I am Associate Professor and Head of the Computer Science department at Camerino University, Italy. I got my Ph.D. in 2006 at the Computer Science Department of University of L'Aquila. Afterwards I cooperated with the European Space Agency (ESA) on the CUSPIS FP6 project to design and implement novel security protocols and secure geo tags for works of art authentication. To this end I was combining traditional security mechanisms and satellite data. In 2007 I was Research Associate at the Computing Department, Distributed System and Policy Group, Imperial College London . There I was working on the UBIVAL EPRC project in cooperation with Cambridge, Oxford, Birmingham and UCL for building a novel middleware to support the programming of body sensor networks. In 2010 I was Senior Lecturer at Middlesex University in the Distributed Systems and Networking Department. There I funded the Senso LAB an innovative research laboratory for building energy efficient wireless sensor networks.
Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, 2019
Nowadays, communication networks are composed by heterogeneous devices that can communicate by me... more Nowadays, communication networks are composed by heterogeneous devices that can communicate by means of multiple interfaces. By choosing which interfaces to activate (switch-on) at each device, several connections might be established. That is, the devices at the endpoints of each connection share at least one active interface. This is at the basis of a new but well-investigated model referred in the literature to as Multi-Interface networks. In this paper, we consider a new variant of the original model where each device is limited to activate at most a fixed number p of its available interfaces. In particular, we consider the so-called Coverage problem. Given a network \(G=(V,E)\), nodes V represent devices, edges E represent connections that can be established. The aim is to activate at most p interfaces at each node in order to establish all the connections defined by E. A connection is established whenever the two endpoints activate one common interface. Recently, the problem has been proved to be \(\textit{NP}\)-hard even for the basic case of \(p=2\). Then, various resolution algorithms have been provided for different graph topologies. Here we keep on investigating on the case \(p=2\) when the underlying graph represents a so-called Series-Parallel network. We provide an optimal resolution algorithm based on dynamic programming for this intriguing graph class.
We present an approach to provide Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) facilities into Wireless Sens... more We present an approach to provide Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) facilities into Wireless Sensors Networks (WSN). WSNs are usually composed of a large number of low power sensors. They require a careful consumption of the available energy in order to prolong the lifetime of the network. From the security point of view, the overhead added to standard protocols must be as light as possible according to the required security level. Starting from the DESERT tool [14, 16, 25] which has been proposed for component-based software architectures, we derive a new framework that permits to dynamically enforce a set of properties of the sensors behavior. This is accomplished by an IDS specification that is automatically translated into few lines of code installed in the sensors. This realizes a distributed system that locally detects violation of the sensors interactions policies and is able to minimize the information sent among sensors in order to discover attacks across the network. 1
In university courses to promote collaborative activities among students, on-line learningenviron... more In university courses to promote collaborative activities among students, on-line learningenvironments such as e-learning platforms are used. Effective collaborative activitiesinvolve the creation of heterogeneous groups of 4 or 5 students. In the university contextthe formation of groups is difficult due to the high number of students. Groups are oftenunbalanced and not very functional if chosen randomly. Some e-learning platforms, suchas Moodle, lack an intelligent mechanism that allows the automatic creation of heterogeneousgroups of students. We applied clustering algorithms on Moodle learning analytics(LA) that allowed to build groupings that identify the different characteristics ofstudents based on their behaviors kept on the platform. Therefore we have developedan intelligent numerical tool which, using clusters obtained from Machine Learning onthe LA, generates heterogeneous groups. These groups are made available on the platformfor the teacher. The project will conclude wi...
Nowadays, with the help of advanced technologies, an illegal copy of digital content can be share... more Nowadays, with the help of advanced technologies, an illegal copy of digital content can be shared easily. Which rise copyright and authentication problems. Digital text documents are generated and shared daily through different internet technologies such as the cloud, etc. The protection of these documents is a challenging task for researchers. In the past, steganography, cryptography, and watermarking techniques have been applied to resolve the copyright problem. However, most of the existing techniques are applicable for only plain text or protecting the document on the local paradigm. In the said perspective, we proposed a new technique to solve the problem of copyright and authentication on local and cloud paradigms. In this paper, we utilize some custom components of MS Word Document for concealing the watermark into a text document. These components are not referred to as the main document and will not modify the content and format. The experimental analysis and results prove...
