Faculty Advisor: Research Scientist, Georgia Institute of Technology

Research Practicum Introduction

On July 2 2021, a US based vendor (Kaseya) with presence in 10 countries providing software solutions was under a Ransomware attack. As a result, 800 supermarket chain stores in Sweden had to temporarily close as they were unable to open their cash registers.

Internet attacks are increasingly sophisticated and complex. As we see on the news, Internet attacks can have huge impacts on our everyday lives such as disconnecting entire countries, disconnecting critical infrastructure (e.g. food and gas supply chains), leaking sensitive financial and personal information (eg credit card and social security numbers). As a result, there is an increasing need for experts in all aspects of the Cybersecurity field. 

In this program, we will first build our background on computer networking and why the Internet is vulnerable. Then we will explore popular research topics using hands-on techniques and datasets. Optionally, we will leverage data science techniques to tackle a problem. 

Students will also learn general and subject-specific research and academic writing methods used in universities and scholarly publications. Students will focus on individual topics and generate their own work products upon completion of the program.

Possible Topics For Final Project:

• Identifying Fake News: using Natural Language Processing Techniques and real social media datasets

• Cryptocurrency and Cryptocurrency Attacks: how can we defend against them? How can we detect unauthorized mining activities?

• Physical Disasters causing Internet Disruptions

• Denial of Service Attacks and Hijacking

• Detection of Compromised Devices

• Distribution of Malicious Libraries in Python

• Cybersecurity and Machine Learning

• Internet Policy and Social Media

• Or other topics in this subject area that you are interested in, and that your professor approves after discussing it with you.

Program Detail

• Cohort Size: 3-5 students

• Workload: Around 4-5 hours per week (including class time and homework time)

• Target Students: 9-12th grade students interested in Computer Science or Engineering, Internet Security, Data Science and Machine Learning, Policy, and other Computer/Security related fields. Knowledge in coding is a plus but not required.

• Schedule: TBD. Meetings will take place for around one hour per week, with a weekly meeting day and time to be determined a few weeks prior to the class start date.