Colleagues of the Applied Physics Laboratory and the Whiting School of Engineering are invited to the January talk in a speaker series co-presented by the Johns Hopkins Institute for Assured Autonomy (IAA) and the Computer Science Department, featuring national scholars presenting new research and development at the intersection of autonomy and assurance.

This talk will be “Securing 5G Against Fragile and Malicious Infrastructure” featuring speaker Alex Marder, assistant professor of computer science and a member of the Institute for Assured Autonomy, presenting virtually on Tuesday, January 16th at 10:30 a.m.

Dr. Marder’s abstract and bio are attached. This event is open to all APL and JHU staff, faculty, and students; please share!

ABSTRACT:
In early 2020, the U.S. government revealed its belief that China might be able to eavesdrop on 5G communications through Huawei network equipment. This has enormous ramifications for DOD and State Department communications overseas, since these backdoors could provide our adversaries with information that allows them to glean insights into operations or harm personnel. Later that same year, wired and wireless networks in the greater Nashville area failed when a bomb damaged a single network facility. The outage affected nearly every aspect of modern society, including grounding flights, disrupting economic activity, and disconnecting 911. These two events highlight the enormous challenge of securing critical communications: we need to secure our communications against threats within the telecommunications infrastructure, as well as to secure the infrastructure from external attack.

This talk will discuss both of these challenges. First, I will use the Nashville outage as a blueprint to show that it remains surprisingly easy for attackers to induce large-scale communications outages around the U.S. without any insider information or specialized access. Second, I will discuss innovative methods for identifying and circumventing the potential threats placed by nation-state adversaries within the infrastructure, along with methods for ensuring that communications only traverse benign infrastructure.

About the Johns Hopkins Institute for Assured Autonomy: Led by APL and the Whiting School of Engineering, the IAA is becoming a nationally recognized center of excellence in autonomous systems, showcasing the robust portfolio of research and work from two premier divisions of JHU and creating strategic external partnerships. The IAA seeks to ensure the safe, secure, and reliable integration of autonomous systems and artificial intelligence (AI) in society. As autonomous systems proliferate, both physically and virtually, the institute seeks to ensure the systems will be trusted and safe in their operations, will withstand corruption by adversaries, and will integrate seamlessly into ecosystems and communities. In this burgeoning field, JHU strives to advance a clear vision for an autonomous future.