Research Grants

  • December 2018 – December 2019: "Assessing Computer Information Systems Security within Local Governments in Rural Pennsylvania," Center for Rural Pennsylvania Research Grant, $49,989. (Active)

  • September 2018 – August 2019: "Developing an Attack Surface for loT Networks," Three Undergraduate Research Awards, Penn State Altoona, $7,500. (Active)

  • September 2018 – August 2019: "Smartphone Security – Repackaged Applications on the Android Market - Part II," One Undergraduate Research Award, Penn State Altoona, $2,500. (Active)

  • September 2017 – August 2018: "Securing the Internet of Things (loT): A Security Taxonomy and Dashboard ," One Undergraduate Research Award, Penn State Altoona, $2,500. (Completed)

  • September 2017 – August 2018: "Secure Online Transaction Algorithm for Protecting Online Financial Transactions ," One Undergraduate Research Award, Penn State Altoona, $2,500. (Completed)

  • September 2017 – August 2018: "Smartphone Security – Repackaged Applications on the Android Market," One Undergraduate Research Award, Penn State Altoona, $2,500. (Completed)

  • May 2017 – May 2018: “Hybrid Security System/Program for Securing Automobile Networks – Phase II,” 2017 IBM Faculty Award, $5,000.(Completed)

  • May 2017 – August 2017: “MLD -Multi-Layer Defense Model for Security and Risk of Online Financial Transactions,” One Undergraduate Research Award, Penn State Altoona, $1,500. (Completed)

  • May 2016 – December 2017: “Hybrid Security System/Program,” 2016 IBM Faculty Award, $5,000.(Completed)

  • May 2017 – August 2017: “Securing Automobile Networks using Distributed Firewalls Systems and Adaptive Logging (Phase II),” One Undergraduate Research Award, Penn State Altoona, $1,500. (Completed)

    • September 2016 – August 2017: “ A Comprehensive Cloud Security Framework to protect Cloud Stakeholders,” Two Undergraduate Research Award, Penn State Altoona, $2000. (Completed)

  • September 2016 – August 2017: “Securing Automobile Networks using Distributed Firewalls Systems and Adaptive Logging ,” Two Undergraduate Research Award, Penn State Altoona, $2000.(Completed)

  • September 2016 – August 2017: “Establishing Trust among Cloud Stakeholders using Third Party Auditors ,” Two Undergraduate Research Award, Penn State Altoona, $2000. (Completed)

  • September 2015 – August 2016: “An Encryption Scheme for Protecting Clients Information at the Cloud Service Provider (CSP) Data Center,” Two Undergraduate Research Award, Penn State Altoona, $2000. (Completed)

  • September 2015 – August 2016: “Implementation of Biometric Authentication at Large-Scale Using Cloud Computing Paradigm,” One Undergraduate Research Award, Penn State Altoona, (Continuation of the previous proposal), $1000. (Completed)

    • August 2014 - August 2015. Received two Undergraduate Research Awards for year 2014/2015 from the Research Foundation of Penn State Altoona. Funded ($3000) November 01 2014. (Completed)

  • November 2013 - August 2014. Received one Undergraduate Research Award for year 2013/2014 from the Research Foundation of Penn State Altoona. Funded ($2500) November 01 2013.(Completed)

  • August 2013 - July 2014. Received two Undergraduate Research Awards for year 2013/2014 from the Research Foundation of Penn State Altoona. Funded ($3,000) August 2013.(Completed)

  • Jan - Dec 2013. Received Research Development Grant (RDG) Award for the year 2013 from the Research Foundation of Penn State Altoona. Funded ($10,000) December 2012. (Completed)

  • Jan - August 2013. Received two Undergraduate Research Awards for spring and summer semesters of 2013 from the Research Foundation of Penn State Altoona. Funded ($3,000) December 2012.

