Professor Kwok-Yan LAM

Professor of Computer Science, Nanyang Technological University

Professor Lam is a Professor of Computer Science at the School of Computer Science and Engineering and Director of the Nanyang Technopreneurship Center, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. He is concurrently serving as Director of the Strategic Centre for Research in Privacy-Preserving Technologies and Systems (SCRIPTS), and Director of NTU’s SPIRIT Smart Nation Research Centre. From August 2020, Professor Lam is also part-time seconded to the INTERPOL as an Advisor for Cyber and New Technology Innovation. He served as the Program Chair (Secure Community) of the Graduate College of NTU 2017-2019. Professor Lam has been a Professor of the Tsinghua University, PR China (2002-2010) and a faculty member of the National University of Singapore and the University of London since 1990. He was a visiting scientist at the Isaac Newton Institute of the Cambridge University and a visiting professor at the European Institute for Systems Security. In 2018, Professor Lam founded TAU Express Pte Ltd as an NTU start-up upon successful completion of the Intelligent Case Retrieval System (ICRS) project, performed in collaboration with the Singapore Judiciary under the SPIRIT Smart Nation Research Centre. In 1997, he founded PrivyLink International Ltd, a spin-off company of the National University of Singapore, specializing in e-security technologies for homeland security and financial systems. In 2012, he co-founded Soda Pte Ltd which won the Most Innovative Start Up Award at the RSA 2015 Conference. In 1998, he received the Singapore Foundation Award from the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry in recognition of his R&D achievement in Information Security in Singapore. Prof Lam received his B.Sc. (First Class Honours) from the University of London in 1987 and his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in 1990. His research interests include Distributed and Intelligent Systems, Multivariate Analysis for Behavior Analytics, Cyber-Physical System Security, Distributed Protocols for Blockchain, Biometric Cryptography, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity.

ABSTRACT

“IoT Security Reference Architecture”

IoT systems are generally characterized as large-scale complex distributed systems without a clear notion of network perimeter between the system components, which results in very different threat environments of traditional enterprise systems. To better understand the security requirements and to study the security models for IoT systems, there is a need to study the basic characteristics of IoT systems in comparison and in contrast with traditional enterprise IT systems. We studied the IoT Security Reference Architecture by adopting the approach to first identify the distinctive features of IoT systems, and recommended the “zero trust” principle as the key tenet for governing security architecture design of IoT systems as very little security assumption can be made on the operating environment of IoT infrastructures. We then proposed an Activity-Network-Things (ANT) centric security reference architecture which is based on the three architectural perspectives in studying IoT systems namely Device, Internet and Semantic. The proposed IoT security reference architecture is flexible enough to include mechanisms that allow IoT system designers and integrators to choose organization-specific and application-specific considerations when determining security impacts, hence the strength and assurance levels of the required security controls. The IoT Security Reference Architecture aims to enable security professionals and stakeholders in comprehending, selecting and implementing security controls for diversified IoT applications.