I am presently working as Lecturer in the School of Computing, Engineering, and Physical Sciences, the University of the West of Scotland, Lanarkshire, United Kingdom. I have worked as a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the School of Computer Science and Statistics, Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin, Ireland from February 2020 to February 2021. I also worked as an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science and Engineering Department of Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala (India) from June 2016 to November 2021. I have completed my Ph.D. (Computer Science and Engineering) from the University Institute of Engineering and Technology, Panjab University Chandigarh (India) in February 2016. I have served the Information Technology industry for 2 years as a technology solution consultant. I am Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) and Microsoft TechNet Certified Technology Expert. My primary research interest is in the area of cyber and network security. I have completed Post-Doc Fellowship in Blockchain & Applied Cryptography and a Ph.D. in Machine learning-enabled Intrusion Detection systems. The overall goal of my research is to work in the field of cyber security to contribute to the knowledge generation that can help to rationalize the various challenges faced by security experts. I have working experience in the following technologies: ns-3 simulator, ndnSIM, Dockers Containers, Python programming language, Blockchain technology: Multichain & Ethereum, Matlab, and C++.

Current and Past Research

Presently I am working on various topics like blockchain, applied cryptography, Intrusion Detection, Privacy Preservation, and Data Security. A brief review is given below:

• Decentralized Web (DWeb): Blockchain-enabled DWeb is an IP-less network that uses peer-to-peer internetworking to route objects. The design is capable to provide blockchain-enabled in-built integrity to published objects and can operate even in-network-partition events. We used technologies like Dockers Containers, ns-3 simulator, ndnSIM simulator, Python programming language, Ethereum blockchain to implement the concept. One of my effort to connect ns-3 nodes with Dockers containers is appreciated by ns-3 developers and has been adopted on their official HOWTOs wiki webpage that has the link to my corresponding blog.
• SecureChat: The cost involved in PKI to issue certificates by trusted third parties always blocked its worldwide implementation. The WhatsApp messaging application has serious concerns of security vulnerability. The WhatsApp server controls the key generation process and stores the backup decryption keys at its servers. In business WhatsApp, the business owner has access to the encryption/decryption key of anyone sending a message to the business account. We addressed these issues using a blockchain-enabled PKI system with almost zero cost of certificate issuance.
• WiFi Offloading: We used smart contracts, Ethereum, Python, Dockers Containers, and ns-3 to simulate the behaviour of offloading network traffic from high-speed WiFi networks to mobile subscriber's phones. In this research, we provide an option to mobile subscribers to use the private WiFi providers’ network if they want to use a high-speed network, and a smart contract is used to deal with the agreement between the mobile network provider and WiFi provider.
• Machine Learning-based Intrusion Detection System: My general research agenda is to investigate ways to reduce huge and im-balanced network traffic datasets without affecting the performance of IDS. In one investigation, I proposed alpha and beta profiling to reduce the irrelevant and redundant instances along with unusable features. The proposed algorithm and its impact on IDS is presented in a research paper published in Elsevier’s Expert System with Applications journal. In another research, I focussed on reducing the number of network traffic instances known as the abridging of the dataset without decreasing statistical information in it. The finding of my research is presented in a research paper which is accepted by Wiley’s IJCS journal.
• In one assignment, I have worked to secure distributed key management in mobile and ad-hoc networks. Lagrange's polynomial and curve fitting are being used to implement hierarchical key management for Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs). In this research, I have used Chebyshev polynomials to perform key management and tested in various conditions like the secret key shares generation, symmetric key construction, and key distribution. The finding of this research is published in IEEE’s China Communications journal.
• I have completed two international joint research projects (one with Warsaw University of Technology, Poland (the year 2017-2019) and another with ITMO University, Saint Petersburg, Russia (the year 2018-2020)). My role was Co-Principal Investigator and the project was funded by the Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India from the Indian side.

Future Research Directions

I envision my future research to span across some interrelated areas of network security like connected car hacking, applied cryptography, Blockchain, and integrating artificial intelligence in cyber security. In continuation of my current focus, my near term plan is to work on the research issues that include the following:

• I have experience in Python 3 including libraries like Pandas, Numpy, Scikit-learn, NLTK, matplotlib along with Docker Containers and Kubernetes.
• Privacy and access control in the Internet of Things (IoT) devices in a smart city environment.
• Manipulation of safety-critical systems in internet-enabled cars.
• Using machine learning, blockchain, and Deep Learning to develop future-ready security algorithms.