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Trust in the Digital World – A Grand Challenge Initiative at IIT Bombay

by Shridhar Shukla
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It’s an honour and a privilege for me to write to you on the occasion of this special issue of our beloved Fundamatics, focused on Cybersecurity. I am no funda-man in this deeply technical subject, which is of unprecedented importance to us individually, as a society, and as a sovereign nation. The excellent articles in the issue cover most of the aspects of this subject. Let me use this opportunity to tell you about the IIT Bombay Trust Lab (“Trust Lab” for short).

Trust Lab was established in September 2022, with the mission to advance the state-of-the-art related to living in a trustworthy digital environment. We believed “trust” covers all the issues addressed by cybersecurity and more! Trust Lab focuses on three key areas: science, technology, and ecosystem for digital trust.

At the time of establishment, we envisioned Trust Lab’s work to encompass cybersecurity, privacy, cryptography, and responsible behaviour of systems and users. We expect it to have a footprint beyond IITB. In the long run, this entity will address foundational research, globally relevant technology and product development, and a national ecosystem development. Together, these three tracks are expected to fulfil the needs of the individual, the enterprise, our society, and the government at all the three levels – basic research, technology development, and policy/governance. Watch this video for an overview.

Starting out as an entity inside the CSE Department has enabled Trust Lab to hit the ground running, with minimal overhead. In time to come, this entity will evolve from being inside the CSE department to becoming an independent centre or even a School of Digital Trust in IITB as we strongly believe there are many dimensions to this area. This evolution is expected to be led by the core faculty of Trust Lab and the donors who will come on board in consultation with IITB leadership, giving India an unmatched resource for staying ahead.

Let’s look at the first two years just completed to give you an idea of its future path.

Since it is people who make things happen, that’s what got done first. Six new faculty members including two professors of practice are on board. There are 40+ research students and 15 other faculty collaborators.

Students hang out till late hours in the Trust Lab area even on weekends, and I must say, this is a massive achievement in this era of WFH (work-from-hostel)!

Outside of IITB, over 50 faculty members are associated with Trust Lab, 200+ students have participated in residential workshops and 50,000 students have taken part in 10 Capture-the-Flag competitions nationally. An academic innovation called the pre-doctoral program has become really popular. Half a dozen government organizations and companies have either provided funds or are in discussions for long term engagements. All of this is driven by Profs. Manoj Prabhakaran, G. Sivakumar, and Kameswari Chebrolu, supported by an executive committee of 5 faculty members, and a program office led by Mukul Joshi, under guidance from our globally renowned Advisory Board of Sanjay Jain, Rama Vedashree, Srikanth Sundarrajan, and Dan Boneh.”

In the years to come, you should expect the Trust Lab team to blaze new trails in industry-academia collaboration. In this area of Digital Trust, sky is the limit for producing practical solutions to unsolved problems faced by the government, industry, and the society in general. For this, the Trust Lab will go far beyond the classic academic bounds of research grants, theses, courses, and papers, and develop capabilities that go beyond these confines. We are exploring how to set up a not-for-profit company that works closely with IITB and ensures delivery of production-grade “public good” solutions that leverage our faculty’s cutting edge work.

In the physical world, a large number of security mechanisms like physical locks and keys cater to the physical security and privacy of people and assetss. Societal law and order agencies, agreements backed by the legal system evolved over decades and training and awareness of these is ingrained in us. However, in the digital world, we are unacceptably weak in all these aspects. Trust Lab endeavours to get us out of this predicament.

Fixing that needs long years of developing appropriate science, technology, and ecosystems for the unique place that India is. Trust Lab will create a foundational capability, which is critical to the vast array of solutions needed for secure and private data sharing and address all aspects of it in the years to come. This will enable the country to become sovereign in the most precious resource in the digital world, that is, our data!

The scope and potential for the impact of Trust Lab, to put it mildly, is vast. We believe the sky’s the limit  for this entity’s evolution.

All of us at Trust Lab welcome everyone to join this quest. We particularly seek support from IITB’s global alumni and their networks to hire and attract talent, provide leadership, set up “grand challenge” initiatves, raise funds, and promote Trust Lab’s work globally. 

In this special issue of Fundamatics, we’re pleased to bring you a curated selection of articles that illuminate key topics in cybersecurity. This edition begins with an exploration of AI in cybersecurity, followed by an in-depth look at cybersecurity issues due to hardware vulnerabilities. We then examine cybersecurity and cyber frauds in banking and payments, highlighting the evolving threats in the financial sector.

Further insights include the significance of Capture the Flag competitions as a training ground for cybersecurity skills, the essential role of asset management in cybersecurity, and strategic approaches to enhancing cybersecurity in defense, with a focus on both current strategies and future directions. Additionally, we shed light on the critical yet often overlooked concerns of MSMEs vulnerable to cyber threats in India.

We hope you find these articles informative and that they spark some great conversations about building digital trust. Happy reading!

Shridhar Shukla, B. Tech. EE, 1983, Hostel 3
Founding Donor of the Trust Lab, IITB DA (2023) and DSA (2007)

Table of Contents

How AI impacts Cybersecurity

Fun fact: Machine learning and deep learning use Linear Algebra, which every student at IITB learns in the first year.

Cybersecurity Issues Due to Hardware Vulnerabilities

In 2018, researchers discovered two major security flaws, Spectre and Meltdown, that let attackers take advantage of this guessing behavior, in virtually all processors used in mobiles, desktops, and tablets,…

Cybersecurity and Cyber Frauds in Banking and Payments

Around 2015 or so, a few unemployed youths from a small, backward village from Jamtara district came up with a brilliant idea to scam people all over the country using…

Capture The Flag Competitions

Do CTFs actually help cybersecurity other than just being a fun competition? Very heavily so! CTFs often involve real vulnerabilities, and exploring those vulnerabilities provides very practical hands-on experience with…

Asset Management for CyberSecurity

Lay persons believe that devices are “hacked” because of “hacker’s” skills and ingenuity. While skills and ingenuity are / may be needed, the primary reason devices get “hacked” are because…

Enhancing Cyber Security in Defence: Strategies and Future Directions

This article explores the evolving landscape of military cyber security, focusing on key strategies, challenges, and future directions, with insights from both Indian and global perspectives.

MSMEs are vulnerable to cyber threats — the most ignored concern in India

More than 40% of MSMEs never conducted any cybersecurity awareness training for their employees, which is the biggest threat helping cybercriminals targeting these companies, as illustrated in the figure.  Around…

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