The Security and COgnitive REcommender Systems (SCORE) Laboratory, directed by Dr. Gahangir Hossain at the University of North Texas (UNT), specializes in research on cognitive computing, AI, and machine learning models aimed at enhancing the security of cyber-human interactions and ensuring the protection of trustworthy critical cyberinfrastructures. The cybersecurity research team at SCORE Lab is dedicated in research to the protection and defense of critical cyberinfrastructures. Core research responsibilities include:

(1) Cyber Data Sources Localization: Identifying the sources of cyber incident data from diverse origins, such as individual log hosts, network traffic logs, firewall logs, and intrusion detection system (IDS) logs, which are linked to particular vulnerabilities.

(2) Secure HCI: Analyzing log files from various sources to detect potential threats to network and data security.

(3) Machine Learning and AI: Correlating incident data using machine learning to pinpoint specific vulnerabilities and providing recommendations using AI and recommender systems to facilitate swift remediation.

(4) Cyber Defense: Conducting cyber defense triage to assess the scope, urgency, and potential impact, identify specific vulnerabilities, and suggest actions for timely remediation.

(5) Real-Time Cybersecurity: Handling real-time cyber defense incidents by performing tasks such as forensic data collection, intrusion correlation and tracking, threat analysis, and direct system remediation to support deployable Incident Response Teams (IRTs).

(6) Cognitive Cybersecurity Recommenders: Designing and developing cognitive recommender systems to process and analyze network alerts from multiple enterprise sources, identifying possible causes for these alerts.

The lab also studies cognitive and brain informatics, usability analysis, causal inferences, and synchrony analysis for cyber-human collaborative sensemaking. Our research is based on big data from cyber-human interactions and theories from cognitive neuroscience. Recently, the lab conducted a variety of cognitive and behavioral experiments with algorithm engineering and probabilistic modeling, focusing on applications in cybersecurity, business, and medical informatics. The Cognitive Recommender system wing of SCORE lab is dedicated to exploring five overarching research pertaining to the design of resilient, dependable, supportive, and adaptable cyber systems.

(1) Cognitive Engineering: research on designing, developing, and optimizing systems that enhance human cognition and decision-making, often by integrating artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and human-computer interaction (HCI).

(2) Knowledge Engineering and Management: responsible for designing, developing, and managing recommender systems that capture, store, and utilize knowledge to support decision-making and enhance AI-driven processes.

(3) Prompt Engineering: designing, optimizing, and fine-tuning AI model prompts to ensure accurate, effective, and relevant responses aiding to cognitive recommender systems with assistive technology tools and chat bots.

(4) Systems Engineering: Research on designing, implementing, and maintaining complex systems, ensuring availability, reliability, efficiently and sustainability in meeting the overall objectives of the system.

(5) Cognitive Neuroscience and Health Informatics: the multidisciplinary research combines principles from cognitive neuroscience, health informatics, and data science focusing on understanding how brain functions relate to health data, patient outcomes, and healthcare systems.

In summary, the SCORE Lab aspires to offer concepts, algorithms, experiments, frequently asked questions, and tutorials to facilitate the reimagining of systems and models, ultimately leading to a future cyber environment and system design that is both effective and secure, while also fostering sustainability.

Present Projects:

(1) Critical Cyber-Infrastructures: Cybersecurity Risk Prediction, Assessment and Protection  

a. Food and Agriculture Cybersecurity- Agriculture 5.0

Lead researchers: Dr. Kossi Bissadu, Dr.Gahangir Hossain, Salleh Shonko, Pavani Velagala  

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b. Critical Cyberinfrastructures and Cybersecurity:

Lead researchers: Dr.Gahangir Hossain, Prashant Vajpayee, Bryan Anderson

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c. Healthcare Cybersecurity - Healthcare 5.0

Lead researchers: Pavani Velagala and Dr.Gahangir Hossain, Yahya Awaad, Nusrat Mary

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d. Cybersecurity Economics - Industry 5.0 

Lead researchers: Prashant Vajpayee and Dr.Gahangir Hossain, Yara M. Salman

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(2) Cybersecurity Information Sciences

a. Cognitive Recommender Systems

Lead researchers: Dr.Gahangir Hossain, Nusrat Mary

b. Cognitive Cyber Optimization 

Lead researchers: Dr.Gahangir Hossain, Bryan Anderson

c. Cybersecurity Education, Curriculum, Pathways Design  

Lead researchers: Dr.Gahangir Hossain and all lab members. 

d. Cybersecurity Workforce Development

d. Cybersecurity Knowledge Engineering  

Lead researchers: Dr.Gahangir Hossain, Yahya Awaad.  

Funded Projects:

1. PERFECT: Providing Education and Resources for Effective Cybersecurity Training: STEM 9th to 12th Grade School Students, $600K from ONR (2022 -2025)

2. Minority Cyber-CREWS:  Minority Community Cybersecurity Research, Educational Engagement, Workforce development, and Security Best Practices. $1M from DHS (2023 -2027)

Past Research Projects: