Chairholders
Profile
Lingyu Wang
Concordia Institute for Information Systems Engineering (CIISE)
Concordia University
Chair title
NSERC/Ericsson Industrial Research Chair in Software-Defined Networking and Network Functions Virtualization Security
Chair program
Industrial Research Chairs program
Role
Senior Chairholder since 2019
Summary
The main objective of this Industrial Research Chair (IRC) program is to develop a series of solutions to improve the security of cloud and edge computing virtual infrastructures based on network functions virtualization (NFV) and software-defined networking (SDN), with special application to virtual radio access network (vRAN). The new knowledge and technologies that would be transferred to the industrial partner and the Canadian telecommunications industry through this research include security solutions that encompass a full life cycle at both the core and edge of telecommunication networks (i.e., monitoring the security compliance of SDN/NFV-based virtual infrastructures, detecting misconfigurations or attacks causing compliance breaches, and mitigating the detected threats proactively).
The key benefits of the IRC program expected to accrue to both the industry and academia include novel research models, methodologies and results that would advance the state of the art by tackling key challenges in four aspects of the security solutions: efficiency (e.g., how to perform continuous security verification for large and dynamic virtual infrastructures in near real time), accuracy (e.g., how to quantify the co-residency threats), automation (e.g., how to automatically identify critical events leading to compliance violations) and privacy (e.g., how to protect tenants’ virtual network topologies from third party auditors). Other benefits include best practices and recommendations that could be adopted and deployed by the industry to improve the overall security of telecommunication networks, and the training of highly qualified personnel (HQP) with specialized skill sets and expertise for an industry that increasingly relies on virtual infrastructures.
The Chairholder has been a full professor at the Concordia Institute for Information Systems Engineering (CIISE) in the Gina Cody School of Engineering and Computer Science (ENCS) of Concordia University since 2017. He has an established track record in cyber security research, with books, patents and scientific articles published at prestigious venues. His research has made significant contributions to several research areas, including cloud security, security metrics, network hardening, privacy protection and software security. He has led two NSERC collaborative research and development (CRD) projects in collaboration with Ericsson on cloud security auditing research since 2015. This IRC will continue and expand this successful collaboration with Ericsson to address various security and privacy issues of SDN and NFV technologies.
The IRC program is expected to generate strong and positive impact on the supporting partner and the industry in general by addressing some of the key challenges faced by industrial practice, including the efficiency, accuracy, privacy and automation aspects of security solutions in virtual infrastructures. Some of the results will constitute important intellectual property with good potential for commercialization and exploitation. There will be a positive impact on the general security practice of emerging SDN- and NFV-based virtual infrastructures, which will play a key role in 5G telecommunications networks. There will also be a positive impact to the economy in general as the results may help Canadian companies and governments to adopt virtual infrastructures as a cost-saving IT solution by easing their concerns over the lack of trust and security.
Partner
- Ericsson Canada Inc.
Contact information
Concordia Institute for Information Systems Engineering (CIISE)
Concordia University
Email: wang@ciise.concordia.ca