International Journal of Machine Learning and Cybernetics, 2021
The protection and privacy of the 5G-IoT framework is a major challenge due to the vast number of... more The protection and privacy of the 5G-IoT framework is a major challenge due to the vast number of mobile devices. Specialized applications running these 5G-IoT systems may be vulnerable to clone attacks. Cloning applications can be achieved by stealing or distributing commercial Android apps to harm the advanced services of the 5G-IoT framework. Meanwhile, most Android app stores run and manage Android apps that developers have submitted separately without any central verification systems. Android scammers sell pirated versions of commercial software to other app stores under different names. Android applications are typically stored on cloud servers, while API access services may be used to detect and prevent cloned applications from being released. In this paper, we proposed a hybrid approach to the Control Flow Graph (CFG) and a deep learning model to secure the smart services of the 5G-IoT framework. First, the newly submitted APK file is extracted and the JDEX decompiler is used to retrieve Java source files from possibly original and cloned applications. Second, the source files are broken down into various android-based components. After generating Control-Flow Graphs (CFGs), the weighted features are stripped from each component. Finally, the Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) is designed to predict potential cloned applications by training features from different components of android applications. Experimental results have shown that the proposed approach can achieve an average accuracy of 96.24% for cloned applications selected from different android application stores.
2016 IEEE 30th International Conference on Advanced Information Networking and Applications (AINA), 2016
A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is composed of distributed sensors with limited processing capabi... more A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is composed of distributed sensors with limited processing capabilities and energy restrictions. These unique attributes pose new challenges amongst which prolonging the WSN lifetime is one of the most important. Clustering is an energy efficient routing technique that has been widely applied to report data from the WSN nodes to a centralised Base Station. A plethora of different clustering protocols have been proposed. Some protocols are based on equal-sized clusters while others use clusters of unequal size. Some others make use of rotation techniques to reduce the amount of cluster head elections. When different clustering approaches are presented different simulation settings are used. In this paper we perform a comparison study of HEED based clustering protocols that are HEED, UHEED, RUHEED and a novel variation of R-HEED that is ER-HEED. We have considered the same network model, the same energy consumption model and we have compared the lifetime of the protocols by considering various case studies. Our comparison study shows that the selection of the protocol to be used depends on the case study and the WSN lifetime measure that is considered.
Recent development in intelligent transport systems (ITS) has led to the improvement of driving e... more Recent development in intelligent transport systems (ITS) has led to the improvement of driving experience in vehicular ad-hoc network (VANET) systems. Providing a low computational cost with high serving capability, however, is a critical phenomenon in the current VANET system. In the existing scenario, when the authenticated vehicle user moves from one roadside unit (RSU) to another RSU region, re-authentication of the vehicle user is required by the current RSU, which increases the computational complexity. To overcome the above-mentioned challenge, a blockchain-based authentication protocol is developed in this work. In this suggested process, blockchain is integrated with VANET, which enables the authentication of the vehicle user without the involvement of a trusted authority. Moreover, the integrity of the message and privacy of vehicle users are preserved in the blockchain network. Even though many blockchain-based schemes have been proposed recently, the existing schemes we...
Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, 2019
Nowadays, communication networks are composed by heterogeneous devices that can communicate by me... more Nowadays, communication networks are composed by heterogeneous devices that can communicate by means of multiple interfaces. By choosing which interfaces to activate (switch-on) at each device, several connections might be established. That is, the devices at the endpoints of each connection share at least one active interface. This is at the basis of a new but well-investigated model referred in the literature to as Multi-Interface networks. In this paper, we consider a new variant of the original model where each device is limited to activate at most a fixed number p of its available interfaces. In particular, we consider the so-called Coverage problem. Given a network \(G=(V,E)\), nodes V represent devices, edges E represent connections that can be established. The aim is to activate at most p interfaces at each node in order to establish all the connections defined by E. A connection is established whenever the two endpoints activate one common interface. Recently, the problem has been proved to be \(\textit{NP}\)-hard even for the basic case of \(p=2\). Then, various resolution algorithms have been provided for different graph topologies. Here we keep on investigating on the case \(p=2\) when the underlying graph represents a so-called Series-Parallel network. We provide an optimal resolution algorithm based on dynamic programming for this intriguing graph class.
We present an approach to provide Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) facilities into Wireless Sens... more We present an approach to provide Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) facilities into Wireless Sensors Networks (WSN). WSNs are usually composed of a large number of low power sensors. They require a careful consumption of the available energy in order to prolong the lifetime of the network. From the security point of view, the overhead added to standard protocols must be as light as possible according to the required security level. Starting from the DESERT tool [14, 16, 25] which has been proposed for component-based software architectures, we derive a new framework that permits to dynamically enforce a set of properties of the sensors behavior. This is accomplished by an IDS specification that is automatically translated into few lines of code installed in the sensors. This realizes a distributed system that locally detects violation of the sensors interactions policies and is able to minimize the information sent among sensors in order to discover attacks across the network. 1
In university courses to promote collaborative activities among students, on-line learningenviron... more In university courses to promote collaborative activities among students, on-line learningenvironments such as e-learning platforms are used. Effective collaborative activitiesinvolve the creation of heterogeneous groups of 4 or 5 students. In the university contextthe formation of groups is difficult due to the high number of students. Groups are oftenunbalanced and not very functional if chosen randomly. Some e-learning platforms, suchas Moodle, lack an intelligent mechanism that allows the automatic creation of heterogeneousgroups of students. We applied clustering algorithms on Moodle learning analytics(LA) that allowed to build groupings that identify the different characteristics ofstudents based on their behaviors kept on the platform. Therefore we have developedan intelligent numerical tool which, using clusters obtained from Machine Learning onthe LA, generates heterogeneous groups. These groups are made available on the platformfor the teacher. The project will conclude wi...
