ACI News

Force of Nature: Settling A 250-Year-Old Statistics Puzzle
September 26, 2018 — Research from Deep Mukhopadhyay, professor of statistical science, and Douglas Fletcher, a PhD student, was accepted for publication in Scientific Reports, a journal by Nature Research. Their research marks a significant step towards bridging the “gap” between two different schools of thought in statistical data modeling that has plagued... MORE

U.S. Army in Cyberspace
September 25, 2018 — The U.S. Army is engaged in the cyber domain every day to achieve and maintain superiority in cyberspace against the nation's adversaries. For the Army in Cyberspace, the number one priority is operating and defending Army networks, data, and weapons systems.A strong Army posture across cyberspace and the information environment empowers Army,... MORE

A look back at the winners of the cyber 9/12 student challenge 2018
September 25, 2018 — Team Black Knights of the US Military Academy at West Point were the winners of the Cyber 9/12 Student Challenge 2018. The GCSP had the chance to interview them six months after they championed the competition. Grab some advice, learn from their experiences and take a look at what to expect at the 2019 challenge! MORE

Protecting Financial Institutions Against Cyber Threats: A National Security Issue
September 24, 2018 — The U.S. economy is susceptible to offensive operations carried out by national security adversaries in cyberspace. States and highly capable nonstate actors are causing increasing strategic concerns, reflecting a deeper appreciation of the national security—rather than solely criminal—dimensions of the cyber challenge. In February 2018, the... MORE

Countering the Ability to Trick Machine Learning
September 13, 2018 — With society becoming dependent on Machine Learning for things like facial recognition to optimizing power generation, there is significant research being conducted on how to cause the learning algorithms to produce undesirable results using falsified or tainted data. While this research is becoming more understood, the research on countering these types of attacks is not as advanced. During this projects, ACI researchers taught cadets basic Machine Learning principles, exposed to a number of different techniques used to fool Machine Learning and asked to participate in investigative research on countering these techniques. MORE

Applying Ethics to Artificial Intelligence
September 12, 2018 — As the Department of Defense and commercial sectors become more dependent on Artificial Intelligence for enabling rapid decisions, the integration of ethical principles into AI algorithms is a topic of debate. What impacts would occur with these additions? Would AI algorithm efficiencies suffer? Would decision recommendations suffer? The cadet team working on this project investigated current Artificial Intelligence algorithms and determined whether or not it would be possible to integrate ethical decision making into these algorithms in a manner that would be transparent and auditable while still producing the best possible recommendation MORE

Countering Unmanned Vehicles
September 12, 2018 — Unmanned vehicles pose a large threat to transportation safety, firefighting, law enforcement, and the Department of Defense. Because drones and other unmanned vehicles are so inexpensive, they have become readily accessible to almost anyone from the hobbyist to military forces. This project was aimed at creating an extremely inexpensive, mobile, solution to disable any kind of unmanned vehicle within range. Cadets worked with ACI researchers to learn the basics of wireless communications using a variety of technologies and researched different techniques for degrading those signals. The cadet them implemented their chosen solution using hardware components computer languages. This solution was then tested against different types of unmanned vehicles to determine its effectiveness. MORE

Sentiment Analysis of Social Media
September 12, 2018 — With the ubiquity of social media, the ability to determine the feeling of a large population of anonymous users toward a certain idea has become easier. This analysis of constant feedback is crucial to understanding how the public perceives components of the United States Army. During this project, ACI researcher instructed cadets about different mechanisms for performing sentiment analysis, analyzed anonymous data, and determined the public perception of the USMA Band and USMA Band concerts with the intent of making the performances more enjoyable for future audiences MORE

Cyber Threats & Physiological Responses
September 12, 2018 — As traditional authentication mechanisms become outdated and compromised easily, many researchers believe the keys to more reliable authentication mechanisms lie in biometrics. In addition, there is a significant desire to determine when computer operators are working at peak efficiency and when they begin to function with less precision. The intersection of these two concepts is human physiology. During this project, cadets assisted in conducting a variety of computer and visual bases tests to determine what physiological responses could be observed from different stimuli and whether or not the reactions to those different types of stimuli presented in similar or different measures depending on the stimulus. Cadets then analyzed the results and determined next steps to be taken to continue the research. MORE

Cyber Threat Report 01 June - 18 June 2018
June 18, 2018 — Army Cyber Institute Cyber Threat ReportTech Trends: Stories and Highlights Vietnamese Law Forces Tech Firms to Store Data on Users Apple Will Fix Favorite L.E. iPhone Cracking Method Malware Analysis Report: N. Korean Trojan: TYPEFRAME 92 Million Users of DNA Testing Firm MyHeritage Exposed 26 Million Ticketfly Users’ Data StolenREAD MORE MORE