IIT Kanpur, University of Wollongong get Australia-India Cyber and Critical Technology Partnership Grant

NEW DELHI: The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur and the University of Wollongong (UOW), Australia, have been awarded an Australia-India Cyber and Critical Technology Partnership Grant. It is funded by the department of foreign affairs and trade (DFAT), Australia, to promote safety, prosperity, and security for the Indo-Pacific region through cyber and critical technology.

The two universities will work on improving and strengthening privacy in cloud computing. The project, which will be led by UOW professor Willy Susilo, who is a member of the Australian Research Council.

The team will be based out of UOW’s Institute of Cybersecurity and Cryptology and work towards developing practical privacy-enhancing cryptographic techniques for cloud computing. The team includes senior lecturer Khoa Nguyen, who have been felicitated by Discovery Early Career Researcher Award by ARC, Yannan Li and lecturer in cyber security Partha Sarathi Roy, all from UOW. From IIT Kanpur, professor Manindra Agrawal of the department of computer science and engineering will be part of the team.

The project will identify various standardisation issues on privacy and security of cloud computing in Australia and India and tackle these issues via innovative privacy-enhancing cryptographic techniques. The team will evaluate the effectiveness of existing technologies by measuring their impact and validating whether an appropriate level of standardisation has been achieved.

“This project will strategically place UOW in India through research collaboration. Cybersecurity research work conducted within the Institute of Cybersecurity and Cryptology at UOW has been at the forefront of the research within Australia, and this project will leverage our strategic position with our Indian partner,” Susilo, a professor at UOW, said.

Karandikar, director IIT Kanpur, said, “This collaboration between IIT Kanpur and the University of Wollongong bears testimony to the growing need for advancing the dynamic landscape of cloud computing with stronger measures. With this grant, the joint research team will strive towards enhancing data privacy and security in the digital realm. I congratulate Prof. Manindra Agrawal and the team for bagging this grant and wish that it helps in strengthening the ties between both nations.”