  • Syed Rizvi (Co-PI), Research Foundation, University of Bridgeport, “implementation and performance evaluation of overlay end system multicast (ESM) for stable and fast streaming of multimedia applications”, funded: $10,000, February 2009

Travel Grant for Undergraduate Students

    1. April 2019: "Securing PKES: Integrating Artificial Intelligence Into PKES Forcefield For Anomaly Detection," Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. My undergraduate student, Michael Tokar, received a travel grant to attend and present a research paper at the 2019 IEEE 5th International Conference on Software Security and Assurance (IEEE ICSSA), July 25-26, St. Pölten, Lower Austria, Austria.

    2. April 2019: "Securing PKES: Integrating Artificial Intelligence Into PKES Forcefield For Anomaly Detection," Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. My undergraduate student, Jarrett Imler, received a travel grant to attend and present a research paper at the 2019 IEEE 5th International Conference on Software Security and Assurance (IEEE ICSSA), July 25-26, St. Pölten, Lower Austria, Austria.

    3. April 2019: "Securing PKES: Integrating Artificial Intelligence Into PKES Forcefield For Anomaly Detection," Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. My undergraduate student, Luke Ritchey, received a travel grant to attend and present a research paper at the 2019 IEEE 5th International Conference on Software Security and Assurance (IEEE ICSSA), July 25-26, St. Pölten, Lower Austria, Austria.

    4. April 2019: "Computing Security Scores for IoT Device Vulnerabilities," Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. My undergraduate student, Nicholas Mcintyre , received a travel grant to attend and present a research paper at the 2019 IEEE 5th International Conference on Software Security and Assurance (IEEE ICSSA), July 25-26, St. Pölten, Lower Austria, Austria.

    5. April 2019: "A Hybrid Framework for Detecting Repackaged Applications on the Android Market," Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. My undergraduate student, Kieran Alden, received a travel grant to attend and present a research paper at the 2019 IEEE 5th International Conference on Software Security and Assurance (IEEE ICSSA), July 25-26, St. Pölten, Lower Austria, Austria.

    6. April 2019: "A Hybrid Framework for Detecting Repackaged Applications on the Android Market," Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. My undergraduate student, Shakir Campbell, received a travel grant to attend and present a research paper at the 2019 IEEE 5th International Conference on Software Security and Assurance (IEEE ICSSA), July 25-26, St. Pölten, Lower Austria, Austria.

    7. Feb 2019: "Securing PKES against Relay Attacks using Coordinate Tracing and Multi-Factor Authentication," Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. My undergraduate student, Jarrett Imler, received a travel grant to attend and present a research paper at the 53rd Annual Conference on Information Sciences and Systems (CISS),Baltimore, MD, USA, March 2019 . The title of the paper is "Securing PKES against Relay Attacks using Coordinate Tracing and Multi-Factor Authentication"

    8. Feb 2019: "Securing PKES against Relay Attacks using Coordinate Tracing and Multi-Factor Authentication," Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. My undergraduate student, Luke Ritchey, received a travel grant to attend and present a research paper at the 53rd Annual Conference on Information Sciences and Systems (CISS),Baltimore, MD, USA, March 2019 . The title of the paper is "Securing PKES against Relay Attacks using Coordinate Tracing and Multi-Factor Authentication"

    9. Feb 2019: "Securing PKES against Relay Attacks using Coordinate Tracing and Multi-Factor Authentication," Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. My undergraduate student, Michael Tokar, received a travel grant to attend and present a research paper at the 53rd Annual Conference on Information Sciences and Systems (CISS),Baltimore, MD, USA, March 2019 . The title of the paper is "Securing PKES against Relay Attacks using Coordinate Tracing and Multi-Factor Authentication"

    10. May 2018: "An Attack Vector for IoT Networks," Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. My undergraduate student, Nicholas McIntyre, received travel grant to attend and present a research paper at the 4th IEEE International Conference on Software Security and Assurance (IEEE ICSSA), July 26-27 2018, Seoul, South Korea

    11. May 2018: ""An Attack Vector for IoT Networks," Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. My undergraduate student, Ryan Pipetti, received travel grant to attend and present a research paper at the 4th IEEE International Conference on Software Security and Assurance (IEEE ICSSA), July 26-27 2018, Seoul, South Korea

    12. May 2018: ""An Attack Vector for IoT Networks," Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. My undergraduate student, Jonathan Todd, received travel grant to attend and present a research paper at the 4th IEEE International Conference on Software Security and Assurance (IEEE ICSSA), July 26-27 2018, Seoul, South Korea

    13. April 2018: "Securing Wireless Sensor Networks from Sinkhole and Sybil Attacks Using Secure Data Aggregation Protocol," Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. My undergraduate student, Joseph Gualdoni, received travel grant to attend and present a research paper at the 2018 17th IEEE International Conference On Trust, Security And Privacy In Computing And Communications, pp. 721-726, July 31th - August 3rd, 2018, New York.

