Researchers at the University of Missouri College of Engineering recently received a two-year, approximately $500,000 cybersecurity research grant from the National Security Agency (NSA) to develop a security feature that allows different smart devices to intelligently learn from past cyberattacks while having a minimal need for direct human intervention. Their security tool will also incorporate a collaborative network among the developers of these devices for sharing solutions in order to better respond against potential attacks in the future.

Prasad Calyam, Associate Professor and Director of the Center for Cyber Education, Research and Infrastructure at the University of Missouri, said commercial developers do not yet have the security techniques necessary to keep up with the changing nature of cyberattacks, which furthers the need for this type of research and related technologies.

“The key aspect in our approach is being able to use machine learning techniques to customize the response, while coupling that with use of trusted threat intelligence platforms based on blockchain to adapt to the need presented by the attack. We believe our approach will help make smart security better for smart devices,” Calyam said.

The grant, "Automated and Intelligent Threat Detection and Defense of Future Internet of Things (IoT) Edge/Cloud Systems,” was awarded by the NSA’s National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity through their Cybersecurity Research Innovation 2021 Program. Calyam is collaborating with Jianli Pan, an associate professor in computer science at University of Missouri-St. Louis, who is a co-principal investigator on the grant.