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Research & Developments

The objective of research and development initiatives is to educate future leaders which will enable them to unveil knowledge and generate fresh ideas. Our research group works in liaison with varied international research consortiums.  

Strategic Support for Accreditation of Programs and Internationalization at South Asian Higher Education Institutes (HEls) 

 
Start: 15-01-2021  End: 14-01-2024

Project Reference: 619438-EPP-1-2020-1-PK-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP

EU Grant: 876206 EUR

Programme: Erasmus+

Key Action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Action Type: Capacity Building in higher education

Globalization has heightened the need for standardization and accreditation in Asian higher education to ensure global comparability and recognition of qualifications.Asian institutions face strong competition from international universities and must act quickly to maintain quality standards. Despite having a large student population, few Asian universities rank highly worldwide, highlighting the urgency for reforms.


Design and Implementation of a Lightweight Privacy Extension of DNSSEC Protocol


Overview: The Domain Name System (DNS) is essential for internet functionality, but it is vulnerable to attacks such as cache poisoning, spoofing, and privacy breaches. While DNSSEC (Domain Name System Security Extensions) strengthens DNS security, it is often considered computationally heavy and complex to deploy.

This research proposes a lightweight privacy extension for DNSSEC that ensures confidentiality, integrity, and privacy of DNS messages—without adding significant overhead.

Key Contributions:

  • Enhanced DNS Header: A new DNS header format designed to integrate privacy features directly into DNS message exchanges.
  • Lightweight Implementation: Optimized encryption techniques reduce computation time and resource usage.
  • Experimentation Testbed: Real-world testing using BIND servers to evaluate performance and feasibility.
  • Performance Results: Demonstrates that the proposed extension adds minimal latency compared to plaintext DNS, making it practical for large-scale deployment.

Results:

  • Secure DNS messages (encrypted) showed only a small increase in response time compared to normal DNS.
  • The system proved resilient against common DNS attacks while maintaining low overhead.
  • Results confirm feasibility for real-world deployment in both small and large-scale networks.

Significance:

  • For Researchers: Provides a framework for exploring future DNS privacy enhancements.
  • For Network Engineers: Offers a practical, lightweight solution for securing DNS without burdening infrastructure.
  • For End Users: Improves online privacy and protection against DNS-related attacks.

Conclusion:

This work successfully integrates privacy features into DNSSEC in a lightweight manner, balancing security, privacy, and efficiency. It paves the way for safer internet communication with minimal performance trade-offs

Systematic Literature Review on Malware Breaches in Online Social Networks


Overview: This study investigates malware breaches in online social networks (OSNs), analyzing how they occur, spread, and impact users. It provides a structured literature review (SLR) to classify malware propagation strategies and highlight prevention methods.

Key Findings: Malware in OSNs spreads through multiple vectors

  • Injected malicious content – tampering with web pages or apps to compromise user systems.
  • Exploiting OSN vulnerabilities – such as cross-site scripting (XSS) and malicious URLs.
  • Identity theft – stealing user credentials to spread infections.
  • Viral advertisements – using ad networks or spam campaigns.
  • Social engineering – tricking users through direct or indirect links.
  • Link attacks – spreading malware via malicious URLs.
  • Fake content – injecting misleading or harmful material.

Significance:

  • For Researchers: Synthesizes current knowledge on OSN malware for future studies.
  • For Developers: Supports the design of effective anti-malware solutions.
  • For End Users: Raises awareness about threats, helping individuals protect personal data.

Methodology:

  1.  Planning the Review – defining scope, questions, and protocol.
  2. Conducting the Review – selecting studies, extracting data, and synthesizing findings.
  3. Reporting the Review – formatting and disseminating results.

Conclusion:

The review highlights major malware breach strategies in OSNs and offers insights into mitigating them. By understanding these threats, users, developers, and researchers can better safeguard social networks against malicious attacks.

Future Work:

  • Enhanced frameworks for malware detection and prevention.
  • Training and awareness programs.
  • Further exploration of privacy and security issues in evolving social platforms​


Deployment of Collaborative Modern HoneyNet to improve Regional Cyber security Landscape (CMOHN)


The CMoHN project developed core skills to manage and integrate honeynets, while designing new honeypots to counter cyberattacks. It built a regional collaborative honeynet network and promoted R&D through publications and awareness seminars. Funded with AUD 30,000, the project was led by Dr. Muhammad Yousaf as principal investigator.

CATEGORIES

  • APNIC Internet Operations Research Grants
  • Internet Society Cybersecurity Grant
  • Community Impact Grants
  • Technical Innovation Grants