The ASSURED interview series is back. Do not miss our talks with experts about the future of security in next-generation smart connectivity systems comprising heterogeneous IoT and other types of cyber-physical systems.
The third expert interview, conducted in June 2022, featured Liqun Chen, a professor at the University of Surrey’s Department of Computer Science, one of the technical contributors to ASSURED.
The role of the University of Surrey within ASSURED
The University of Surrey’s team is known for its research in areas such as hardware security, cryptographic algorithms, attestation mechanisms for trusted computing, blockchain security, and formal analysis of security protocols. Surrey’s researchers involved in ASSURED are active mostly in WP4 dedicated to Blockchain-based ASSURED Supply Chain Control Services and Trust Evidence Collection. They lead the consortium’s effort on the root of trust design for Blockchains and its support to ABE and other lightweight secure tools. They also support the technical, security, privacy, trust and operational assurance risks and requirements in WP1 and the modelling of the remote attestation enablers in WP3. Liqun and her team are instrumental in helping the design of the related technical components of the ASSURED framework. The trusted computing-oriented blockchain wallet they have designed as part of the project makes use of the state-of-the-art cryptographic technologies to guarantee the security, privacy, and trust properties in the supply chain of the ASSURED use cases. By supporting verifiable authentication and attestation, this blockchain wallet allows users in the ASSURED use cases to safely access and run the ASSURED developed smart contracts.
Interview
During the interview, in addition to shedding more light on the work performed by her team within the project, Liqun talked about the core properties offered by the use of trusted computing for enhancing security, challenges in remote attestation of low-end embedded devices, and the concept of sustainable security, among other topics.
Watch the full interview to hear her valuable insights and learn about the challenges the ASSURED consortium faced and addressed in the first half of the project.
Stay tuned to hear from other experts. An interview featuring Ahmad-Reza Sadeghi from the System Security Lab at TU Darmstadt will be available soon.