Trisha Chakraborty

Trisha Chakraborty, Shaswata Mitra, Sudip Mittal

Critical servers can be secured against distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks using proof of work (PoW) systems assisted by an Artificial Intelligence (AI) that learns contextual network request patterns. In this work, we introduce CAPoW, a context-aware anti-DDoS framework that injects latency adaptively during communication by utilizing context-aware PoW puzzles. In CAPoW, a security professional can define relevant request context attributes which can be learned by the AI system. These contextual attributes can include information about the user request, such as IP address, time, flow-level information, etc., and are utilized to generate a contextual score for incoming requests that influence the hardness of a PoW puzzle. These puzzles need to be solved by a user before the server begins to process their request. Solving puzzles slow down the volume of incoming adversarial requests. Additionally, the framework compels the adversary to incur a cost per request, hence making it expensive for an adversary to prolong a DDoS attack. We include the theoretical foundations of the CAPoW framework along with a description of its implementation and evaluation.

Trisha Chakraborty, Shaswata Mitra, Sudip Mittal et al.

Proof of Work (PoW) based cyberdefense systems require incoming network requests to expend effort solving an arbitrary mathematical puzzle. Current state of the art is unable to differentiate between trustworthy and untrustworthy connections, requiring all to solve complex puzzles. In this paper, we introduce an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-assisted PoW framework that utilizes IP traffic based features to inform an adaptive issuer which can then generate puzzles with varying hardness. The modular framework uses these capabilities to ensure that untrustworthy clients solve harder puzzles thereby incurring longer latency than authentic requests to receive a response from the server. Our preliminary findings reveal our approach effectively throttles untrustworthy traffic.

Ivan A. Fernandez, Subash Neupane, Trisha Chakraborty et al.

Industry 4.0 has witnessed the rise of complex robots fueled by the integration of Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) and Digital Twin (DT) technologies. While these technologies offer numerous benefits, they also introduce potential privacy and security risks. This paper surveys privacy attacks targeting robots enabled by AI and DT models. Exfiltration and data leakage of ML models are discussed in addition to the potential extraction of models derived from first-principles (e.g., physics-based). We also discuss design considerations with DT-integrated robotics touching on the impact of ML model training, responsible AI and DT safeguards, data governance and ethical considerations on the effectiveness of these attacks. We advocate for a trusted autonomy approach, emphasizing the need to combine robotics, AI, and DT technologies with robust ethical frameworks and trustworthiness principles for secure and reliable AI robotic systems.