Gail-Joon Ahn, PhD, CISSP
Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering
School of Computing, Informatics and Decision Systems Engineering
Arizona State University

Title: Securing and Utilizing Social Dynamics

Abstract: Considering the popularity and wide adoption of social network systems and the competitive edge these systems provide, there has been a rapid growth in use of these systems to access, store, and exchange personal attribute information in distributed and/or federated environments and this trend is expected to continue. Efficient, secure, and user-centric techniques are important for the successful deployment of such systems. The vision of dynamic social networks is a complex and highly sophisticated one that requiring ongoing research and analysis to continue concurrent with the changing role and face of digital information creation and usage including personal information and contents in social networks. This talk presents ongoing research results and findings related to (a) security mechanisms for securing social networks and (b) analytic intelligence for understanding and discovering social dynamics.

Bio: Gail-Joon Ahn, Ph.D, CISSP is an Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering Program in the School of Computing, Informatics and Decision Systems Engineering at Arizona State University and Director of Laboratory of Security Engineering for Future Computing (SEFCOM).

His research foci include access control, secure information sharing, vulnerability and risk management, identity and privacy management, security-enhanced computing platforms, security architecture for network and distributed systems, and modeling for computer security. His research has been supported by NSF, NSA, DoD, DoE, DoJ, Bank of America, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He is currently an information director of ACM Special Interest Group on Security, Audit and Control (SIGSAC) and he is a recipient of Department of Energy Early Career Principal Investigator Award and Educator of the Year Award from Federal Information Systems Security Educators' Association (FISSEA). Also, he serves as Associate Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing and Associate Editor of ACM Transactions on Information and Systems Security. He earned his MS and PhD degrees from George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia in 1996 and 2000, respectively.