Zafar Iqbal

Dr. Zafar Iqbal

orcid

Research Focus & Metrics

Academic Career Length

5Years (2022-Present)

(Calculated once Scilit publication data is synced: current year − year of first publication + 1)

Representative Publications

View All Publications
4 September 2023 in Technologies
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
PDF file
Memoona SadafMemoona Sadaf
Memoona Sadaf
ZIZafar Iqbal
Zafar Iqbal
AJAbdul Rehman Javed
Abdul Rehman Javed
ISIrum Saba
Irum Saba
Moez KrichenMoez Krichen
Moez Krichen
ARArooj Raza
Arooj Raza
Autonomous vehicles (AV) are game-changing innovations that promise a safer, more convenient, and environmentally friendly mode of transportation than traditional vehicles. Therefore, understanding AV technologies and their impact on society is critical as we continue this revolutionary journey. Generally, there needs to be a detailed study available to assist a researcher in understanding AV and its challenges. This research presents a comprehensive survey encompassing various aspects of AVs, such as public adoption, driverless city planning, traffic management, environmental impact, public health, social implications, international standards, safety, and security. Furthermore, it presents emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), integration of cloud computing, and solar power usage in automated vehicles. It also presents forensics approaches, tools used, standards involved, and challenges associated with conducting digital forensics in the context of autonomous vehicles. Moreover, this research provides an overview of cyber attacks affecting autonomous vehicles, attack management, traditional security devices, threat modeling, authentication schemes, over-the-air updates, zero-trust architectures, data privacy, and the corresponding defensive strategies to mitigate such risks. It also presents international standards, guidelines, and best practices for AVs. Finally, it outlines the future directions of AVs and the challenges that must be addressed to achieve widespread adoption.

28 November 2022 in Electronics
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
PDF file
Shamshair AliShamshair Ali
Shamshair Ali
SRSaif Ur Rehman
Saif Ur Rehman
AIAZHAR IMRAN
AZHAR IMRAN
GAGhazif Adeem
Ghazif Adeem
ZIZafar Iqbal
Zafar Iqbal
KKKi-Il Kim
Ki-Il Kim
Many intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDPS) have been introduced to identify suspicious activities. However, since attackers are exploiting new vulnerabilities in systems and are employing more sophisticated advanced cyber-attacks, these zero-day attacks remain hidden from IDPS in most cases. These features have incentivized many researchers to propose different artificial intelligence-based techniques to prevent, detect, and respond to such advanced attacks. This has also created a new requirement for a comprehensive comparison of the existing schemes in several aspects ; after a thorough study we found that there currently exists no detailed comparative analysis of artificial intelligence-based techniques published in the last five years. Therefore, there is a need for this kind of work to be published, as there are many comparative analyses in other fields of cyber security that are available for readers to review.In this paper, we provide a comprehensive review of the latest and most recent literature, which introduces well-known machine learning and deep learning algorithms and the challenges they face in detecting zero-day attacks. Following these qualitative analyses, we present the comparative evaluation results regarding the highest accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 score compared to different datasets.

11 October 2022 in Sensors
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
PDF file
DBDavid Samuel Bhatti
David Samuel Bhatti
SSShahzad Saleem
Shahzad Saleem
AIAZHAR IMRAN
AZHAR IMRAN
ZIZafar Iqbal
Zafar Iqbal
AAAbdulkareem Alzahrani
Abdulkareem Alzahrani
KKKi-Il Kim
Ki-Il Kim
The deployment of wearable or body-worn devices is increasing rapidly, and thus researchers’ interests mainly include technical and economical issues, such as networking, interoperability, security, power optimization, business growth and regulation. To address these issues properly, previous survey papers usually focused on describing the wireless body area network architecture and network protocols. This implies that deployment issues and awareness issues of wearable and BAN devices are not emphasized in previous work. To defeat this problem, in this study, we have focused on feasibility, limitations, and security concerns in wireless body area networks. In the aspect of the economy, we have focused on the compound annual growth rate of these devices in the global market, different regulations of wearable/wireless body area network devices in different regions and countries of the world and feasible research projects for wireless body area networks. In addition, this study focuses on the domain of devices that are equally important to physicians, sportsmen, trainers and coaches, computer scientists, engineers, and investors. The outcomes of this study relating to physicians, fitness trainers and coaches indicate that the use of these devices means they would be able to treat their clients in a more effective way. The study also converges the focus of businessmen on the Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) and provides manufacturers and vendors with information about different regulatory bodies that are monitoring and regulating WBAN devices. Therefore, by providing deployment issues in the aspects of technology and economy at the same time, we believe that this survey can serve as a preliminary material that will lead to more advancements and improvements in deployment in the area of wearable wireless body area networks. Finally, we present open issues and further research direction in the area of wireless body area networks.

