Cost-Effective Cybersecurity: A Multi-Tiered Defense Framework with Open-Source Solutions

Hassan Jalil Hadi received the Ph.D. degree in Cyberspace Security from the School of Cyber Science and Engineering, Wuhan University, China. He is currently working as a Research Specialist at the Resilient Computing and Cybersecurity Center (RC3), King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia. Previously, he served as a Cybersecurity Expert at the CRC Laboratory, National Center for Cyber Security, Islamabad, where he was engaged in threat detection, monitoring, mitigation, and audits aligned with industry standards for cybersecurity challenges. His research interests include IoT security, digital forensics, edge computing, and botnet detection and mitigation. In addition to his academic and research contributions, he holds multiple professional certifications, including CISM from ISACA, as well as CEH, CHFI, and ISO 27001 certifications, demonstrating his expertise in strategic security management, ethical hacking, digital forensics, and information security governance.

Muhammad Khurram Khan is a global thought leader and influencer in cybersecurity. He is a Professor of Cybersecurity at the Center of Excellence in Information Assurance, King Saud University, Saudi Arabia. He is the founder and CEO of the 'Global Foundation for Cyber Studies and Research', an independent and non-partisan cybersecurity think-tank in Washington, D.C., USA. He has contributed to cyber policy work for the G20 (Saudi and Italian Presidencies) in shaping a safer cyberspace for children, protecting the masses and vulnerable populations in cyberspace, and empowering and enabling women in the cybersecurity profession. In 2019, he played an instrumental role as a cybersecurity subject expert for a USD 6 million series B investment in a South Korean startup, "SecuLetter," which has received an IPO valuation of USD 100 million (2023). He is also an International Advisory Board Member at AIFT, which is a leading AI cybersecurity company.

He is the Editor in Chief of a well-reputed international journal 'Telecommunication Systems', published by Springer Nature for over 28 years, with a recent impact factor of 2.3 (JCR 2025). Furthermore, he is the area editor (Cybersecurity) of IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, which has a 46.7 impact factor. Moreover, he has been on the editorial board of several journals, including, IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, IEEE Transactions on Network Science and Engineering, IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, IEEE Communications Magazine, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Vehicles, IEEE Internet of Things Journal, IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics, JNCA, and IEEE Communications Letters, etc. He serves as a referee for research foundations of Switzerland, Italy, Saudi Arabia, and the Czech Republic.

He has published over 500 research papers and holds 12 U.S. patents. His research focuses on cybersecurity, smart mobility security, AI security and governance, IoT security, digital authentication, cyber policy, and innovation management. He is a fellow of the IET, BCS, and FTRA, and a senior member of IEEE and IACSIT. He also chaired an ITU working group on child online protection in the Metaverse.

Naveed Ahmad (Senior Member, IEEE) received his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Surrey, U.K., in 2013. He is an Associate Professor at Prince Sultan University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. His research interests include security and privacy in emerging networks, such as VANETs, DTNs, IoT, machine learning, and big data.

Rehana Yasmin is a Research Scientist at KAUST, Saudi Arabia. Prior to this, she worked as an automotive cybersecurity researcher at Huawei International, Singapore from 2016 to 2023. Her research interests cover wide-ranging aspects of cybersecurity, including applications in automotive and satellite systems.