Dr Owen Lo

Biography	Dr Owen Lo is a Research Fellow in the Blockpass ID Lab at Edinburgh Napier University. Additionally, he also holds the role of Tech Lead at MemCrypt Ltd. Owen graduated with a 1st Honours (Class Medal Award) degree in Computer Networks and Distributed Systems at Edinburgh Napier University before continuing to complete a PhD at the same university on the topic of e-Health. Some awards Owen has received include: Young Software Engineer of the Year Award (Lumison Prize)(2010), Team Prize Raytheon Cyber Challenge Award (2011) and Student of the Year ENU Award (2012). During his PhD, Owen contributed to the Data Capture and Auto Identification Reference (DACAR) Project – a project funded in part by EPSRC and TSB – and which aimed to create a secure cloud-based information sharing platform for patient data in healthcare environments. His work on the DACAR project includes the development of a Patient Simulator and an electronic version of the Early Warning Score system used to perform risk assessment on patients. In his role as a Research Fellow, Owen has collaborated with organisations including Morgan Stanley and Keysight Technologies on industry focused research projects. His collaboration with Morgan Stanley focused on insider threats and investigated machine learning techniques to assess how one may determine if an employee was conducting malicious activity. Owen’s collaboration with Keysight Technologies involved research on the topic of side channel analysis and vulnerabilities related to IoT devices. His work on side channel analysis involved applying a technique called power analysis to block-based cryptographic encryption algorithms including Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) and PRESENT. His results showed that both algorithms are susceptible to information leakage (i.e. the secret key may be revealed) under certain conditions which results in the compromised security of both algorithms. Lastly, Owen’s research into IoT security has demonstrated numerous vulnerabilities with consumer ready devices including network service vulnerabilities and Bluetooth Low Energy vulnerabilities. During his time at ENU, Owen has contributed to the success of three university spin-out companies: Symphonic Software, Cyancomb and MemCrypt Ltd. Symphonic Software involved the development of an information sharing engine used for the secure and trusted sharing of information between different sectors including finance, healthcare, social care, and law enforcement. For Cyancomb, he worked on research and development of a fully-featured contraband detection software used to enable rapid detection of illegal content on computing devices. Owen's work on MemCrypt, the most recent spin-out from ENU, is focused on ransomware detection and data recovery. In his role as Tech Lead at MemCrypt, Owen is currently leading the development of MemCrypt's core innovation: the ability to detect and capture cryptographic keys which allows for the rapid recovery of data affected by ransomware.

Biography

Dr Owen Lo is a Research Fellow in the Blockpass ID Lab at Edinburgh Napier University. Additionally, he also holds the role of Tech Lead at MemCrypt Ltd. Owen graduated with a 1st Honours (Class Medal Award) degree in Computer Networks and Distributed Systems at Edinburgh Napier University before continuing to complete a PhD at the same university on the topic of e-Health. Some awards Owen has received include: Young Software Engineer of the Year Award (Lumison Prize)(2010), Team Prize Raytheon Cyber Challenge Award (2011) and Student of the Year ENU Award (2012).

During his PhD, Owen contributed to the Data Capture and Auto Identification Reference (DACAR) Project – a project funded in part by EPSRC and TSB – and which aimed to create a secure cloud-based information sharing platform for patient data in healthcare environments. His work on the DACAR project includes the development of a Patient Simulator and an electronic version of the Early Warning Score system used to perform risk assessment on patients.

In his role as a Research Fellow, Owen has collaborated with organisations including Morgan Stanley and Keysight Technologies on industry focused research projects. His collaboration with Morgan Stanley focused on insider threats and investigated machine learning techniques to assess how one may determine if an employee was conducting malicious activity. Owen’s collaboration with Keysight Technologies involved research on the topic of side channel analysis and vulnerabilities related to IoT devices. His work on side channel analysis involved applying a technique called power analysis to block-based cryptographic encryption algorithms including Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) and PRESENT. His results showed that both algorithms are susceptible to information leakage (i.e. the secret key may be revealed) under certain conditions which results in the compromised security of both algorithms. Lastly, Owen’s research into IoT security has demonstrated numerous vulnerabilities with consumer ready devices including network service vulnerabilities and Bluetooth Low Energy vulnerabilities.

During his time at ENU, Owen has contributed to the success of three university spin-out companies: Symphonic Software, Cyancomb and MemCrypt Ltd. Symphonic Software involved the development of an information sharing engine used for the secure and trusted sharing of information between different sectors including finance, healthcare, social care, and law enforcement. For Cyancomb, he worked on research and development of a fully-featured contraband detection software used to enable rapid detection of illegal content on computing devices. Owen's work on MemCrypt, the most recent spin-out from ENU, is focused on ransomware detection and data recovery. In his role as Tech Lead at MemCrypt, Owen is currently leading the development of MemCrypt's core innovation: the ability to detect and capture cryptographic keys which allows for the rapid recovery of data affected by ransomware.