Dr. Khouloud Eledlebi is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Khalifa University, working for Cyber Security and Physical Systems (C2PS). She received her PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2019, her M.Sc. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2015, and her B.Sc. degree in Communication Engineering in 2013 from KUST.
Dr. Khouloud’s research contributions are in the Robust Artificial Intelligence and Cyber-Security areas. She has developed and implemented a lightweight cryptographic protocol (Hybrid TLI-µTESLA) to guarantee the integrity of data in transit to and from constrained devices. The protocol is based on symmetric cryptography only and is highly interesting for applications. She has also been working on two funded projects on cybersecurity protocols for the metaverse and improving adversarial network malware detection. Her research interests include cybersecurity, cognitive radio networking, nanotechnology, and low-power semiconductor devices, as she has training experience in the modeling of nanoscale devices, wireless sensor network optimization, and expertise in several evolutionary computing methods.
Dr. Khouloud has experience in preparing and implementing KU training programs, delivering training in the fields of cybersecurity, cyber-physical systems, and cybersecurity threats and mitigations, and conducting cybersecurity simulation activities for the trainees. She is also very effective in coordinating and leading the work of graduate students. She is involved in supervising undergraduate students to pursue their Senior Design Project and helping post-graduate students in their M.Sc. and Ph.D. projects, including the Cyber-physical systems laboratories and wireless security laboratories.
An Enhanced μTESLA protocol for IoT Environment:
The evolution of 5G and 6G networks has enhanced the ability of massive IoT devices to provide real-time monitoring and interaction with the surrounding environment. Despite recent advances, the necessary security services, such as immediate and continuous authentication, high scalability, and cybersecurity handling of IoT cannot be achieved in a single broadcast authentication protocol. This project presents a new hybrid protocol called Hybrid Two-level µ-timed-efficient stream loss-tolerant authentication (Hybrid TLI-µTESLA) protocol, which maximizes the benefits of the previous TESLA protocol variants, including scalability support and immediate authentication of Multilevel-µTESLA protocol and continuous authentication with minimal computation overhead of enhanced Inf-TESLA protocol. The inclusion of three different keychains and checking criteria of the packets in the Hybrid TLI-µTESLA protocol enabled resistance against Masquerading, Modification, Man-in-the-Middle, Brute-force, and DoS attacks. A solution for the authentication problem in the first and last packets of the high-level and low-level keychains of the Multilevel-µTESLA protocol was also proposed. The simulation analysis was performed using Java, where we compared the Hybrid TLI-µTESLA protocol with other variants for time complexity and computation overhead at the sender and receiver sides. We also conducted a comparative analysis between two hash functions, SHA-2 and SHA-3, and assessed the feasibility of the proposed protocol in the forthcoming 6G technology. The results demonstrated the superiority of the proposed protocol over other variants in terms of immediate and continuous authentication, scalability, cybersecurity, lifetime, network performance, and compatibility with 5G and 6G IoT generations.
During her time at C2PS, Dr. Khouloud managed to represent Khalifa University and the C2PS in important events such as the International Exhibition for National Security and Resilience (ISNR Abu Dhabi) in October 2022 and successfully held an interview with AL Khaleej Times about the C2PS achievements at Khalifa University. Moreover, she led the AI projects showcase that was held in June 2023 to represent the C2PS AI projects to VIP delegates from China who were impressed with the organization and the work achieved.
Dr. Khouloud has been involved in academic roles, as she has made exceptional contributions to the preparation and implementation of the training program with the Abu Dhabi Police. She was nominated to deliver several programs in the fields of cybersecurity, cyber-physical systems, and cybersecurity threats and mitigations, and conducted cybersecurity simulation activities with the trainees.
