Padmalochan Bera, Federated reinforcement learning based intrusion detection system using dynamic attention mechanism, Journal of Information Security and Applications, Volume 78, 2023, 103608, ISSN 2214-2126

 

Publications (Conferences)
  • Gupta, S., Patnala, S. K., Warish, W., Agrawal, N., Tripathi, N., BN, P. K., & Raman, B. (2023, December). GPS Spoof and Detect in Ardupilot Simulating UAVs. In 2023 OITS International Conference on Information Technology (OCIT) (pp. 817-822). IEEE. 10.1109/OCIT59427.2023.10430778 (*Scopus Indexed)
  • Neha Agrawal, Rohit Kumar & Shashikala Tapaswi (2024) “Improved Child Safety using Edge-Fog-Cloud Enabled Smart IoT Wearable Device: An Architecture”, International Conference on Communication Systems & Network (COMSNETS), IEEE, Bangalore, India. DOI: 10.1109/COMSNETS59351.2024.10427466 (*Scopus Indexed)
  • Rohit Kumar & Neha Agrawal (2024) “ACL Assisted Security Mechanism Against LowRate DDoS Attack in SDN-Cloud-IoT Networks”, 21st International Conference on Information Technology (OCIT), IEEE, Bangalore, India. DOI: 10.1109/OCIT59427.2023.10431284 (*Scopus Indexed)
  • Suruchi Karnani and Neha Agrawal, (2021) “Bound Constructive Fraud and Implementing Dual Accessibility Approach on Biometric Credit/Debit Cards,” International Conference on Machine Intelligence & Data Science Applications (MIDAS), Springer, Dehradun (Scopus Indexed).
  • Neha Agrawal, Shashikala Tapaswi, (2017). “A Lightweight Approach to Detect the Low/High Rate IP Spoofed Cloud DDoS Attacks.” In Proc.: IEEE 7th International Symposium on Cloud and Service Computing (SC2’17), Kanazawa, Japan, 22-25 Nov. 2017, pp. 118 - 123. (Scopus Indexed), [Published]. DOI: 10.1109/SC2.2017.25
  • Neha Agrawal, Bhale Pradeepkumar, Shashikala Tapaswi, (2013). “Preventing ARP spoofing in WLAN using SHA-512.” In Proc.: IEEE International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Computing Research (ICCIC 2013), Enathi, India, 26-28 Dec. 2013, pp. 1-5. (Scopus Indexed), [Published]. DOI: 10.1109/ICCIC.2013.6724145
  • Neha Agrawal, Shashikala Tapaswi, (2018). “Access Control Framework Using Dynamic Attributes Encryption for Mobile Cloud Environment.” Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, 563, Springer, Singapore, pp. 611-621. (Scopus Indexed). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-6872-0_59
  • Kamalakanta Sethi, Rahul Kumar, Nishant Prajapati and Padmalochan Bera, "A Lightweight Intrusion Detection System using Benford's Law and Network Flow Size Difference," 2020 International Conference on COMmunication Systems & NETworkS (COMSNETS), Bengaluru, India, 2020, pp. 1-6
  • Kamalakanta Sethi, Amartya Majumdar, Padmalochan Bera, “A novel implementation of parallel homomorphic encryption for secure data storage in cloud”, IEEE Cyber Science 2017, Oxford, UK, June 3-4 2019
  • Dinesh Mohanty, Kamalakanta Sethi, Sai Prasanth, Padmalochan Bera “Intelligent Intrusion Detection System for Smart Grid Application” IEEE Cyber Science, Oxford, UK, June 3-4 2021
  • Kamalakanta Sethi, Ankit Pradhan and Padmalochan Bera, "Attribute-Based Data Security with Obfuscated Access Policy for Smart Grid Applications," 2020 International Conference on COMmunication Systems & NETworkS (COMSNETS), Bengaluru, India, 2020, pp. 503-506
  • Kamalakanta Sethi, Rahul Kumar, Nishant Prajapati and Padmalochan Bera, "Deep Reinforcement Learning based Intrusion Detection System for Cloud  Infrastructure," 2020 International Conference on COMmunication Systems & NETworkS (COMSNETS), Bengaluru, India, 2020, pp. 1-6
  • Kasturi Routray, Kamalakanta Sethi, Padmalochan Bera, “CP-ABE with Hidden Access Policy and Outsourced Decryption for Cloud based EHR Applications” The 4th International Conference on Information and Communication Technology for Intelligent Systems (ICTIS 2020), Ahmedabad, India.
  • Rahul Kumar, Kamalakanta Sethi, Nishant Prajapati, Kamalakanta Sethi , “Machine Learning based Malware Detection in Cloud Environment using Clustering Approach” 2020 11th International Conference on Computing, Communication and Networking Technologies (ICCCNT), IIT Kharagpur, India, 2020.
  • Kamalakanta Sethi, Rahul Kumar, Dinesh Mohanty, Padmalochan Bera, “Robust Adaptive Cloud Intrusion Detection System using Advanced Deep Reinforcement Learning” Tenth International Conference on Security, Privacy and Applied Cryptographic Engineering (SPACE 2020), IIT Kharagpur, India.
  • Ankit Pradhan, Kamalakanta Sethi, Padmalochan Bera, “Smart Grid Data Security using Practical CP-ABE with Obfuscated Policy and Outsourcing Decryption” 2020 International Conference on Cyber Situational Awareness, Data Analytics and Assessment (CyberSA), IEEE, pp.1-8, London, United Kingdom, 2020.
  • Kamalakanta Sethi, Shankar Kumar Chaudhary, Bata Krishna Tripathy, Padmalochan Bera “A novel malware analysis for malware detection and classification using machine learning algorithms” ACM SIN 2017, pp. 07-13, Jaipur, October 13-15, 2017.
  • Kamalakanta Sethi, Anish Chopra, Padmalochan Bera, Bata Krishna Tripathy “Integration of role based access control with homomorphic cryptosystem for secure and controlled access of data in cloud”, ACM SIN 2017, pp.194-199, Jaipur, October 13-15, 2017.
  • Kamalakanta Sethi, Punith R, Ankit Pradhan, Padmalochan Bera, “A Scalable Attribute Based Encryption for Secure Data Storage and Access in Cloud”, IEEE Cyber Science 2019, Oxford, UK, June 3-4 2019
  • Kamalakanta Sethi, Amartya Majumdar, Padmalochan Bera, “A novel implementation of parallel homomorphic encryption for secure data storage in cloud”, IEEE Cyber Science 2017, Oxford, UK, June 3-4 2019
  • Kamalakanta Sethi, Rahul Kumar, Lingaraj Sethi, Padmalochan Bera, “A Novel Machine Learning Based Malware Detection and Classification Framework”, IEEE Cyber Science 2019 , Oxford, UK, June 3-4, 2019
  • Ankit Pradhan, Kamalakanta Sethi, Shrohan Mohapatra Padmalochan Bera , "Distributed Multi-authority Attribute-based Encryption Using Cellular Automata", 18th International Conference on Cryptology And Network Security (CANS) , Fuzhou, China 2019
  • USN Raju, Kamalakanta Sethi, Sunaina Choudhary, Priyanka Jain, “A new hybrid watermarking technique using DCT and DWT based on scaling factor” 2015 International Conference on Futuristic Trends on Computational Analysis and Knowledge Management (ABLAZE), pp. 232-235, IEEE, Noida, 2015.
  • Aniket Agrawal, Kamalakanta Sethi, Padmalochan Bera, "IoT-Based Aggregate Smart Grid Energy Data Extraction using Image Recognition and Partial Homomorphic Encryption," 2021 IEEE International Conference on Advanced Networks and Telecommunications Systems (ANTS), Hyderabad, India, 2021, pp. 408-413
  •  Aniket Agrawal, Kamalakanta Sethi, Padmalochan Bera, "Inviolable e-Question paper via QR code Watermarking and Visual Cryptography," 2021 IEEE International Conference on Advanced Networks and Telecommunications Systems (ANTS), Hyderabad, India, 2021, pp. 266-271
  • Sravan Kumar Gatram, Kamalakanta Sethi, Piyush Joshi and Rakesh Kumar Sanodiya, “Attention based Image Steganography Using CNNs in Integration with Quantization Encryption”, In: Onwubiko, C., et al. Proceedings of the International Conference on Cybersecurity, Situational Awareness and Social Media. Springer Proceedings in Complexity. Springer, Singapore, 2024 (to be published)
  • Anjali Kumari, Sreevallabh Karanam, Swejan Annabathini and Kamalakanta Sethi, Design of Pairing Free Attribute-based Encryption for Smart Grid Applications. ”, In: Onwubiko, C., et al. Proceedings of the International Conference on Cybersecurity, Situational Awareness and Social Media. Springer Proceedings in Complexity. Springer, Singapore, 2024 (to be published)
  • Sravan Kumar Gatram, Kamalakanta Sethi, and Piyush Joshi, “Robust Image Steganography Using DCT, GrabCut, and Quantization”, 3rd  International Conference on Network Security and Blockchain Technology (ICNSBT 2024), June 6-8, 2024 (to be published)

