I am a Senior Research Scientist at the Illinois Advanced Research Center at Singapore (IARCS), working on topics around cyberphysical systems security. In addition, I am teaching Network Protocols & Applications and Cellular Networks classes at the National University of Singapore (NUS) as an Adjunct Senior Lecturer. I received my BSc from Bilkent University in 2013 with high-honours. I then obtained my PhD from NUS in 2017, under Singapore International Graduate Award (SINGA) scholarship.
Research Interests: Network Security, Applied Cryptography, Cyberphysical Systems, Wireless Communications and Networks
Experience
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2018-Present | ||||
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2022-Present | ||||
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2017-2018 |
Education
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2013-2017 | ||||
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2009-2013 | ||||
Ankara Science High School, Turkey | 2005-2009 |
Projects
Below is a list of my recent projects. Click on a project name to expand.
- Future Internet Resilience Economics (FIRE) — Principal Investigator
The concept of a globally dependable network infrastructure holds great promise, yet the ossified nature of today's internet has impeded internet service providers (ISPs) from establishing a resilient network infrastructure. Contractual cooperation aimed at attaining cyber-resilience is practiced only among neighboring networks; hence, no effective market mechanisms for service procurement across the wider internet exist. We offer a viable market mechanism for internet resilience by leveraging path-aware internet architectures and emerging technologies such as software-defined networking and blockchain. By fostering trust among the participants, our proposed model incentivizes service providers to provide resilience services that cater to the unique resilience requirements of customers, while promoting responsible behavior through a transparent market mechanism.
PI(s): | Utku Tefek, Felix Kottmann (SEC) |
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Co-PI(s): | Ertem Esiner |
Grant: | Intra-CREATE Seed Collaboration Grant |
Partner: | Singapore-ETH Centre (SEC) |
Active: | April 2023 onwards |
- Automated Security Policy Generation for IIoT — Co-Principal Investigator
Industrial Control Systems (ICS) face an increasing number of cyber threats, exacerbated by the fast pace of digitization. Protection against these threats entails deploying a well-designed and comprehensive set of security policies. However, the manual design of policies is time-consuming, prone to human error, and does not scale well with the complexity of ICS. We are building an automated policy generation tool (Auto-PGT) for facilitating the security policy generation process for ICS. Auto-PGT uses a combination of user-defined policy templates and machine learning techniques to analyze ICS data and generates targeted policies. The tool also evaluates the completeness of automatically generated policies against a knowledge base of attack steps for ICSs, thereby providing a policy score.
PI(s): | Ertem Esiner |
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Co-PI(s): | Utku Tefek, Daisuke Mashima |
Grant: | NSoE-DeST-SCI Translational Grant |
Partner: | RESYNC Technologies |
Active: | Oct 2022 - Apr 2023 |
- Augmented Security Technology for IIoT Devices — Co-Principal Investigator
We built a lightweight, multi-hop, security policy enforcement API for critical infrastructures, such as the Industrial IoT devices, SCADA, central/cloud management systems. The API runs a fast and flexible provenance verification scheme, and be enriched further with security policies. We tested our API on our Building Energy Management System (BEMS) testbed.
PI(s): | Ertem Esiner |
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Co-PI(s): | Utku Tefek, Daisuke Mashima |
Grant: | NSoE-DeST-SCI Translational Grant |
Partner: | RESYNC Technologies |
Active: | Oct 2021 - Oct 2022 |
- Secure and Accountable Data Exchange for DER Integration — Co-Principal Investigator
We are witnessing strong trends towards deregulation in energy markets and renewable energy integration. The power grid is evolving into an intelligent infrastructure to enable and regulate diversified entities of energy generation, consumption, and storage. This project addresses the security challenges posed by the distributed, multi-organizational nature of this new Internet of Energy: integration of systems with heterogeneous security levels, insecure communication protocols, and lack of a trustworthy platform for transactions and collaborative operation. We offer a base of trust for deregulated energy markets, facilitating robust and secure operation of energy-related services towards decarbonization, decentralization, and deregulation.
