June 22 (Mon.), 2026
On Securing Networked Embedded/Cyber-Physical Systems
Abstract: There has been an exponential growth of cyber-physical applications that rely on diverse types of embedded end-systems and devices, such as smart phones/watches/glasses, home appliances, consumer and industrial electronics, smart sensors and actuators. These applications require diverse types of Quality-of-Service (QoS) including timeliness, dependability, security and privacy, from end-systems/devices which are usually networked together via heterogeneous networking technologies and protocols.
We now know how to guarantee timeliness and, to a lesser extent, how to provide fault-tolerance, on both end-systems and their interconnection networks. However, how to secure them is far less known, despite the growing importance of protecting information stored in the end systems/devices and exchanged over their interconnection networks. Moreover, timeliness, fault-tolerance, security and privacy—which I call simply QoS—must be supported simultaneously, often with a tight resource budget such as memory, computation and communication bandwidth, and battery power. Also, different applications require different combinations of QoS components, and hence, one-fits-all solutions are not acceptable. This talk will cover issues and approaches to the problems of securing networked embedded systems.
If time allows, I will discuss our work-in-progress on context-aware autonomous vehicles.
Bio: Kang G. Shin (Life Fellow, IEEE) is currently the Kevin & Nancy O’Connor Professor Emeritus of Computer Science with the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His current research focuses on safe and secure embedded real-time and cyber-physical systems and QoS-sensitive computing and networking. He has supervised the completion of 93 Ph.D.’s and authored/co-authored about 1000 technical articles, a textbook and more than 60 patents or invention disclosures, and received numerous awards, including 2000 and 2010 USENIX Annual Technical Conferences, the 2003 IEEE Communications Society William R. Bennett Prize Paper Award and the 1987 Outstanding IEEE Transactions of Automatic Control Paper Award, the Best Paper Awards from 2023 VehicleSec, 2011 ACM International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking, 2011 IEEE International Conference on Autonomic Computing, 2019 Caspar Bowden Award for Outstanding Research in Privacy Enhancing Technologies, 2023 IEEE TCCPS Technical Achievement Award, 2023 SIGMOBILE Test-of Time Award, and 2026 IEEE TC on Distributed Processing (TCDP) Award for Outstanding Technical Achievement. He has also received several institutional awards, including the Research Excellence Award in 1989, Outstanding Achievement Award in 1999, Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award in 2001, and Stephen Attwood Award in 2004 from The University of Michigan (the highest honor bestowed to Michigan Engineering faculty); a Distinguished Alumni Award of the College of Engineering, Seoul National University, in 2002; 2003 IEEE RTC Technical Achievement Award; and 2006 Ho-Am Prize in Engineering (the highest honor bestowed to Korean-origin engineers). He has chaired the Michigan Computer Science and Engineering Division for four years starting 1991 and also several major conferences, including 2009 ACM MobiCom and 2005 ACM/USENIX MobiSys. He was a co-founder of a couple of startups, licensed some of his technologies to industry, and served as an Executive Advisor for Samsung Research.