Dr Abdel-Karim Al-Tamimi CyberASAP Award
Congratulations to Dr Abdel-Karim Al-Tamimi, on his successful application to the Cyber Security Academic Startup Accelerator Programme (CyberASAP) funded by The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and Innovate UK.
Under the 2022 National Cyber Strategy the UK is taking a new, comprehensive approach to strengthen its position as a responsible and democratic cyber power, able to protect and promote our interests in and through cyberspace.
The Cyber Security Academic Startup Accelerator Programme (CyberASAP), now in its seventh year aims to increase the amount of academic research being commercialised within UK universities through a bespoke programme of support.
CyberASAP is selective and teams compete to join and complete the programme. A series of highly effective interventions (including bootcamps, workshops, and mentoring) gives participating teams essential insights into the key milestones necessary to commercialise their research.
With the support of RIS, over the next 4 months, Dr Al-Tamimi will be undertaking Phase 1 – value proposition development and market validation activities for his EyeGuardChain solution.
The aim of this phase is to determine the commercial value of the idea and if appropriate to identify the best commercial route to progress.
The programme is also supported by Innovate UK Business Connect and industry experts, including some from cyber security.
Project Summary: EyeGuardChain
Phishing attacks are a major cybersecurity threat, despite the in-place powerful defences. Even though Google blocks billions daily (99.9%) and over half of all emails in 2022 were spam, businesses (83% in the UK) still get hit.
The high volume and targeting of younger users makes them especially dangerous, with data breaches costing organizations millions.
Typical phishing detection techniques rely either on the URLs or the HTML contents to extract textual features related to the visited websites and then compare them to dynamic and ever-expanding databases of phishing websites.
Dr Abdel-Karim is developing a sophisticated AI-based tool capable of detecting malicious websites that closely mimic authentic ones to prevent zero-day phishing attacks.
Through the integration of various recent advancements in AI and data processing technologies, the solution ensures the integrity and transparency of the detection mechanism, mitigating the risk of tampering or falsification.
Additionally, the developed solution will continuously update and expand its repository of identified malicious websites, enabling proactive identification and prevention of potential cyber threats.
Dr Abdel-Karim Al-Tamimi says:
“Zero-day phishing attacks are the silent assassins of cybersecurity. They bypass defences and can cripple businesses before anyone realises they’re under attack. Staying vigilant with cutting-edge AI solutions and maintaining constant updates are key.”