 

Workshop Organized
  • A 5-Day Workshop on “CyberTEA 1.0: Cybersecurity Trends and Emerging Applications”, 02-06 Jan 2024.
  • A 5-Day Workshop on “CyberTEA 2.0: Cybersecurity Trends and Emerging Applications”, 01-05 Nov 2024.

 

PhD Students
No Name of the Student/Research Scholar Title of Thesis Guide Co-guide(s) if any
1 Mr. Kiran Kumar Nampalle Defense Mechanisms for DDoS Attacks in IoT Dr. Neha Agrawal NIL
2 Mr. Jayakumar S Securing SDN Based 5G Network Dr. Neha Agrawal NIL
3 Munmun Swain IoT Security Dr. Kamalakanta Sethi NIL
JRF
  • Mr. Praveen Kumar Sandanamudi under Dr. Neha Agrawal

 

No Title of the Project Name of Supervisor(s)
1 Efficient Load Balancing Approach for Cloud Environment Dr. Neha Agrawal
2 An Optimized Load Balancing Algorithm for Cloud Computing Dr. Neha Agrawal
3 Energy Efficient Dynamic Load Balancing Dr. Neha Agrawal
4 DeSML: Defense for flooding attacks in SDN using ML Dr. Neha Agrawal
5 Implementing Cryptocurrency and ICO using Blockchain Dr. Neha Agrawal
6 DDoS detection and attack traffic classification in software defined networks Dr. Neha Agrawal
7 Computation offloading in mobile cloud computing Dr. Neha Agrawal

 

Honors Students

  • Shristi Mahore (Dr. Neha Agrawal)
  • Priyanshu Kushwah (Dr. Neha Agrawal)
  • Vinayak Anand (Dr. Kamalakanta Sethi)
  • R Deraj Yojith (Dr. Kamalakanta Sethi)