Prof. Steve Furnell

University of Nottingham

Biography: Steven Furnell is a professor of cyber security at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom. He is also an Adjunct Professor with Edith Cowan University in Western Australia and an Honorary Professor with Nelson Mandela University in South Africa. His research interests include usability of security and privacy, security management and culture, and technologies for user authentication and intrusion detection. He has authored over 350 papers in refereed international journals and conference proceedings, as well as various books, book chapters and industry reports. Prof. Furnell is the UK representative to Technical Committee 11 (security and privacy) within the International Federation for Information Processing, as well as the editor-in-chief of Information and Computer Security, and a Fellow and board member of the Chartered Institute of Information Security.

Title: Ensuring Cybersecurity Hygiene – Are we failing at the basics?

Abstract: It is widely acknowledged that users require appropriate awareness, knowledge and skills to enable them to practice good cyber hygiene.  However, acknowledging this requirement and doing something about it are far from the same thing.  In many cases there seems to be an implicit assumption that users know it already or that someone else will provide the necessary support. Unfortunately, such an assumption often proves false, and incidents are regularly experienced that are then blamed on people being the ‘weakest link’. End-users are then characterised as the problem, when in many cases they have effectively been left to fend for themselves. Using the example of password guidance, feedback and enforcement on popular websites as a point of reference, this presentation will illustrate that it is often left very much to users’ discretion about whether good practice is known and followed. Indeed, despite years of password-related breaches and complaining about users’ poor practices, people continue to be left without clear guidance on choosing and using passwords and are permitted to choose passwords that are readily recognised as weak. In this context, is the prospect of establishing a broader understanding and practice of wider cyber hygiene practices merely a case of wishful thinking? 

Prof. Yulin Wang

Wuhan University

Biography: Prof. Yulin Wang is a full professor and PhD supervisor in the School of Computer Science, Wuhan University, China. He got PhD degree in 2005 from University of London, UK. Before that, he has worked in high-tech industry, including Huawei@, for more than ten years. He has involved many key projects, and hold 8 patents. He got his master and bachelor degree in 1990 and 1987 respectively from Xi-Dian University, and Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), both in China. His research interests include digital rights management, software engineering, information security, and artificial intelligence. In recently 10 years, Prof. Wang has published as first author 3 books, 40 conference papers and 45 journal papers, including in IEEE Transactions and IEE proceedings and Elsevier Journals. Prof. Wang served as editor-in-chief for International Journal of Advances in Multimedia in 2010. He served as reviewer for many journals, including IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, IEEE Signal Processing Letters, Elsevier Journal of Information Sciences. He served as reviewer for many research funds, including National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (863 project). Prof. Wang was the external PhD adviser of Dublin City University, Ireland during 2008-2010. He was the keynote speakers in many international conferences. He bas been listed in Marcus whos who in the world since 2008.

Title: Intelligent Multimedia Data Hiding: Techniques and Applications

Abstract: Digital music, podcasts, live and recorded webinars, video calls, and streaming video have changed the way in which we communicate, and have become ubiquitous in virtually every organization. We employ these methods to convey ideas, train our employees, engage our customers, and of course entertain.

The question is, does digital multimedia pose a threat? Could these channels be used to communicate information covertly, ex-filtrate intellectual property, share insider information, be used to convey command and control information, or provide the needed enabling technology for advanced persistent threats? Additionally, since the size of multimedia files are typically much larger than a single digital photo, does this mean that larger payloads of hidden information could be exchanged or leaked by exploiting weaknesses inherent in multimedia carriers? Or, on the contrary, is the human auditory system sensitive to even small changes in multimedia information such that we could detect anomalies caused by embedding hidden information in such streams?

In this talk, we present the intelligent multimedia data hiding techniques and their possible application. We will cover some of the earliest and simplest forms of data hiding in digital multimedia and then move to some of the lasted innovations in order to provide insight into these questions. Some of the research branches, called reversible data hiding, is also depicted.