Cyber Cascade Risk (CCR) Lab | University at Albany

About

The Cyber Cascade Risk (CCR) Lab is within the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity at the University at Albany. The CCR Lab focuses on the study of cascading failures in cyber-physical systems, with a mission to explore the "what," “how” and "why" in the realm of cybersecurity and risk management.

What We Do

The CCR Lab is about understanding how things can go wrong in our interconnected digital world. We use combinations of analytical and visual techniques to study how cyber failures spread through time, space, industries and various critical infrastructures. Our goal is to help CEHC researchers and students learn how to prevent and manage such failures.

Our Goals

Teaching CEHC students about how things can go wrong in the digital world.
Working with other research groups to solve problems together.
Showing everyone how cybersecurity isn't just about computers, it's about how we all work together to stay safe in the digital world.

Methods

The foundation of our work is Functional Dependency Network Analysis (FDNA), a nodal method used to design and analyze elements of system and of systems-of-systems by highlighting their dependencies.

FDNA helps describe complex dependencies in a simpler way to understand how a system works, why it behaves in certain ways, and how failures of its elements can be managed.

Together with modeling and visualization platforms, we conduct analyses of potential cyberattacks and their cascading effects on various industries including healthcare, banking, transportation and business by looking at past incidents and projecting them to the future.

Our Team

Researchers and collaborators at CCR Lab have various disciplines and backgrounds, such as engineering, economics, business, library science, information management, computer science, modeling and simulation, and others - both within and outside University at Albany - all forming a synergistic team.

Leadership

C. Ariel Pinto

Professor and Chair Department of Cybersecurity

College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity; Department of Cybersecurity

[email protected]

Research Team

Ramazan Yener
Graduate Researcher | PhD Student in Information Science
[email protected]

Barak Hussein
Graduate Researcher | PhD Student in Information Science
[email protected]

Vasuda Trehan
PhD Student in Information Science
[email protected]

Arka Prabha Das
Master’s Student in Computer Science
[email protected]

Dylan Tarace
Undergraduate Student in Computer Science
[email protected]

Sanjana Joshi
MS in Digital Forensics and Cybersecurity
[email protected]

Projects

Studying Cyber Threats

Projects the CCR Lab is engaged in seek to understand how:

Malware spreads globally.
Industries may be affected by failure of the internet in varying durations.
Major power outages can affect a wide geographic area.
Failure of major cloud service providers can affect various industries.
New technologies (5G, IoT, Unmanned Vehicles, etc.) can affect future cyber failures.

Attracting External Partnerships

We also want to work with other organizations that are concerned about the last line of defense against cyber problems. This includes:

Companies that provide essential services like electricity and water.
Planners who prepare for disasters of all kinds.
Insurance companies that help protect against cyber issues.
People who make rules and decisions about how we stay safe online.

The CCR Lab at the University at Albany, led by Dr. Ariel Pinto, is dedicated to making the digital and physical world safer by understanding and preventing problems. We invite you to explore our research, collaborate with the team, and join us in our mission to keep the world secure.