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Cloud Computing and Cybersecurity Group (CCC)

Group Leader(s): Professor Hong Zhu

Contact: hzhu@brookes.ac.uk +44 (0)18654580

About us
Research impact
Leadership
Membership
Projects

About us

The Cloud Computing and Cybersecurity Group consists of staff in the school with a common research interests on cloud computing and cybersecurity and wide diversity of expertise ranging from cloud and distributed computing, software engineering, web technology, formal methods, programming languages, computing networks, mobile communication, security, artificial intelligence, to big data and data analytics.

The research addresses both foundational and practical problems of cloud computing and cybersecurity with research methodologies rooted in formal methods, software automation and development tools, and software languages.

Currently the group is working on the key areas of cloud computing and cybersecurity, including software testing and has developed a new method for testing AI applications. A novel programming language is being developed for microservice cloud native applications. An algebra of design patterns lays a foundation of proving a software design is valid, and also applicable to understand cyberpatterns.  Cybersecurity is a newly established area of research and the current focus is on developing a security framework for autonomous vehicles.

Researcher giving presentation

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Research impact

Computer code

The impact from the research group includes:

  • The development of a novel programming language called CAOPLE and its integrated DevOps environment CIDE for cloud computing based on the research work on agent-oriented software engineering for web-based applications.
  • A formalism for the formal specification of software design patterns, an algebra of pattern composition and instantiation, a theory of validity of pattern composition and instantiation, and the application of the theory to cyberpatterns and software security designs.
  • The development of an algebraic formal specification language called SOFIA for the development of service-oriented systems.
  • The development of a new software testing methodology for AI applications called datamorphic testing. An automated testing tool called Morphy has been designed and implemented based on the methodology and case studies and controlled experiments have been conducted with real industrial applications of face recognitions.
  • Members of the research group are actively involved in the organisation of international conferences focussed on software testing and service oriented systems.

Leadership

Hong Zhu

Professor Hong Zhu

Professor of Computer Science

View profile

Membership

Staff

Name Role Email
Dr Peter Ball Reader in Knowledge Transfer in Computing and Electronics pball@brookes.ac.uk
Dr Kashinath Basu Senior Lecturer in Computer Science kbasu@brookes.ac.uk
Dr Ian Bayley Senior Lecturer in Computer Science ibayley@brookes.ac.uk
Dr Hashem Dehghanniri Senior Lecturer in Computer Science and Cyber Security hdehghanniri@brookes.ac.uk
Dr Mark Green Senior Lecturer mgreen@brookes.ac.uk
Dr Muhammad Hilmi Kamarudin Senior Lecturer in Cyber Security mkamarudin@brookes.ac.uk
Mr David Lightfoot Senior Lecturer in Computing dlightfoot@brookes.ac.uk
Dr Tjeerd Olde Scheper Reader in Computer Science tvolde-scheper@brookes.ac.uk
Dr Shumao Ou Senior Lecturer sou@brookes.ac.uk
Professor Muhammad Younas Professor of Computer Science m.younas@brookes.ac.uk

Students

Name Thesis Title Supervisors Completed
Safras Iqbal Investigations of novel techniques to mitigate against cyber security attacks on autonomous vehicles; Cyber threats to Connected & Autonomous Vehicles Dr Muhammad Hilmi Kamarudin, Dr Peter Ball

Active
Kieren Stanton Studying different technologies for authentication in order to prevent impersonation attacks in vehicular ad hoc networks Dr Hashem Dehghanniri, Dr Ian Bayley

Active

Projects

Active projects

Project title and description Investigator(s) Funder(s) Dates

Analysis and Testing of Artificial Intelligence Applications

The project aims at developing a novel methodology and techniques for automated testing and analysis AI applications cost effectively. It addresses the new types of uncertainties in the development and operation of AI applications and reduces test cost through the efficient generation and uses of large volumes of synthesized but highly realistic data. A testing method call datamorphic testing and a prototype of automated testing environment called Morphy have been developed.
 Professor Hong Zhu Oxford Brookes University From: June 2021
Until: May 2024

Case Studies with Analysis And Testing AI applications

The project applies the datamorphic testing methodology and the Morphy test automation tool to real applications of AI applications to demonstrate the practical applicability and benefits of the new software testing method.
Professor Hong Zhu Brookes Research Excellence Award From: August 2021
Until: July 2022

Big data management in NoSQL and cloud

This project is developing a new transaction model which provides NoSQL systems with standard transaction support and stronger data consistency for NoSQL and cloud systems.
 Professor Muhammad Younas

Authentication in VANETs

Study of different technologies for authentication in order to prevent impersonation attacks in vehicular ad hoc networks.
 Dr Ian Bayley, Dr Hashem Dehghanniri, Dr Muhammad Hilmi Kamarudin, Kieren Stanton Oxford Brookes University From: January 2021
Until: December 2023

Cybersecurity of Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAV)

Investigates novel techniques to mitigate against cyber security attacks on connected and autonomous vehicles.
 Dr Peter Ball, Safras Iqbal, Dr Muhammad Hilmi Kamarudin From: January 2021
Until: December 2023

Completed projects

Project title and description Investigator(s) Funder(s) Dates

Validation of data obtained from fixed parking sensors installed in parking bays

This work demonstrates that a mobile sensing system can provide a cost effective solution for providing road users with information about available parking spaces and reduce unnecessary driving and energy waste in search of an unoccupied bay. The work was carried out in collaboration with GeoMii Technologies and an open data set of the measurements has been made available for other researchers.
Dr Peter Ball Brookes Research Excellence Award From: January 2017
Until: December 2017

Cloud Computing Technologies

This project is a collaboration with the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay, for research on cloud service selection and provisioning. As part of the grant, students from IIT conducted research in Oxford Brookes University under the supervision of Dr. Basu and Dr. Younas and contributed to the research and development of a Cloud Information Extraction platform.
Dr Kashinath Basu, Professor Muhammad Younas Oxford Brookes University From: January 2017
Until: December 2017