    14. August 2017: "Preventing Identity Theft Using Biometrics Based Authentication System," Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. Candidate’s undergraduate student, Lamjed Zahrouni, received a travel grant to attend and present a research paper at the 2017 IEEE Jordan Conference on Applied Electrical Engineering and Computing Technologies (AEECT), Oct 11 - 13, 2017, 2017 | Amman - Jordan. $1500.

    15. August 2017: “A Threat to Vehicular Cyber Security and the Urgency for Correction,” Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. Candidate’s undergraduate student, Donte Perino, received travel grant to attend and present a research paper at the 2017 Complex Adaptive Systems conference, October 30 - November 1, 2017 | Chicago, IL, 2017. $1500.

    16. August 2017: “Three-Step Approach to QoS Maintenance in Cloud Computing Using a Third Party Auditor,” Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. Candidate’s undergraduate student, Hannah Roddy, received travel grant to attend and present a research paper at the 2017 Complex Adaptive Systems conference, October 30 - November 1, 2017 | Chicago, IL, 2017. $1500.

    17. August 2017: “Secure Online Transaction Algorithm,” Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. Candidate’s undergraduate student, Joseph Gualdoni, received travel grant to attend and present a research paper at the 2017 Complex Adaptive Systems conference, October 30 - November 1, 2017 | Chicago, IL, 2017. $1500.

    18. August 2017: “Taint Flow Analysis to Improve Android Application Security,” Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. Candidate’s undergraduate student, Andrew Kurtz, received travel grant to attend and present a research paper at the 33rd Annual Regional Conference in Cooperation with ACM SIGCSE, October 20-21, 2017, Muhlenberg College, Allentown, PA. $795.

    19. March 2017: “Cloud Reliability and Independence Standard: A Three Tiered System for Optimal Cloud Storage,” Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. Candidate’s undergraduate student, Donte Perino, received travel grant to attend summer school and present a research paper at the IEEE 3rd International Conference on Software Security and Assurance (ICSSA 2017), Altoona, PA, July 24-25, 2017. $1200.

    20. March 2017: “Multi-Layer Defense Model for Securing Online Financial Transactions,” Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. Candidate’s undergraduate student, Ilva Myzyri, received travel grant to attend summer school and present a research paper at the IEEE 3rd International Conference on Software Security and Assurance (ICSSA 2017), Altoona, PA, July 24-25, 2017. $1200.

    21. March 2017: “Three-Step Approach to QoS Maintenance in Cloud Computing Using a Third Party Auditor,” Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. Candidate’s undergraduate student, Hannah Roddy, received travel grant to attend summer school and present a research paper at the IEEE 3rd International Conference on Software Security and Assurance (ICSSA 2017), Altoona, PA, July 24-25, 2017. $1200.

    22. March 2017: “BDACA: Big Data Access Control Architecture,” Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. Candidate’s undergraduate student, Jonathan Willett, received travel grant to attend summer school and present a research paper at the IEEE 3rd International Conference on Software Security and Assurance (ICSSA 2017), Altoona, PA, July 24-25, 2017. $1200.

    23. March 2017: “Problems with Personal Identity Theft & Prevention Technologies,” Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. Candidate’s undergraduate student, Lamjed Zahrouni, received travel grant to attend and present a research paper at the IEEE 3rd International Conference on Software Security and Assurance (ICSSA 2017), Altoona, PA, July 24-25 2017. $400.

