I am a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Central Florida with joint appointments in Computer Engineering and Modeling and Simulation. My research is in the area of security and privacy, and I have been recently focusing on topics such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, software and networked systems, internet of things and wearables, and blockchains. My active pursuits include:
- Networks security: NDSS 2023, CCS 2022, DSN 2022, INFOCOM 2020, DSN 2019, ICDCS 2019
- Blockchain security: IEEE S&P 2023, ACM CCS 2021, ACM CCS 2021, ICDCS 2021, ICDCS 2019
- Wearables & IoT security: IEEE VR 2022, CHI 2022, WPES 2021, ICDCS 2020, NDSS 2018
- ML & software security: RAID 2022, ICCV 2021, WPES 2021, PETS 2020, ICDCS 2019, CCS 2018
I obtained my Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota, in 2012, where I was a fellow advised by Prof. Yongdae Kim. I spent several years before and after then in the research and development industry, including working as a research engineer at ETRI (in South Korea) and as a (senior) research scientist at Verisign Labs (in Reston, Virginia). At UCF, I direct the Security and Analytics Lab (SEAL), where I have been fortunate to mentor several hardworking students.
Doctoral Advisees(1)(2)
- Jeff Spaulding (2018) → Lead Engineer, Booz Allen
- Ashar Ahmad (2019) → VP Engineering, Rapticore
- Mo Abuhamad (2020) → Asst Prof, Loyola Chicago
- Hisham Alasmary (2020) → Asst Prof, King Khalid U
- Rhongho Jang (2020) → Asst Prof, Wayne State
- Jeman Park (2020) → Asst Prof, Kyung Hee Uni.
- Jinchun Choi (2020) → Sr Researcher, ETRI
- Afsah Anwar (2021) → Asst Prof, Florida A&M U.
- Sultan Alshamrani (2021) → Asst Prof, SEU
- Muhammad Saad (2021) → Sr Scientist, PayPal
- Ahmed Abusnaina (2022) → Scientist, Facebook
- รlkรผ Meteriz-Yฤฑldฤฑran (2022) → Scientist, Facebook
- A. Alabduljabbar (2022) → Asst Prof/Chair, PSAU
- Hattan Althebeiti (2023) → Asst Prof, Taif University
- Mohammed Alkinoon (2024) → UCF
- Mohamed Alqadhi (2024)→ Asst Prof, IPA
- Ayodeji Adeniran (MST, exp. 2024)
- Soohyeon Choi (CS; exp. 2025)
- Ali Alkinoon (CS; exp. 2025)
- Jie Li (CS; exp. 2025)
- Aziz Alghamdi (ECE; exp 2025)
- Ahod Alguried (CS; exp 2025)
Selected and Recent Publications
Also see my DBLP and Google Scholar profiles for complete lists- IEEE S&P 2023 Three Birds with One Stone: Efficient Partitioning of Interdependent Networks
- ISOC NDSS 2023 A Robust Counting Sketch for Data Plane Intrusion Detection
- ACM CCSW 2023 Entangled Clouds: Measuring the Hosting Infrastructure of the Free Contents Web
- IEEE DSAA 2023 Understanding the Country-Level Security of Free Content Websites
- IEEE ICCCN 2023 Understanding the Security and Performance of the Web Presence of Hospitals
- ACM CCS 2022 A Scalable and Dynamic ACL System for In-Network Defense
- IEEE VR 2022 A Keylogging Inference Attack on Air-Tapping Keyboards ๐
Best paper candidate
- IEEE VR 2022 AiRType: An Air-Tapping Keyboard for Augmented Reality Environments*
- ACM HPCA 2022 Filesystem Encryption or Direct-Access for NVM Filesystems? Letโs Have Both
- IEEE DSN 2022 Minimizing Noise in HyperLogLog-Based Spread Estimation of Multiple Flows
- ACM RAID 2022 Systematically Evaluating the Robustness of ML-based Malware Detection Systems
- IEEE IPDPS 2022 Minerva: Rethinking Secure Architectures for Fabric-Attached Memory Architectures
- ACM CHI 2022 AcousticType: Smartwatch-Enabled Cross-Device Text Entry Using Keyboard Acoustics (LBW)
- ACM CCS 2021 Revisiting Nakamoto Consensus in Asynchronous Networks
- ACM CCS 2021 SyncAttack: Double-spending in Bitcoin Without Mining Power
- ACM ICS 2021 Optimizing Integrity Tree Updates for Secure NVMs ๐
Best paper candidate
- ICCV 2021: Adversarial Example Detection Using Latent Neighborhood Graph
- ACM SIGSPATIAL 2021 Aligning Semantic and Embedding Spaces in Spatial Representation Learning.
