Polytechnic Student Research Programme (PSRP) Awards Ceremony 2018

The Polytechnic Student Research Programme (PSRP) Awards Ceremony 2018 took place at Nanyang Polytechnic on 21 March 2018. At the ceremony, the top 10 student projects, out of over 100 different student projects from across the polytechnics in Singapore, were honoured. 

Final Year student, Yap Xin Yuan from the Diploma in Digital Forensics (DFS), School of Informatics & IT was among those who were honoured. Her project is titled “IoT Forensics Platform”. 

The IoT Forensics Platform is an integration platform that comprises of several open source software. The platform allows users to store, acquire and visualise the state of IoT devices. Using machine learning techniques, the platform will detect anomalies and alert users of potential IoT attacks. This will greatly facilitate the acquisition and analysis process of forensic investigations as it becomes possible to determine the timeline of events that have occurred based on the preserved historical IoT data. 

Researching and developing this platform was not an easy task for Xin Yuan because IoT Forensics is still a relatively new research area in which most of the research has been merely theoretical. So, she had to spend a lot of time and effort to explore and experiment with multiple alternatives before producing a viable solution. Through this process, she also learned how to effectively work with and proactively learn from her colleagues so as to develop this platform faster. 

During this research project, Xin Yuan developed a deeper understanding of IoT Forensics. She also had to learn new frameworks, technologies and languages to enable her to develop this platform. She even learned how to implement machine learning from scratch, and how to perform simple attack simulations on IP cameras to test her platform. 

As Xin Yuan reflected, “Through this project, I have learned how to be more independent and resourceful in seeking for viable solutions. Most importantly, I have learned that I am able to push past my limits as long as I persevere and proceed one step at a time.”