Gibbons Lecture Series: Security in Mobile Devices

This Thursday evening Dr Giovanni Russello of Department of Computer Science of The University of Auckland will give a free public lecture on Security in Mobile Devices Giovanni Russello is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science at The University of Auckland. He joined the department in 2012 from CREATE-NET in Trento, Italy, where he was the leader of the Security Group after completing a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at Imperial College London. Dr. Russello holds a PhD from Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands and an MSc from the University of Catania in Italy. His research expertise is in the fast-evolving field of system security for both mobile and cloud platforms. He has authored or co-authored well over 50 research papers and books, and holds four provisional patents. His recent research has concentrated on developing novel security solutions to address vulnerabilities of mobile devices. The fruits of this research have now reached the commercialisation stage. Giovanni is the founder and CEO of Active Mobile Security, a start-up company funded by Uniservices, the university’s commercial arm.

When: 6pm for 6.30pm start, Thursday 8th May, 2014
Where: Owen G Glenn Building, Room OGGB3/260-092
Note that there is public parking in the basement of the Owen G Glenn Building at 12 Grafton Road.

Synopsis: Mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets have become exceedingly successful computing devices, exceeding personal computers in numbers of sales. Smartphones equipped with the Android operating system represent 82% of this very competitive world wide market. However, Android has become the top target for malicious code because the Android standard security mechanism has unique vulnerabilities. This lecture will discuss the special nature of security with mobile devices. In particular it will discuss problems with the Android security model and local research intended to help solve these issues.