The Department of Computer Science invites you to a seminar on cybersecurity, titled “The Impact of Network Layer Attacks in Wireless Sensor Networks” with Dr Christiana Ioannou (postdoctoral researcher at the Network Research Lab (NetRL) , University of Cyprus, Department of Computer Science).

Security threats are present in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) and aim to destruct, manipulate the network, or eavesdrop network traffic for malicious intent. The first line of defense is to prevent attacks, usually by applying cryptography, the second line of defense is detecting the presence of the attack within the network, and the third is stopping or recovering quickly from the attack. This talk presents the impact of routing layer attacks in WSNs that can provide insights to build better intrusion detection systems (IDSs). IDSs base their detection decision on the knowledge gained from known attacks. The attacks’ characteristics and methods to manipulate the network are analysed and used to drive recovery mechanisms.

This talk presents the effects of routing-layer packet drop attacks and the impact of the attacks as “seen” from the Sink node and the victim node. The attacks can have an effect on all network layers of the victim node and the degree of impact depends on many factors, including the topology of WSN and the distance from the Sink.

About Dr Christiana Ioannou

Christiana Ioannou is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Network Research Lab (NetRL) at the University of Cyprus, Department of Computer Science. She is also a part time lecturer at the University of Nicosia teaching courses at the Computer Science Department and the Multimedia Department.

She received her PhD in 2017, from the Department of Computer Science of the University of Cyprus. Her PhD thesis title is “mIDS: an Intrusion Detection System for Wireless Sensor Networks and the Internet of Things”. Christiana obtained a BSc in Computer Science from San Diego State University and a post-graduate diploma in Management from Mediterranean Institute of Management. She also obtained a MSc in Computer Science from Florida Institute of Technology, completed via a CASP scholarship from the Fulbright Commission in Cyprus. Her master thesis topic was “The Hunt for Viral Processes”.

Her research interests include WSNs and the IoT focusing on Security, IDSs using anomaly and signature based detection mechanisms for novel and known attacks.