The Security Research Centre (SRC) is a comprehensive multidisciplinary training, R&D and innovation unit that provides practical and efficient technological solutions to cybersecurity related problems of the government and industry. The SRC has over 75 cybersecurity researchers, including 55 doctoral and Master thesis students, 20 faculty members, among which six are research chairholders, and several postdoctoral fellows and research staff. The SRC works on a broad range of areas such as: Vulnerability research, critical infrastructure security, network security, 5G and beyond security, cloud computing security, cyber threat intelligence, cyber forensics, Internet-of-Things (IoT) security, software defined-networking security, malware analysis, blockchain technologies and beyond.
Activities in R&D and Commercialization
In the last four years, the SRC secured over $17.9 million in research funding from both funding agencies and governmental agencies, and in partnership with leading corporations. SRC currently hosts prestigious industrial and governmental research chairs funded at a level of $7.5 million on topics such as: Smart Grid Security, Software-Defined Networking and Network Functions Virtualization Security, Blockchain Technologies, etc. These chair programs demonstrate the leadership of SRC in the aforementioned areas and constitute synergy between SRC and industrial/ governmental organizations. Other ongoing R&D activities at SRC include more than $3 million of CFI funding for research on the security and resilience of smart cities. SRC has had successful collaborations with leading industrial corporations and major governmental organizations. SRC is the centre of aggregation and security analytics of network data feeds received from 100+ universities and colleges in Canada to support their daily security operations. As such, it produces and distributes cyber threat intelligence to all these post-secondary institutions daily. It has also transferred many innovative security technologies to Hydro-Québec and Ericsson Canada. Moreover, SRC researchers hold an important number of awarded patents
Skills and Talent Development (Training)
SRC has led comprehensive education and training academic programs in cybersecurity since 2005. It has trained thousands of cybersecurity experts who are now leading security operations in several sectors of the Canadian economy. This is achieved through specialized course-based and thesis-based Master programs in cybersecurity that enroll over 500 graduate students. SRC also leads specialized training of 30+ doctoral students.
Indirect Outcomes of SRC activities
- Provide a continuous stream of highly qualified personnel
- Offering a platform for collaboration between academia, industry, and government
- Designing and implementing innovative technologies and practical tools with a strong positive impact on Canada’s cybersecurity
