|  Research
conducted in the School of Information Sciences (SIS)
offers tremendous potential for practical applications.
One example is the work conducted by Professor Prashant
Krishnamurthy and his SIS colleagues, professors David
Tipper and Joseph Kabara, who are collaborating on a project
on wireless information assurance funded by the National
Institute of Standards and Technology.
“When I joined Pitt, my primary research focus was
wireless networking, with an additional interest in security,”
said Krishnamurthy. “I came to Pitt because of the
reputation of its telecommunications program, one of the
best in the country.”
According to Krishnamurthy, wireless wide-area networks,
such as digital cellular phone networks, and wireless
local-area networks (WLANs), such as the mushrooming wireless
Internet services in coffee shops, have experienced tremendous
growth, becoming a crucial component of the national communications
infrastructure.
“More and more WLANs are appearing everywhere,
in coffee shops, malls, and in homes,” Krishnamurthy
said. “People are accessing the Internet from everywhere
and are involved in commercial transactions, such as placing
orders, making purchases, online banking, and getting
stock quotes and trading.
“The usage is currently sparse, but as it increases,
security and survivability become a big concern and needs
to be addressed in a fundamental way. Such networks will
only be as good as the integrity of the information that
flows through them.”
As wireless networks are developing into a hybrid structure—with
cellular networks providing wide-area mobile data service
but at low-data rates and WLANs providing indoor and “hot
spot” coverage at higher-data rates—the need
for the assurance (security and availability) of information
flow in these networks increases, especially because of
the differences between the individual components.
“Wireless networks have aspects that make security
and survivability different than wired networks, and also
particularly challenging,” said Krishnamurthy. “The
broadcast nature of wireless communication links makes
them unique in their vulnerability to security attacks.
Mobile stations also are limited in computational and
battery power, which also constrains information security
measures. Additionally, mobile stations continually leave
the network and change locations, which also affects security
and reliability.
“These unique features of hybrid wireless networks
negate the standard survivability and security techniques
developed for wired networks. Our project seeks to develop
a comprehensive treatment of information assurance in
hybrid wireless networks,” said Krishnamurthy.
If successful, Krishnamurthy and his colleagues will
develop methods to guarantee protection against security
attacks or accidental breakdowns and provide confidentiality,
data integrity, authentication, and access control as
required.
“For assuring information, the wireless network
architecture must provide sufficient security and survivability
measures such that secure communication can continue for
all critical services in the face of physical attacks,
failures, or security breaches,” said Krishnamurthy.
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