CS Colloquium: Ali Babar (University of Adelaide) - Building ML Based Software Security Solutions: Data Wrangling Lessons and Recommendations

Speaker: Ali Babar, University of Adelaide, Australia

Talk Title: Building ML Based Software Security Solutions: Data Wrangling Lessons and Recommendations

Abstract: Learning based approaches to ensuring software security are attracting significant interest. It is well known that AI and ML based approaches are heavily reliant on the quality of data garbage in, garbage out. Hence, Data Wrangling serves as an important, but expensive, phase of using AI and ML for software security. Like any AI and ML based effort, our R and D efforts for leveraging AI and ML for software security have encountered several significant challenges of Data Wrangling. Our pursuit of finding and devising reliable solutions to security data quality challenges has taught us that the expensiveness and error proneness of Data Wrangling activities can be a barrier to widespread industrial adoption of AI and ML based approaches to software security. We believe that it is important to engage the relevant stakeholders for developing and sharing knowledge and technologies aimed at improving software security data quality. To this end, we are not only systematically identifying and synthesizing the existing empirical literature on improving data quality, but also devising suitable solutions for easing the problems we experienced and observed during Data Wrangling. This talk will draw lessons and recommendations from our efforts of systematically reviewing the state of the art and developing solutions for improving data quality while building and using AI and ML based software security solutions such as SVP models.

This lecture satisfies requirements for CSCI 591: Research Colloquium

Biography: M. Ali Babar is a Professor in the School of Computer Science, University of Adelaide, Australia. He leads a theme on architecture and platform for security as service in Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre (CSCRC), a large initiative funded by the Australian government, industry, and research institutes. Professor Babar leads one of the largest projects on Software Security in the ANZEC region funded by the CSCRC. Software Security with Focus on Critical Infrastructure, SOCRATES, brings more than 75 researchers and practitioners from 10 organization for developing and evaluating novel knowledge and AI based platforms, methods, and tools for software security. Prof Babar established an interdisciplinary R and D centre called CREST, Centre for Research on Engineering Software Technologies, where he directs the research, development and education activities of more than 30 researchers and engineers in the areas of Software Systems Engineering, Security and Privacy, and Social Computing. Professor Babar obtained a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from the school of computer science and engineering of University of New South Wales, Australia. He also holds a M.Sc. degree in Computing Sciences from University of Technology, Sydney, Australia

Host: Nenad Medvidovic

Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 100D

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Melissa Ochoa