Center for Secure Cyberspace

The Center for Secure Cyberspace (CSC) is committed to advancing interdisciplinary, top-tier cybersecurity research, providing practical, real-world solutions, fostering professional networks, and facilitating dynamic discussions and collaborations. Our researchers engage in innovative projects across a broad spectrum of cybersecurity domains, including reverse engineering, malware analysis, blockchain technology, networking, artificial intelligence, digital forensics, and machine learning applications.

Currently, the CSC is playing a pivotal role in establishing a fully functional, student-centric Security Operations Center (SOC) at Louisiana Tech University. Located in the student center, the SOC is primarily staffed by students who will receive industry-standard training from Splunk. This unique training opportunity, combined with hands-on experience, equips students with the skills necessary for successful careers in cybersecurity. Participants can also engage in faculty-led research projects, with the potential to contribute to peer-reviewed publications. Additionally, students at Louisiana Tech can earn a Louisiana Board of Regents (BoR) approved undergraduate Cybersecurity Certificate, as well as CompTIA certifications in Network+ and Security+.

Louisiana Tech University has been designated by the National Security Agency (NSA) as a Center of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity Research and Education, reinforcing its commitment to this mission. The CSC facilitates cybersecurity initiatives for both undergraduate and graduate students, providing access to high-quality coursework in computer science, cyber engineering, and related fields. For more information about our academic offerings, please explore the Computer Science undergraduate and graduate programs, the Cyber Engineering program, and the PhD in Cyberspace Engineering.

Research Laboratories

Professor Glisson with student in CYAIL lab

Cybersecurity Applied Innovation Laboratory

CyAIL isn’t just a lab; it’s a vibrant community of passionate faculty, dedicated undergraduate and graduate scholars, and esteemed industry partners. Together, we’re committed to tackling today’s and tomorrow’s most critical cybersecurity challenges. Step into the forefront of cybersecurity research at the Cybersecurity Applied Innovation Laboratory (CyAIL) at Louisiana Tech University!

Data Science Laboratory

Seminars

Cybersecurity Information Technology Exploration (CITE) Research Talks

All seminars listed below take place in IESB 216 at 5:00pm on the dates indicated.

Date	Speaker	Title
9/23/2025	Dr. Glisson	Update on Summer Internships and Activities
9/30/2025	Dr. Glisson	General Scholarship Discussions
10/14/2025	Dr. Ahmed	Investigation on Middleware Security and Timing Resilience in Distributed Robotic Systems
10/28/2025	John Alex Jordan	Clearance Discussion
11/11/2025	Hazem Alsabagh	Oculus Virus Research
11/11/2025	Austin Adams	An Analysis of Opioid Trafficking on the Surface Web

FUNDING

Scholarship Funding

CyAIL encourages and works with students to apply for the Department of Defense Cyber Scholarship Program and National Science Foundation Scholarships for Service scholarships as well as the Global Strike National Security Fellowship Program. If you are interested in these scholarships, please visit the links below.

Funded Research

Empowering Cybersecurity Education: The Cyber Assault Competition (CAC)

The Cyber Assault Competition (CAC) stands as a groundbreaking initiative aimed at elevating cybersecurity education and research. With backing from the Department of Defense (DoD), this initiative provides students with an immersive platform to hone their skills in system attacks.At its core, the CAC is designed to foster cyber awareness among students by offering them a secure and dynamic environment to explore and master cybersecurity concepts. It serves as a vital component in shaping the next generation of cybersecurity professionals, equipping them with the practical knowledge and experience needed to safeguard digital infrastructures against evolving threats.

Hybrid Compute Plane (HCP)

The Hybrid Compute Plane (HCP) research project, supported by funding from the Louisiana Board of Regents for Departmental Enhancement, aims to pioneer new ground in exploring the behavioral parallels between quantum and analog computers. Our primary objective is to forge methodologies for addressing complex business challenges that have historically thwarted conventional digital computing methods. This involves articulating these challenges within the appropriate mathematical framework, such as differential equations, and identifying the optimal computing approach – whether it be analog circuits, digital computation, or quantum computing – to swiftly deliver solutions with enhanced efficiency. Through this endeavor, we seek to push the boundaries of our understanding of computing paradigms and their practical applications in real-world problem-solving scenarios.

[1] T. Nguyen, J. T. McDonald, W. B. Glisson, and T. R. Andel, "Detecting repackaged android applications using perceptual hashing," 2020: Proceedings of the 53rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[2] A. Kumar, W. B. Glisson, and R. Benton, "Network attack detection using an unsupervised machine learning algorithm," 2020: Proceedings of the 53rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[3] B. J. Hodges, J. T. McDonald, W. B. Glisson, M. Jacobs, M. Van Devender, and J. H. Pardue, "Attack modeling and mitigation strategies for risk-based analysis of networked medical devices," 2020: Proceedings of the 53rd Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[4] T. Flynn, G. Grispos, W. Glisson, and W. Mahoney, "Knock! knock! who is there? investigating data leakage from a medical internet of things hijacking attack," 2020.

[5] E. Harshany, R. Benton, D. Bourrie, and W. Glisson, "Big data forensics: Hadoop 3.2. 0 reconstruction," Forensic Science International: Digital Investigation, vol. 32, p. 300909, 2020.

[6] E. Harshany, R. Benton, D. Bourrie, M. Black, and W. Glisson, "DFS3: automated distributed file system storage state reconstruction," in Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security, 2020, pp. 1-10.

[7] L. Graves, W. B. Glisson, and K.-K. R. Choo, "LinkedLegal: Investigating social media as evidence in courtrooms," Computer Law & Security Review, vol. 38, p. 105408, 2020.

