Cyber Security and Privacy Lab

The Cyber Security and Privacy Lab at NYU Abu Dhabi investigates the security and privacy of existing and emerging systems and networks that enable people, organizations, and industry to operate and collaborate under often large-scale cyber attacks. Fast and far-reaching technological advances make it challenging to secure the variety of technical and digital systems our society is increasingly building upon, in particular in view of targeted, progressively sophisticated, and well-connected attackers.

The field is gaining in importance due to the increased reliance on computer systems, the Internet, wireless network standards (such as Wi-Fi and 4G/5G), and the growth of smart devices that constitute the Internet of Things (IoT).

Christina Pöpper, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, NYUAD

We rely heavily on IT systems for communication and navigation, and many of these systems are vulnerable to attacks.

Christina Pöpper, Assistant Professor of Computer Science

The academic goal of the lab is to contribute crucial foundations to secure existing and future IT and cyber-physical systems and to challenge the beliefs in the security and privacy of existing systems by scientific investigations. As such, our research builds on the areas of system, network, information and computer security. The spectrum of our research topics and contributions ranges from:

well-secured systems where the goal is to push the frontier and limits of security and privacy further (such as for cellular network security in 4G-LTE/5G and for the anonymity network Tor)
areas where limited security mechanisms are in place but there are inherent difficulties to secure the systems with traditional security techniques and approaches, e.g., due to physical constraints and long standardization processes (such as for GPS/ADS-B security) or unconventional system requirements (digital forgetting)