Illinois Tech Researchers Win 2018 IET Journal Premium Award for Cyber-Physical Systems Security Research

Research done at Illinois Tech on cybersecurity management was outlined in a paper that won the 2018 Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) Premium Award for Cyber-Physical Systems: Theory and Applications. Each year the IET awards the authors of the best paper published within the last two years in each of their journals.

The winning paper, titled “Assessing and Mitigating Cybersecurity Risks of Traffic Light Systems in Smart Cities,” was authored by Dong (Kevin) Jin, assistant professor of computer science, Mohammad Shahidehpour, Distinguished Bodine Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Illinois Tech Ph.D. students Christopher Hannon and Zhiyi Li, and Jianhui Wang of Southern Methodist University.

In their research, the team used mathematical programming to mitigate cybersecurity risks of networked traffic lights. The proposed framework not only helped to quantify the physical implication of potential cyberattacks, but also laid the foundation for prioritizing and implementing defensive measures to retain the desired traffic management performance. The research aimed to raise the public awareness of cybersecurity risks in intelligent transportation systems, as well as in other critical smart city infrastructures (e.g., energy systems), and contribute to cyber­secure smart city solutions.

The research was supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), Dynamic Data-Driven Applications System (DDDAS) program. The winning paper can be accessed here for free until August 2019.