    24. March 2017: “Cloud Reliability and Independence Standard: A Three Tiered System for Optimal Cloud Storage,” Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. Candidate’s undergraduate student, Evan English, received travel grant to attend and present a research paper at the IEEE 3rd International Conference on Software Security and Assurance (ICSSA 2017), Altoona, PA, July 24-25 2017. $400.

    25. March 2017: “Three-Step Approach to QoS Maintenance in Cloud Computing Using a Third Party Auditor,” Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. Candidate’s undergraduate student, Joseph Pfeffer, received travel grant to attend and present a research paper at the IEEE 3rd International Conference on Software Security and Assurance (ICSSA 2017), Altoona, PA, July 24-25, 2017. $400.

    26. December 2016: “Protecting an Automobile Network Using Distributed Firewall System,” Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. Candidate’s undergraduate student, Jonathan Willett, received travel grant to attend and present a research paper at the 2nd International Conference on Internet of Things and Cloud Computing at University of Cambridge, United Kingdom. March 22-23, 2017. $1500.

    27. December 2016: “Security Evaluation of Cloud Service Providers Using Third Party Auditors,” Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. Candidate’s undergraduate student, Joe Pfeffer, received travel grant to attend and present a research paper at the 2nd International Conference on Internet of Things and Cloud Computing at University of Cambridge, United Kingdom. March 22-23, 2017. $1500.

    28. September 2015: “Third-Party Auditor (TPA): A Potential Solution for Securing a Cloud Environment,” Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. Candidate’s undergraduate student, Katie Cover, received travel grant to present our research paper at the 2015 IEEE CSCloud, New York, NY, November 2015. $1,500.

    29. September 2015: “Utilizing Third Party Auditing to Manage Trust in the Cloud,” Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. Candidate’s undergraduate student, Kelsey Karpinski, received a travel grant to attend and present our research paper at the 2015 Complex Adaptive Systems conference at San Jose, CA during November 2-4, 2015. $2,000.

    30. September 2015: “Analyzing the Integration of Cognitive Radio and Cloud Computing for Secure Networking,” Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. Candidate’s undergraduate student, Nathan Showan from University Park, received a travel grant to attend and present our research paper at the 2015 Complex Adaptive Systems conference at San Jose, CA during November 2-4, 2015. $2,000.

    31. July 2015: “Cloud Data Integrity Using a Designated Public Verifier," Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. Candidate’s undergraduate student, Katie Cover, received travel grant to present our research paper at the IEEE 7th International Symposium on Cyberspace Safety and Security (CSS), New York, NY during August 24-26, 2015. $2,000

    32. July 2015: “Minimizing Black Hat SEO to Improve Security in Mobile Platforms," Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. Candidate’s undergraduate student, Joshua Clark, received travel grant to attend and present a research paper at The 5th International Workshop on Privacy, Security and Trust in Mobile and Wireless Systems (MobiPST 2015), Las Vegas, NV, August 6, 2015. $1,500

    33. September 2014: “A Trusted Third-Party (TTP) Based Encryption Scheme for Ensuring Data Confidentiality in Cloud Environment," Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. Candidate’s undergraduate student, Katie Cover, received travel grant to attend and present a research paper at Complex Adaptive System Conference at Philadelphia, PA, November 3-5, 2014. $1,500.

    34. September 2014: “A Trusted Third-Party (TTP) Based Encryption Scheme for Ensuring Data Confidentiality in Cloud Environment," Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. Candidate’s undergraduate student, Chris Gates, received travel grant to attend and present a research paper at Complex Adaptive System Conference at Philadelphia, PA, November 3-5, 2014. $1,500.

    35. July 2014: “A Framework for Leveraging Cloud Computing to Facilitate Biometrics," Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. Candidate’s undergraduate student, John Mitchell, received travel grant to attend and present a research paper at the 2014 International Conference on Security and Management (SAM'14), Las Vegas, NV, July 21-24. $2000.

    36. December 2013: “Bandwidth and End-to-End Delay Analysis of IP and End System Multicast (ESM)," Student Travel Grant in Support of Research and Creative Activity. Candidate’s undergraduate student, Nathan Showan, received travel grant to attend and present a research paper at the Network Security Conference (FloCon 2014), Charleston, SC, January 13–16, 2014. $1,500.