Rigel Gjomemo of Discovery Partners Institute

Geographically distributed networks of devices like Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) or electric vehicle charging infrastructure pose unique security challenges.

This type of network is composed of interconnected nodes with different levels of security controls and a wide threat surface. In this type of network, untrusted peripheral nodes (e.g., charging stations) may become an easy target for an initial compromise and a stepping stone into more central nodes, e.g., management systems. With the widespread adoption of “smart”  devices, which sense their environment and use communication channels to report their data, this type of lateral movement is increasingly likely. This talk will present recent work done by the Discovery Partners Institute on attack prevention, detection, and response on distributed network of devices and enterprise systems.

Biography:

Dr. Rigel Gjomemo is a Research Scientist at the Discovery Partners Institute and a Research Associate Professor at the Computer Science Department at UIC. His research interests span cybersecurity including intrusion detection, prevention, and response, vulnerability research, mobile applications security, and cybersecurity education. As part of his research, he has published papers in top security conferences and is a recipient of several best paper awards. His recent work includes papers on automatically identifying weaknesses in web applications, testing the security of electric vehicles charging infrastructure, and intrusion detection and response in enterprise systems.