Hacking a protection application netted a Louisiana Tech University Laptop or computer Science graduate university student a publishing credit history, a excursion to Hawaii, and the prospect to existing the investigate at an global convention.
Louisiana Tech Cyber Engineering alumnus and present-day MS Computer system Science and CyberCorps ®: Scholarship for Service pupil Jonah Fitzgerald (‘22), alongside with fellow Cyber Engineering method alumni Thomas Mason (‘22) and Brian Mulhair (‘22), found a vulnerability in the Louisiana Office of Health and fitness COVID Defense call tracing app that permits hackers to assault neighboring units.
As seniors looking into a paper assignment for Dr. William Bradley Glisson’s Personal computer Science 448/543, Cyber Engineering 404 “Reverse Engineering” class, the group found out the signs or symptoms record share characteristic of the app could be modified to mail a destructive website link via e-mail, WIFI, and nearby share programs. The group was capable to reveal two attacks utilizing the backlink: They were being capable to harvest credentials by redirecting consumers to a fake web site resembling the My.LA.Gov page and setting up an Android application on the goal cell phone to entry all the facts in that cell phone.
With added steerage from Glisson, the workforce enhanced their success, presented the investigation to Glisson’s Cybersecurity Data Know-how Exploration Analysis Group, and submitted the paper to the convention.
Fitzgerald then experienced the opportunity to vacation to Ka’anapali Beach on the island of Maui to existing the team’s results at the 56th Hawaii International Convention on System Sciences “Internet and the Electronic Economy” monitor and “Cybercrime” mini-keep track of.
“I preferred to get concerned with this research for the reason that I felt I could make a significant contribution to bettering mobile application stability and preventing the COVID-19 pandemic,” Fitzgerald reported. “I come to feel that my Tech instruction in cyber engineering prepared me for accomplishment in fixing these forms of complications by rapidly discovering new concepts like reverse engineering and tackling tricky difficulties in cybersecurity and personal computer science.”
Fitzgerald, who is continuing his graduate education and learning with Louisiana Tech and is a member of the Louisiana Tech Research Institute (LTRI), a heart of excellence that delivers preeminent interdisciplinary investigation and built-in training ability to government and market sponsors to resolve complicated rising troubles struggling with our nation, adds that he appreciates the assist that he’s gained from Glisson.
“I was the only one to existing at the conference considering the fact that this was my to start with investigate convention, and Dr. Glisson preferred me to get some experience. I was able to present together with multi-disciplinary groups in cybercrime investigate and dim world-wide-web drug sales. Convention individuals arrived from across the environment, and I was capable to discuss about investigate with folks from California, Tennessee, Poland, Australia, South Korea, and Germany.”
Glisson suggests that he is a proponent of used true-entire world cybersecurity investigation.
“Applied investigation will allow learners at all degrees to exam, refine, and carry out ideas acquired in
