A computer engineer at the University of Rhode Island has been awarded a five-year, $400,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to support her work developing a systematic plan for a “trust infrastructure” for computer networks.
A major challenge for computer users today is to figure out which computers’ content is safe – which e-mail attachments can be safely opened, for example, and which will plant a virus or spyware in their machines.
Yan Sun, an assistant professor at URI who specializes in wireless computer network security, is working to build better ways to evaluate the trustworthiness of individual users within a network than the current systems.
Most networks now protect themselves with expensive cryptography systems that guard against viruses and other malicious transmissions, but can also slow down the networks, hinder the sharing of vital information, and even cripple operations, Sun said.
One of the tools Sun is working on is a program that would open a pop-up window or other message offering guidance on whether to trust a specific e-mail with attachments.
“Right now, the research society really relies on the end-user to protect your own security,” she said. “This is not 100-percent right, because most users are not expert in that. They need some help.”
Sun is also working to improve network security and performance even when there are malicious users in the system. This could be accomplished by developing infrastructure that quickly detects malicious users, so that other nodes on the system can avoid working with them, Sun said.
And Sun is working to stimulate collaboration in networks by building a trust framework that rewards network users who help others, by making that information public within the network – increasing the likelihood that others will help them in return, she said.
To aid her research, Sun is studying trust from a social science perspective and adapting it to computer networks. The innovative research approach was among the reasons the National Science Foundation awarded Sun one of its most prestigious grants, given to young scholars whom the foundation deems likeliest to become future academic leaders, according to URI. Sun is only the fourth URI researcher to receive the grant in the last decade.
Sun, 30 and a native of China, joined the URI faculty in 2004 after completing her doctorate at the University of Maryland.
