Concordia research to strengthen cybersecurity for future air mobility and critical infrastructure

Concordia professor Kash Khorasani has received up to $2 million in new funding from the National Cybersecurity Consortium (NCC) for research that will help make Canada’s transportation infrastructure more secure and resilient.

The project, titled Cybersecurity, Resilience, and Trustworthiness of Networked Critical Infrastructure and Autonomous Advanced Air Mobility Assets Against Malicious Adversary Cyber-Attacks, is supported under the federal Cyber Security Innovation Network program.

Khorasani, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, will lead a multidisciplinary team studying how to protect autonomous air mobility systems — such as future electric air taxis, air ambulances, and drones — as well as other critical infrastructure that depends on networked, automated systems.

The research will focus on identifying and addressing safety and security vulnerabilities in these emerging technologies. The team plans to design new frameworks for detecting, isolating and recovering from cyberattacks and system faults before they affect performance or safety.

“Cyber-physical systems are becoming central to how we move people, goods and data,” Khorasani says. “Our goal is to create and develop a unified cybersecurity framework that allows these systems to operate safely and reliably — even under cyber-attacks implemented by malicious agents and adversaries.”

The project will use simulated environments to test how intelligent infrastructure responds to disruptions, ensuring that future systems can recover quickly and maintain public trust.

Tim Evans, associate vice-president of research, engineering and computing at Concordia, says the project reflects the university’s growing leadership in digital security and resilience.

“Kash and his team are advancing work that will help Canada stay ahead of the curve on cybersecurity for critical systems. This funding reinforces the university’s role as a trusted partner in protecting the technologies that underpin our everyday lives.”

Learn more about cybersecurity research at the Gina Cody School of Engineering and Computer Science.