Rhodes University Computer Science Security and Networks
Security & Networks
The Security and Networks Research Group (SNRG) efforts are concentrated in research and innovation within the larger field of Information Security with a specific focus on Computer Networks, Telecommunications and Communications Security.
Members of the group are currently involved in a variety of projects, including a selection of visualisation techniques for security metrics, network traffic classification and monitoring, intrusion detection and hardware acceleration of these and other network and security centric tasks using commodity graphics cards. The group has been active since 2003 and is currently among the largest on campus.
The research group has a number of areas in which work is currently being done. These include:
•   Network Security analytics
•   Cyber Defense
•   Data Visualisation
•   Malware analysis
•   Digital Forensics
•   Hardware for supporting network processing
In collaboration with the department of Physics & Electronics, recent projects have fabricated specialist hardware for doing network traffic manipulation and analysis.
The core project of the group focuses around passive network intelligence , threat intelligence and mitigation, using data collected from the groups five /24 sized network telescopes, and a number of other direct and open source providers.
External collaboration exists with a number of commercial Industry partners, and within the CSIR, and larger defense  and tellecommunications sectors.
The majority of research is based on empirical data analysis, and experimental validation of software systems. Elements of Design Science are used within research relating to the application of information security within the Health Informaticsspace.
Recent Research
An example of our recent Research in the area of Data vizualisation is  the new Release of Inetvis 2.0.
PARTICIPATING STAFF MEMBERS
Prof Barry Irwin <b.irwin@ru.ac.za>
Network Security, Data Analyitics, Data visualisation, Cyber Defense, Information Security
Prof Karen Bradshaw <k.bradshaw@ru.ac.za>
Audit and Control, Security Governance, Digital Forensics, High Performance Computing
Prof Greg Foster <g.foster@ru.ac.za>
mHealth, Security in Health Systems, Usability of Secure systems, Ux Design for security
Dr Yusuf Motara <y.motara@ru.ac.za>
Cryptography, Secure Communications, Privacy
Mr Alan Herbert <a.herbert@ru.ac.za>
Network Security, embedded hardware, FPGAs, Network Flows
Dr Dane Brown <d.brown@ru.ac.za>
Information Security, Biometrics, Machine Learning
Mr Motse Lehata <m.lehata@ru.ac.za>
Machine Learning, Network Security, Data Science
Past Student Publications
Thesis publications produced by former students in the research group can be found on the publications page.
Alternate copies of the SNRG Research theses are available are available outside of the Rhodes Library System
Students
The group currently comprises 7 Doctoral students , 36 Masters ( by both full thesis, and by coursework and thesis).
For further information
- Prof Barry Irwin <b.irwin@ru.ac.za>
- Pgrad enquiries <infosec@ru.ac.za>