Meet Dr. Rishabh Das - New Faculty, Cybersecurity

“Athens is very warm and welcoming.” says Dr. Rishabh Das, a new assistant professor at the J. Warren McClure School of Emerging Communication Technologies. 

Dr. Das has come to Ohio University to teach students about the importance of cyber security and how they can help enter the field so they can have the opportunity to protect others. “I teach, I do research and I explore fun cyber security stuff.” says the assistant professor. 

In simple terms, he describes cyber security as “In today's world, it’s securing anything that is connected to a network. Your phone is connected to the network, that’s a channel that someone can leverage to compromise your data.”
Before becoming a professor, Dr. Das was an electrical engineer. “That’s what my undergrad degree is on. Early on in my career I got interested in control systems. So, I was exploring a lot of control systems.” Soon after, he joined on as a control systems engineer at a gas terminal. During this time, he got a lot of hands-on experience with control systems and industrial computers. “They operate for decades. Which is great! They are reliable, but it also means the engineers are not updating the computers, which makes them vulnerable over time.” 

This experience inspired him to learn more about computers and how to protect them from cyber attacks. This can be reflected in his research and the projects he is working on here at the McClure school.

When asked about his research, he explained that he “Secures sensors to the cloud. Literally everything that supports our critical infrastructure. That might be water tanks, that might be gas pipelines, power plants, nuclear power plants… Physical things that can actually have safety implications on humans.” 

Cyber security is as much about protecting the web as it is about protecting physical things in our real lives. Dr. Das helps students learn how to secure almost everything, allowing them to explore all the possible fields they could be interested in. His main research project revolves around how he can bring real life experiences into a virtual world to allow students to get hands-on experience without having to leave the classroom. He explains, “If you think about water tanks, these are highly complex systems. You cannot bring a water tank or a gas pipeline to a class. So, kind of studying cyber security on those complex systems to see how they behave. Maybe even pushing them to the limit. Causing a rupture or an overflow… We call it the virtual industrial control system test.” 

This research isn’t only limited to large industrial machines and power plants. His simulation technology can be applied to almost every field that uses technology in one form or another. “You can even try it out on a medical device and see the cyber attack implications on a pacemaker or an infusion pump. That is much more relatable to a medical student than, you know, trying to demonstrate a water tank.” 

Dr. Das has shared his research and simulations with colleges across the country so as many students as possible have the opportunity to gain that hands-on experience. One thing the McClure school offers that no other college can, is the opportunity to work on this research and create those simulations. Dr. Das allows students to assist him in his research. This gives students even more experience outside of cyber security. Helping him with his research allows students to understand how to create a simulation, how to build the systems they are simulating from the inside out and gives them the opportunity to help students around the country.

Moving away from research, Dr. Das wants to teach students about the physical implications of cyber security. “Everything is connected, even if we don’t realize it. The sensor in this room that controls the AC is being operated by someone at a central control area inside this building. Now, if someone hacks into the building management system, they can turn the AC off. It’s not a major issue. Now, imagine that one of the refrigerators storing medicine gets turned off. Millions of dollars of medicine that needs to be at a certain temperature can get spoiled.” 

The real world implications of cyber security can be felt through every facet of our everyday life. Dr. Das wants to help teach students how to defend against these attacks and keep themselves, and others safe.

When asked about how people can keep their data safe, he said, “Adding layers of security is the leading method of securing a system. A good example is: If you have a highly critical document stored in your computer, make sure you are updating that operating system. Make sure you are using an up-to-date anti-virus system so you have another layer of security. Adding these layers is called defense-in-depth.”

Each of these layers protects your data, but it also wards off hackers by making it inconvenient to hack you. “The main idea is that it makes the hackers approach more difficult towards a central crown jewel target. Leading companies use those methods, researchers use them to secure highly critical systems.” 

Working and researching isn’t all he does, however. Outside of the classroom or the lab Dr. Das likes to visit national parks to take pictures! “Specifically long exposure photography. Which is like when you take a picture of a waterfall, you expose the picture for a longer period of time so the waterfall looks like it is frozen. Those kinds of pictures. I really like taking them. Me and my wife, we have a goal to visit two national parks every year so we can hike to those beautiful places and see those waterfalls and mountains.” 

Dr. Das is just as warm and welcoming as Athens has been to him. He is a thoughtful and patient teacher who clearly has a great passion for the field he trains students to enter. His research has helped students, not just within the McClure school, but across the country. So, if you ever need advice on how long your password should be or how to prevent a cyber attack on a power plant, you know who to ask.

The McClure School of Emerging Communication Technologies strives to offer the best academic programs in the IT (Information Technology), cybersecurity (opens in a new window), the game development and the Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality (opens in a new window) (VR/AR) industries. Our programs and certificates cover numerous aspects of the rapidly changing industries of information networking, cybersecurity operations (opens in a new window), data privacy, game development (opens in a new window), digital animation and the academic side of esports. (opens in a new window)