13 July 2023 in ACM Computing Surveys
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
HAHaider Abbas
Haider Abbas
nemmanuel Emmanuelnemmanuel Emmanuel
nemmanuel Emmanuel
MAMuhammad Faisal Amjad
Muhammad Faisal Amjad
TYTahreem Yaqoob
Tahreem Yaqoob
MAMohammed Atiquzzaman
Mohammed Atiquzzaman
UAUmer Ashfaq
Umer Ashfaq
The use of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) has witnessed an outstanding rise as they aim to provide confidentiality and anonymity to communication. Despite this enormous and ubiquitous usage, VPNs come with various security, misconfiguration, and performance related issues thereby hindering the users to take maximum advantage of this revolutionary technology. To address this concern, VPN users must choose the most secure and perfect VPN solution for the smooth functioning of daily life activities. Generally, no clear set of directions is available for assisting a common VPN user thereby accentuating the need to develop an elucidated and coherent checklist that thoroughly helps in evaluating any VPN based on its security, performance, auditing, and management function. This research comprehensively surveys VPN technologies, its features, working principles, and compliance principles that evolved over the last two decades. Based on it, this research presents a new methodology in the form of a feature-enriched template to comprehensively analyze a VPN solution. Each VPN feature is given its score against the potential damage it may cause in case of failure and the probability of occurrence of that failure. In this way, the corporate sector and individual users can quantitatively and qualitatively grade available options while choosing a VPN and use it effectively.

18 May 2024 in Future Internet
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
PDF file
Faisal FiazFaisal Fiaz
Faisal Fiaz
SSSyed Muhammad Sajjad
Syed Muhammad Sajjad
ZIZafar Iqbal
Zafar Iqbal
MYMuhammad Yousaf
Muhammad Yousaf
ZMZia Muhammad
Zia Muhammad
The Metaverse brings together components of parallel processing computing platforms, the digital development of physical systems, cutting-edge machine learning, and virtual identity to uncover a fully digitalized environment with equal properties to the real world. It possesses more rigorous requirements for connection, including safe access and data privacy, which are necessary with the advent of Metaverse technology. Traditional, centralized, and network-centered solutions fail to provide a resilient identity management solution. There are multifaceted security and privacy issues that hinder the secure adoption of this game-changing technology in contemporary cyberspace. Moreover, there is a need to dedicate efforts towards a secure-by-design Metaverse that protects the confidentiality, integrity, and privacy of the personally identifiable information (PII) of users. In this research paper, we propose a logical substitute for established centralized identity management systems in compliance with the complexity of the Metaverse. This research proposes a sustainable Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI), a fully decentralized identity management system to mitigate PII leaks and corresponding cyber threats on all multiverse platforms. The principle of the proposed framework ensures that the users are the only custodians and proprietors of their own identities. In addition, this article provides a comprehensive approach to the implementation of the SSI principles to increase interoperability and trustworthiness in the Metaverse. Finally, the proposed framework is validated using mathematical modeling and proved to be stringent and resilient against modern-day cyber attacks targeting Metaverse platforms.

17 November 2024 in Information
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
PDF file
SZSyed Muhammad Zohaib
Syed Muhammad Zohaib
SSSyed Muhammad Sajjad
Syed Muhammad Sajjad
ZIZafar Iqbal
Zafar Iqbal
MYMuhammad Yousaf
Muhammad Yousaf
MHMuhammad Haseeb
Muhammad Haseeb
ZMZia Muhammad
Zia Muhammad
Modern organizations have migrated from localized physical offices to work-from-home environments. This surge in remote work culture has exponentially increased the demand for and usage of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), which permit remote employees to access corporate offices effectively. However, the technology raises concerns, including security threats, latency, throughput, and scalability, among others. These newer-generation threats are more complex and frequent, which makes the legacy approach to security ineffective. This research paper gives an overview of contemporary technologies used across enterprises, including the VPNs, Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA), proxy servers, Secure Shell (SSH) tunnels, the software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN), and Secure Access Service Edge (SASE). This paper also presents a comprehensive cybersecurity framework named Zero Trust VPN (ZT-VPN), which is a VPN solution based on Zero Trust principles. The proposed framework aims to enhance IT security and privacy for modern enterprises in remote work environments and address concerns of latency, throughput, scalability, and security. Finally, this paper demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed framework in various enterprise scenarios, highlighting its ability to prevent data leaks, manage access permissions, and provide seamless security transitions. The findings underscore the importance of adopting ZT-VPN to fortify cybersecurity frameworks, offering an effective protection tool against contemporary cyber threats. This research serves as a valuable reference for organizations aiming to enhance their security posture in an increasingly hostile threat landscape.