Swinburne research receives Australian Research Council funding
In Summary
- The cybersecurity research proposal has received $750,000 worth of funding
- Swinburne will partner with iSmart to tackle the issue of fake online reviews
- Professor Yang Xiang will lead the research
A Swinburne research proposal to solve the problems of ‘fake reviews’ of online businesses has received funding from the latest round of Australian Research Council Linkage grants and industry partners.
Professor Yang Xiang, Dean of the Digital Research Innovation Capability Platform and the Director of the Cybersecurity Lab, will lead the $750,000 project to develop an autonomic online fake review analysis platform to protect online commerce.
Swinburne has partnered with Deakin University and Melbourne based IT company iSmart Mobile Business Solutions to develop technologies that will help control large-scale cyber-reputation manipulation attacks and effectively minimise their damage.
Professor Xiang says this important project could help increase competitive advantage in cybersecurity and make Australia a leader in the field.
“Our solution will significantly improve existing fake review defence in Australia. The outcomes for this research will not only benefit online commerce vendors such as iSmart, but also lay the foundations of fake review defence in other sectors like governments, finance and industries,” Professor Xiang says.
Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Development) Professor Matthew Cuthbertson says this project ties into the university's vision to produce impactful research that transforms industries through collaboration with its partners.
“We are proud to be leading the way in this innovative cybersecurity research that will have real-world outcomes and applications for industry to adopt,” Professor Cuthbertson says.
The partnership with iSmart will provide an industry environment for research and development, real-world review datasets and expertise of labelling and analysing fake reviews.
“We are looking forward to working with the world-class research team at Swinburne, which plays an important role in the research and development ecosystem in Australia,” Managing Director of iSmart, Bin Lui says.
Professor Xiang hopes to solve the issue of fake reviews damaging companies’ reputations and consumers’ trust in these businesses.