In the morning, panels bringing together industrial and academic experts and in the afternoon, short presentations of industrial issues. Come and interact with experts from IVADO, Polytechnique Montréal, ÉTS and CRIM who will try to propose on-line solutions to the technological issues raised. May 31, 2018, at the Westin Montreal Hotel.

Fehmi Jaafar, a cybersecurity researcher at CRIM, will be on hand to talk to participants.

The recipients of the 2018 edition are:

1)      Arushi Jain, a Master’s student in Computer Science at McGill University under the supervision of Professor Doina Precup. She will work with Fehmi Jaafar, researcher in cybersecurity at CRIM, on her research topic: Problems pertaining to AI safety; introducing safety in Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning.

2)      João Monteiro, PhD student at the National Institute of Scientific Research under the supervision of Professor Tiago Falk, will continue his work in automatic speaker verification with the assistance of Jahangir Alam, researcher in the Speech and Text team.

The CRIM Graduate Scholarships Program aims to provide financial support to outstanding master’s and doctoral students working in various sectors of applied information technology research. This program is one of the means CRIM uses to develop its ties with the university community by offering students an opportunity to complement their academic training with hands-on R&D experience, all in collaboration with the university research director.

The CRIM Bursary Program operates on the basis of an annual competition. Scholarships are awarded on merit in relation to all applications submitted, based on quality of the CV, school transcripts and relevance of the research project to CRIM.

Crypto-ransomware is a family of one of the commonly seen malware that exploits software vulnerabilities of Internet accessible servers, end-user computers, and mobile devices. In this paper, the behavior of the crypto-ransomware is experimentally analyzed. Dynamic analysis of the ransomware was performed in a virtual environment using data flow modeling approach. Modification of registry values and system call functions by the malware were within the scope of the analysis. The outcome of the experimental study provides a number of indicators which can be considered when assessing the effectiveness of solutions designed to prevent and detect crypto-ransomware.

Android Gaming Malware Detection Using System Call Behaviour Analysis, Jaiswal, M., Malik, Y., Jaafar, F.

This paper will be publish in the IEEE Xplore Digital Library.

ISDFS provides a platform for researchers and experts in academia, industry and government to exchange ideas and recent developments in digital forensics and security. After the several successful events, the sixth ISDFS conference will continue to promote and disseminate knowledge concerning several topics and technologies related to Digital Forensics and Security.

The goal of this research project is to explore better ways of preventing the exploitation of unsecured digital devices on the Internet by malicious code, as these attacks have the potential to critically disrupt Canada’s vital cyber systems. Although IoT devices are not powerful computers, they can generate massive amounts of bogus traffic to swamp targeted servers. Reducing the likelihood of future disruptions of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks based on IoT involves, among other things, developing an Internet of Things fingerprinting approach that identifies devices actively connected to networks. Exploring the use of a unique electronic fingerprint that each device creates via its physical characteristics can help identify which are legitimate and which may come from potentially malicious sources. The results of this research could be used to enhance the security of healthcare systems as well as networked industrial systems such as oil and gas, manufacturing, water treatment and utilities.

The Cyber Security Cooperation Program, launched in 2014 by the Government of Canada, is a five-year $1.5M initiative in support of Canada’s Cyber Security Strategy. Its mission is to improve security of Canada’s vital cyber systems. The Government of Canada believes that securing the Internet of Things is important and this grant program is part of that effort.

Congratulations, Dr. Jaafar!