EECS Colloquium: Enhancing the Cybersecurity Ecosystem by Understanding and Mitigating Human Vulnerabilities by Zhibo “Eric” Sun, Arizona State Univ.

About the event

Abstract
In today’s society, programs and systems exist in every corner of our lives, from smart portable devices and appliances to vehicles and computing devices. Despite the fact that high-tech offers enormous conveniences and opportunities, it is also a platform for criminals to launch illicit attacks. Therefore, developers try to make systems secure and develop various cybersecurity systems to detect and mitigate cyber threats. However, these program-based solutions cannot completely keep cyberspace safe because all systems are designed, programmed, operated, and maintained by humans, and “Human beings are miserable disasters. They make mistakes. Do the wrong things.” Therefore, vulnerabilities caused by human factors, such as insecure behaviors, significantly impact the entirety of cyberspace, and patching human vulnerabilities is a paramount task. In this talk, I will introduce my research in human-centered analysis on user interactions in underground forums, criminal collaborations in an emerging cybercrime service, and the impacts of external factors on humans in the pandemic. I will also talk about one of my ongoing works investigating human behaviors and decision-making in phishing attacks. Finally, I will discuss the future steps to discover and patch human vulnerabilities to enhance the cybersecurity ecosystem.

Bio
Zhibo “Eric” Sun is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Computer Science at Arizona State University, co-advised by Dr. Gail-Joon Ahn and Dr. Adam Doupé. His research interests lie broadly in the area of computer security and privacy with an emphasis on human-centered analysis, including e-crime, threat intelligence, underground economics, Internet fraud, and web security. He is a recipient of the Best Student Paper Award at Oakland 2021, the CIDSE Doctoral Fellowship, and the Cybersecurity Fellowship at Arizona State University.