Usama Ejaz

Mr. Usama Ejaz

orcid

Research Focus & Metrics

Academic Career Length

3Years (2024-Present)

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

Representative Publications

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26 February 2024 in Electronics
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
PDF file
MHMuhammad Ali Hamza
Muhammad Ali Hamza
UEUsama Ejaz
Usama Ejaz
HKHyunchul Kim
Hyunchul Kim
The rapid evolution of 5G technology, while offering substantial benefits, concurrently presents complex cybersecurity challenges. Current cybersecurity systems often fall short in addressing challenges such as the lack of realism of the 5G network, the limited scope of attack scenarios, the absence of countermeasures, the lack of reproducible, and open-sourced cybersecurity training environments. Addressing these challenges necessitates innovative cybersecurity training systems, referred to as “cyber ranges”. In response to filling these gaps, we propose the Cyber5Gym, an integrated cyber range that enhances the automation of virtualized cybersecurity training in 5G networks with cloud-based deployment. Our framework leverages open-source tools (i) Open5GS and UERANSIM for realistic emulation of 5G networks, (ii) Docker for efficient virtualization of the training infrastructure, (iii) 5Greply for emulating attack scenarios, and (iv) Shell scripts for automating complex training operations. This integration facilitates a dynamic learning environment where cybersecurity professionals can engage in real-time attack and countermeasure exercises, thus significantly improving their readiness against 5G-specific cyber threats. We evaluated it by deploying our framework on Naver Cloud with 20 trainees, each accessing an emulated 5G network and managing 100 user equipments (UEs), emulating three distinct attack scenarios (SMC-Reply, DoS, and DDoS attacks), and exercising countermeasures, to demonstrate the cybersecurity training. We assessed the effectiveness of our framework through specific metrics such as successfully establishing the 5G network for all trainees, accurate execution of attack scenarios, and their countermeasure implementation via centralized control of the master using automated shell scripts. The open-source foundation of our framework ensures replicability and adaptability, addressing a critical gap in current cybersecurity training methodologies and contributing significantly to the resilience and security of 5G infrastructures.

13 February 2025 in Sensors
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
PDF file
UEUsama Ejaz
Usama Ejaz
MHMuhammad Ali Hamza
Muhammad Ali Hamza
HKHyunchul Kim
Hyunchul Kim
The prevalence of wildfires presents significant challenges for fire detection systems, particularly in differentiating fire from complex backgrounds and maintaining detection reliability under diverse environmental conditions. It is crucial to address these challenges for developing sustainable and effective fire detection systems. In this paper: (i) we introduce a channel-wise attention-based architecture, achieving 95% accuracy and demonstrating an improved focus on flame-specific features critical for distinguishing fire in complex backgrounds. Through ablation studies, we demonstrate that our channel-wise attention mechanism provides a significant 3–5% improvement in accuracy over the baseline and state-of-the-art fire detection models; (ii) evaluate the impact of augmentation on fire detection, demonstrating improved performance across varied environmental conditions; (iii) comprehensive evaluation across color spaces including RGB, Grayscale, HSV, and YCbCr to analyze detection reliability; and (iv) assessment of model vulnerabilities where Fast Gradient Sign Method (FGSM) perturbations significantly impact performance, reducing accuracy to 41%. Using Local Interpretable Model-Agnostic Explanations (LIME) visualization techniques, we provide insights into model decision-making processes across both standard and adversarial conditions, highlighting important considerations for fire detection applications.

1 November 2026 in Computer Networks
Verified
Journal Article
Closed access
UEUsama Ejaz
Usama Ejaz
MHMuhammad Ali Hamza
Muhammad Ali Hamza
HKHyunchul Kim
Hyunchul Kim