- IEEE ICDCS 2021 Root Cause Analyses for the Deteriorating Bitcoin Network Synchronization
- ACM WPES 2021 SIA: Smartwatch-Enabled Inference Attacks on Physical Keyboards Using Acoustic Signals
- ACM WPES 2021 Deep Learning-Based Automated Privacy Policy Annotation with Key Policy Highlights
- IEEE DSN 2021 Evaluating the Robustness of ML-based IoT Malware Detectors ๐
Best paper (fast abstract)
- PoPETS 2020 Multi-ฯ: Identifying Multiple Authors from Source Code Files
- IEEE ICDCS 2020 Detecting Adversarial Examples in Control Flow Graph-based Malware Classifiers
- IEEE ICDCS 2020 Understanding the Potential Risks of Sharing Elevation Information on Fitness Applications.
- IEEE INFOCOM 2020 Adversarial Learning-based Approach to Defend Against Website Fingerprinting
- IEEE INFOCOM 2020 SketchFlow: Per-Flow Systematic Sampling Using Sketch Saturation Event
- IEEE ICDCS 2019 Exploring Spatial Temporal and Logical Attacks on the Bitcoin Network
- EEE ICDCS 2019 Adversarial Learning Attacks on Graph-based IoT Malware Detection Systems
- IEEE ICDCS 2019 XLF: A Cross-layer Framework to Secure the Internet of Things
- IEEE ICBC 2019 Mempool Optimization for Defending Against DDoS Attacks in PoW-based Blockchains
- IEEE DSN 2019 Where Are You Taking Me? Behavioral Analysis of Open DNS Resolvers
- IEEE DSC 2019 Examining the robustness of learning-based ddos detection ๐
Best paper--runner-up
- ACM CCS 2018 Large-Scale and Language-Oblivious Code Authorship Identification
- IEEE ICDCS 2018 ShmCaffe: A Distributed Deep Learning Platform with Shared Memory
- ACM DLoT 2018 Towards Blockchain-Driven Secure and Transparent Audit Logs ๐
Best paper award
- ISOC NDSS 2018 ABC: Enabling Smartphone Authentication with Built-in Camera
- IEEE ICDCS 2017 Defending Against Voice Impersonation Attacks on Smartphones ๐ Best paper award
- IEEE INFOCOM 2017 Large-scale Invisible Attack on AFC Systems with NFC-equipped Smartphones
- ISOC NDSS 2016: Uncovering game bots in MMORPGs via self-similarity in the wild
- IEEE TDSC 2024 Analyzing in-browser cryptojacking
- IEEE/ACM TNET 2024 Revisiting Nakamoto Consensus in Asynchronous Networks
- IEEE TMC 2024 Learning Location from Shared Elevation Profiles in Fitness Apps
- IEEE TNNLS 2024 Hierarchical Deep Reinforcement Learning-Based Propofol Infusion Assistant in Anesthesia
- IEEE TDSC 2023 RC-NVM: Recovery-Aware Reliability-Security Co-Design for Non-Volatile Memories
- IEEE ToE 2023 Improving the Social Connectivity in Engineering Educational Networks and Implications
- IEEE TITS 2023 Self-Configurable Stabilized Detection Learning for Autonomous Driving Applications
- IEEE TDSC 2022 Deep learning-based fine-grained hierarchical learning for robust malware detection
- IEEE TDSC 2022 Cleaning the NVD: Comprehensive Quality Assessment, Improvements, and Analyses
- IEEE TDSC 2022 Phoenix: Towards Ultra-Low Overhead, Recoverable, and Persistently Secure NVM
- IEEE/ACM TNET 2022 A Large-Scale Behavioral Analysis of the Open DNS Resolvers