[8] B. Al Smadi and M. Min, "A critical review of credit card fraud detection techniques," in 2020 11th IEEE Annual Ubiquitous Computing, Electronics & Mobile Communication Conference (UEMCON), 2020: IEEE, pp. 0732-0736.

[9] M. U. Zaman and M. Min, "Decentrally-Consented-Server-Based Blockchain System for Universal Types of Data," in 2020 International Symposium on Networks, Computers and Communications (ISNCC), 2020: IEEE, pp. 1-6.

[10] M. Min, "On-Demand, Unattended Authentication: A Novel Online Access Model Without Cumbersome Login Procedures," in 2020 IEEE 17th Annual Consumer Communications & Networking Conference (CCNC), 2020: IEEE, pp. 1-2.

[11] S. Anand, D. Ding, P. Gasti, M. O’Neal, M. Conti, and K. S. Balagani, "DISPERSE: A Decentralized Architecture for Content Replication Resilient to Node Failures," IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 201-212, 2019.

[12] A. A. S. AlQahtani, Z. El-Awadi, and M. Min, "A survey on user authentication factors," in 2021 IEEE 12th Annual Information Technology, Electronics and Mobile Communication Conference (IEMCON), 2021: IEEE, pp. 0323-0328.

[13] J. Hightower, W. B. Glisson, R. Benton, and J. T. McDonald, "Classifying Android Applications Via System Stats," in 2021 IEEE International Conference on Big Data (Big Data), 2021: IEEE, pp. 5388-5394.

[14] S. Ozcan, M. Astekin, W. B. Glisson, and K.-K. R. Choo, "DIEF: An Autopsy Module for Distributed Identification of E-mail Files from Disk Images," in 2021 IEEE 9th International Conference on Smart City and Informatization (iSCI), 2021: IEEE, pp. 53-61.

[15] G. Grispos, F. Tursi, K.-K. R. Choo, W. Mahoney, and W. B. Glisson, "A digital forensics investigation of a smart scale iot ecosystem," in 2021 IEEE 20th International Conference on Trust, Security and Privacy in Computing and Communications (TrustCom), 2021: IEEE, pp. 710-717.

[16] N. Herron, W. B. Glisson, J. T. McDonald, and R. K. Benton, "Machine learning-based android malware detection using manifest permissions," 2021: Proceedings of the 54th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[17] D. M. Mink et al., "Near-real-time IDS for the US FAA’s NextGen ADS-B," Big Data and Cognitive Computing, vol. 5, no. 2, p. 27, 2021.

[18] M. U. Zaman, A. Hutchinson, and M. Min, "Implementation aspects of supersingular isogeny-based cryptographic hash function," in International Wireless Internet Conference, 2022: Springer, pp. 14-27.

[19] S. Lim, C. Pu, J. Chae, M. Min, and Y. Liu, "Hide-and-detect: forwarding misbehaviors, attacks, and countermeasures in energy harvesting-motivated networks," IET, 2022.

[20] A. A. Ceballos Delgado, W. B. Glisson, G. Grispos, and K. K. R. Choo, "FADE: A forensic image generator for android device education," Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Forensic Science, vol. 4, no. 2, p. e1432, 2022.

[21] V. Gazeau, W. Glisson, C. Varol, and Q. Liu, "Walk This Way: Footwear Recognition Using Images & Neural Networks," in 55th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2022: Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[22] V. B. Morais and P. Chowriappa, "Effects of Selection Bias on Online Adversarial Aware SVM When Facing an Evasion Attack," in 2022 International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence (CSCI), 2022: IEEE, pp. 100-106.

[23] J. Fitzgerald, "Exploiting a Contact Tracing App to Attack Neighboring Devices," in Proceedings of the 56th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2023: ScholarSpace-HICSS 2023-https://hdl. handle. net/10125/102456.

[24] E.-A. Zakaria and M. Min, "Edge Oriented Redistribution of Computational Load for Authentication Systems," in IEEE INFOCOM 2023-IEEE Conference on Computer Communications Workshops (INFOCOM WKSHPS), 2023: IEEE, pp. 1-6.

[25] M. U. Zaman and M. Min, "Supersingular Isogeny-Based Single Compression Cryptographic Hash Function," in GLOBECOM 2023-2023 IEEE Global Communications Conference, 2023: IEEE, pp. 4479-4484.

[26] G. Grispos, K.-K. R. Choo, and W. B. Glisson, "Sickly apps: A forensic analysis of medical device smartphone applications on android and iOS devices," Mobile Networks and Applications, vol. 28, no. 4, pp. 1282-1292, 2023.

[27] B. Al Smadi, W. B. Glisson, M. Tahat, H. Alamleh, and A. A. S. AlQahtani, "Credit Card Transactions Fraud Detection for Multiple Consumer Behaviors," in 2024 International Conference on Computing, Networking and Communications (ICNC), 2024: IEEE, pp. 26-32.

[28] M. Z. Tahat, W. B. Glisson, and B. Al Smadi, "VR Headset Ransomware Attack Vulnerability," in 2024 IEEE Canadian Conference on Electrical and Computer Engineering (CCECE), 2024: IEEE, pp. 740-745.

[29] H. Nadendla, P. P. Etha, and P. Chowriappa, "Overcoming Confounding Bias in Causal Discovery Using Minimum Redundancy and Maximum Relevancy Constraint," IEEE Access, 2024.

[30] A. Kiremire and K. A. Cherry, "Board 52: Work in Progress: Datastorm: Using Data-Driven Competition to Improve Student Engagement in Computer Science," in 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, 2024.

Center for Secure Cyberspace