PI(s): | Ertem Esiner, Eddy Yi Shyh Foo (NTU) |
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Co-PI(s): | Utku Tefek, Daisuke Mashima, Hung Dinh Nguyen (NTU) |
Grant: | Intra-CREATE Seed Collaboration Grant |
Partner: | Nanyang Technological University (NTU) |
Active: | Oct 2021 - Apr 2023 |
Publications
Academic Papers
EuroS&P 2023 | E. Esiner, U. Tefek, D. Mashima, A. Kupcu, “Multi-User Dynamic Provable Data Possession.” IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy. |
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CNS 2023 | U. Tefek, E. Esiner, C. Cheh, D. Mashima, “A Smart Grid Ontology: Vulnerabilities, Attacks, and Security Policies.” IEEE Conference on Communications and Network Security. |
ACNS 2023 | J. Lim, W. Ong, U. Tefek, E.Esiner, “A Security Policy Engine for Building Energy Management Systems.” International Conference on Applied Cryptography and Network Security. |
ACM TCPS 2022 | E. Esiner, U. Tefek, D. Mashima, B. Chen, Z. Kalbarczyk, D.M. Nicol, “Message Authentication and Provenance Verification for Industrial Control Systems.” ACM Transactions on Cyber-Physical Systems. |
SmartGridComm 2022 | U. Tefek, E. Esiner, D. Mashima, Y.-C. Hu, “Analysis of Message Authentication Solutions for IEC 61850 in Substation Automation Systems.” IEEE International Conference on Communications, Control, and Computing Technologies for Smart Grids. |
INFOCOM 2022 | U. Tefek, E. Esiner, D. Mashima, B. Chen, Y.-C. Hu, “Caching-based Multicast Message Authentication in Time-critical Industrial Control Systems.” IEEE Conference on Computer Communications. |
IEEE TSG 2022 | E. Esiner, U. Tefek, H.M. Erol, D. Mashima, B. Chen, Y.-C. Hu, Z. Kalbarczyk, D. Nicol, “LoMoS: Less-online/more-offline signatures for extremely time-critical systems.” IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid. |
RSSRail 2022 | U. Tefek, E. Esiner, L. Wei, Y.-C. Hu, “TASC: Transparent, Agnostic, Secure Channel for CBTC Under Failure or Cyberattack.” Reliability, Safety, and Security of Railway Systems. |
PRA 2022 | M. Pahalı, K. Durak, U. Tefek, “Cryptographic Security Concerns on Timestamp Sharing via a Public Channel in Quantum-key-distribution Systems.” Physical Review A. |
ICC 2020 | U. Tefek, E. Esiner, “Coverage Analysis of Cooperative Relaying for Urban Transportation Systems in Tunnels.” IEEE International Conference on Communications. |
IEEE JCN 2020 | U. Tefek, A. Tandon, T.J. Lim, “Malicious Relay Detection Using Sentinels: A Stochastic Geometry Framework.” IEEE Journal of Communications and Networks. |
IEEE JCN 2019 | A. Tandon, T.J. Lim, U. Tefek, “Sentinel Based Malicious Relay Detection Scheme in Wireless IoT Networks.” IEEE Journal of Communications and Networks. |
GLOBECOM Wkshps 2018 | A. Tandon, T.J. Lim, U. Tefek, “Sentinel Nased Malicious Relay Detection Scheme for Wireless IoT Networks.” IEEE Global Communications Conference Workshops. |
IEEE TCOM 2018 | D. Han, H. Minn, U. Tefek, T.J. Lim, “Network Dimensioning, QoE Maximization, and Power Control for Multi-tier Machine-type Communications.” IEEE Transactions on Communications. |
IEEE TWC 2018 | U. Tefek, T.J. Lim, “Full-duplex Relaying in Machine-type Communications with a Multi-antenna Base Station.” IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications. |
GLOBECOM 2017 | D. Han, U. Tefek, T.J. Lim, H. Minn “Network Dimensioning and Radio Resource Management for Multi-tier Machine-type Communications.” IEEE Global Communications Conference. |
VTC-Fall 2017 | U. Tefek, T.J. Lim, “Full-duplex SIMO Relaying for Machine-type Communications in Cellular Networks.” IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference. |
IEEE TWC 2016 | U. Tefek, T.J. Lim, “Relaying and Radio Resource Partitioning for Machine-type Communications in Cellular Networks.” IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications. |
WCNC 2016 | U. Tefek, T.J. Lim, “Clustering and Radio Resource Partitioning for Machine-type Communications in Cellular Networks.” IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference. |
IEEE TWC 2015 | U. Tefek, T.J. Lim, “Interference Management Through Exclusion Zones in Two-tier Cognitive Networks.” IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications. |
GLOBECOM 2014 | U. Tefek, T.J. Lim, “Channel-hopping on Multiple Channels for Full Rendezvous Diversity in Cognitive Radio Networks.” IEEE Global Communications Conference Workshops. |
Patents
WO2022182295 | Precomputation-based Message Authentication. WO/2022/182295, Application No: PCT/SG2022/050089, 2022. [Link] |
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US20220376923 | Message Authentication. US/2022/0376923, Application No:17769980, 2022. [Link] |