- IEEE/ACM TNET 2022 Exploring Partitioning Attacks on the Bitcoin Network
- IEEE IoT Journal 2022 ShellCore: automating malicious IoT software detection using shell commands
- IEEE TDSC 2021 Low-Cost Mechanisms to Restoration of Encrypted Non-Volatile Memories
- IEEE TMC 2021 A one-page text entry method optimized for recentagle smartwatches
- ACM TOPS 2021 Large-Scale and Robust Code Authorship Identification with Deep Feature Learning
- IEEE TPDS 2021 e-PoS: making proof-of-stake decentralized and fair
- IEEE TC 2021 SSD-Assisted ransomware detection and data recovery techniques
- IEEE IoT Journal 2021 Sensor-based continous authentication using behavioral biometrics
- IEEE TDSC 2020 A Data-Driven Study of DDoS Attacks and Their Dynamics
- IEEE TDSC 2020 Look-aside At Your Own Risk: Privacy Implications of DNSSEC Look-aside Validation
- IEEE TKDE 2020 GraphShield: dynamic large graphs for secure queries with forward privacy
- IEEE IoT Journal 2020 AUToSen: Deep Learning-based Implicit Continuous Authentication
- IEEE TMC 2020 Rogue Access Point Detection Using Intentional Channel Interference
- IEEE Sys. Journal 2020 Characterizing Blockchains for Highly-Accurate Predictions ๐ Best paper award
- arXiv:2304.13253 Analyzing In-browser Cryptojacking
- arXiv:2304.13255 SHIELD: Thwarting Code Authorship Attribution
- arXiv:2304.14359 Measuring and Modeling the Free Content Web
- arXiv:2304.13278 Understanding the Security and Performance of the Web Presence of Hospitals
- arXiv:2305.14531 Understanding the Country-Level Security of Free Content Web and Hosting Infrastructure
- arXiv:2210.10512 Measuring and Analyzing Cryptocurrency Mining in Public Clouds
- arXiv:2210.01260 Enriching Vulnerability Reports Through Automated Description Summarization
Recent Teaching Activities
- Fall 2022, CAP 5150: Foundations of Computer Security and Privacy (Sample Projects)
- Fall 2021, CAP 5150: Foundations Computer Security and Privacy
- Spring 2021, CAP 6640: Natural Language Understanding
- Spring 2021, CAP 5150: Foundations Computer Security and Privacy
- Spring 2020, CAP 6640: Natural Language Understanding
- Spring 2020, CAP 5150: Foundations Computer Security and Privacy
- Spring 2019, CAP 6640: Natural Language Understanding
- Spring 2019, CIS 4361: Secure Operating Systems
- Fall 2018, CIS 4615: Secure Software Development
- Spring 2018, CAP 6133: Computer Security and Computer Forensics
- Fall 2017, CIS 4615: Secure Software Development
Recent Honors (and Awards)
- 2022 UCF Teaching Incentive Award for Excellence in Teaching
- 2022 UCF Research Incentive Award for Excellence in Research
- 2022 CECS Excellence in Graduate Teaching Award
- Best Paper Award Nomineee of IEEE VR 2022
- Best Extended Abstract Award of IEEE DSN 2021
- Best Student Paper Award Nomineee of ACM ICS 2021
- Distiniguished TPC member of IEEE INFOCOM (2016-2021)
- Best Paper Award of IEEE Systems Journal (2020)
Current Services: TPC: WWW 2023, IEEE S&P 2023.
Contact: HPA2-240, 4000 Central Florida Blvd, Orlando, FL 32816, USA. mohaisen@ucf.edu