Nowadays, with the help of advanced technologies, an illegal copy of digital content can be share... more Nowadays, with the help of advanced technologies, an illegal copy of digital content can be shared easily. Which rise copyright and authentication problems. Digital text documents are generated and shared daily through different internet technologies such as the cloud, etc. The protection of these documents is a challenging task for researchers. In the past, steganography, cryptography, and watermarking techniques have been applied to resolve the copyright problem. However, most of the existing techniques are applicable for only plain text or protecting the document on the local paradigm. In the said perspective, we proposed a new technique to solve the problem of copyright and authentication on local and cloud paradigms. In this paper, we utilize some custom components of MS Word Document for concealing the watermark into a text document. These components are not referred to as the main document and will not modify the content and format. The experimental analysis and results prove...
International Journal of Machine Learning and Cybernetics, 2021
The protection and privacy of the 5G-IoT framework is a major challenge due to the vast number of... more The protection and privacy of the 5G-IoT framework is a major challenge due to the vast number of mobile devices. Specialized applications running these 5G-IoT systems may be vulnerable to clone attacks. Cloning applications can be achieved by stealing or distributing commercial Android apps to harm the advanced services of the 5G-IoT framework. Meanwhile, most Android app stores run and manage Android apps that developers have submitted separately without any central verification systems. Android scammers sell pirated versions of commercial software to other app stores under different names. Android applications are typically stored on cloud servers, while API access services may be used to detect and prevent cloned applications from being released. In this paper, we proposed a hybrid approach to the Control Flow Graph (CFG) and a deep learning model to secure the smart services of the 5G-IoT framework. First, the newly submitted APK file is extracted and the JDEX decompiler is used to retrieve Java source files from possibly original and cloned applications. Second, the source files are broken down into various android-based components. After generating Control-Flow Graphs (CFGs), the weighted features are stripped from each component. Finally, the Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) is designed to predict potential cloned applications by training features from different components of android applications. Experimental results have shown that the proposed approach can achieve an average accuracy of 96.24% for cloned applications selected from different android application stores.
2016 IEEE 30th International Conference on Advanced Information Networking and Applications (AINA), 2016
A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is composed of distributed sensors with limited processing capabi... more A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is composed of distributed sensors with limited processing capabilities and energy restrictions. These unique attributes pose new challenges amongst which prolonging the WSN lifetime is one of the most important. Clustering is an energy efficient routing technique that has been widely applied to report data from the WSN nodes to a centralised Base Station. A plethora of different clustering protocols have been proposed. Some protocols are based on equal-sized clusters while others use clusters of unequal size. Some others make use of rotation techniques to reduce the amount of cluster head elections. When different clustering approaches are presented different simulation settings are used. In this paper we perform a comparison study of HEED based clustering protocols that are HEED, UHEED, RUHEED and a novel variation of R-HEED that is ER-HEED. We have considered the same network model, the same energy consumption model and we have compared the lifetime of the protocols by considering various case studies. Our comparison study shows that the selection of the protocol to be used depends on the case study and the WSN lifetime measure that is considered.
Recent development in intelligent transport systems (ITS) has led to the improvement of driving e... more Recent development in intelligent transport systems (ITS) has led to the improvement of driving experience in vehicular ad-hoc network (VANET) systems. Providing a low computational cost with high serving capability, however, is a critical phenomenon in the current VANET system. In the existing scenario, when the authenticated vehicle user moves from one roadside unit (RSU) to another RSU region, re-authentication of the vehicle user is required by the current RSU, which increases the computational complexity. To overcome the above-mentioned challenge, a blockchain-based authentication protocol is developed in this work. In this suggested process, blockchain is integrated with VANET, which enables the authentication of the vehicle user without the involvement of a trusted authority. Moreover, the integrity of the message and privacy of vehicle users are preserved in the blockchain network. Even though many blockchain-based schemes have been proposed recently, the existing schemes we...
Uploads