Cliff C. Zou  (Changchun Zou) Professor Program Coordinator of Master Degree in Digital Forensics Program Coordinator of Master Degree in Cyber Security and Privacy Member, UCF Cybersecurity and Privacy Cluster Point-of-Contact for UCF CAE-CD and CAE-R designation   Data Systems Group Department of Computer Science University of Central Florida 4328 Scorpius St, Orlando, FL 32816-2362 Email:  changchun.zou@ucf.edu Tel:       407-823-5015 Certification: CompTIA Casp+ (2024-2027)

Curricula Vitae

 Fall 2025 Office Hours: every Tuesday/Thursday 12pm - 1:30pm, join office hour Zoom meeting: https://ucf.zoom.us/j/4074302761, or call my office phone (407-823-5015)

Research Interests

• Computer and network security

• Computer networking
  

• Network modeling and performance evaluation

Education

• Ph.D (2005)  Dept. Electrical & Computer Engineering, Univ. Massachusetts, Amherst

• M.S  (1999)  Dept. of Automation, University of Science & Technology of China (USTC)

• B.S  (1996)  Dept. of Automation, University of Science & Technology of China (USTC)

• May 2025: I was interviewed to comment on credit card security and card fraud by WalletHub.com (story).  
• April 2024: I was awarded with UCF Teaching Incentive Program (TIP) award. 
• Feb.2024: UCF Master's degree in Digital Forensics (online) program is ranked by U.S. News as "No. 23 for best online graduate computer information technology programs". (CECS News)  
• Aug. 2023: I was awarded with the NSF educational grant to develop advanced teaching modules on memory corruption attack and defense for the latest Windows systems (DGE-2325452, $70,000, in collaboration with Dr. Xinwen Fu from UML).
• Dec. 21st, 2022: I was interviewed by cybersecurity guide. The podcast of this interview is here.
• Nov. 22nd, 2022: I was interviewed by reporter Michelle Meredith from WESH 2 News on online shopping safety (WESH news story).  
• Oct. 2022: I got promoted to Full Professor.
• Feb. 2021: UCF was awarded with NSF Scholarship-For-Service (SFS) grant (DGE-2042996) of $2,885,353 for the next five years (reported in UCF Today).
• July 2019: Dr. Xinwen Fu, Yan Solihin and I have been awarded with an NSF education grant on building low-cost IoT Security Hands-on Laboratory (DGE-1915780).
• July. 2019: Thanks to my former student Jim Bardgett's persistent effort, our 2016 filed patent "System and Method for Routing Network Frames Between Virtual Machines" (US 10,341,263) finally got granted.
• Aug. 2017: Dr. Yier Jin from UF and I have been awarded with an NSF education grant on online digital forensics courses/labs (DGE-1723587). Under this funding support, we constuct a FREE educational website (http://cyberforensic.net/) on courses and labs for cybersecurity and digital forensics.
• Nov. 2013: I was interviewed by Local 6 News about hacked baby monitor and how to defend against it (aired news).
  
• May  2013: I received UCF Teaching Incentive Program (UCF-TIP) Award.
  
• May  2012: Baber Aslam is my second PhD graduated and becomes an Assistant Professor at National University of Sciences and Technology, Pakistan. Congratulation!
  
• Jun. 2011: I got my tenure and was promoted to Associate Professor.
  
• Dec. 2010: Ping Wang is the first PhD in my group graduated and will work in Symantec Inc. in Lake Mary, FL. Congratulation!
  
• Mar. 2010: Undergraduate research project "Personal Medication Monitor" won the first price in the first annual UCF Inventing Entrepreneurs Innovation Competition (UCF News). 
  
• Mar. 2010: The Register and EurekAlert! News Service reported our honeypot detection research, respectively.
• Mar. 2010: I provided comments about botnet attack on WDBO-AM Radio news broadcasted on 03/02/2010. Here is the audio.
  
• Sep. 2009: My Internship research work in AT&T finally got US Patent 7587761.
• Oct. 2009: Paper in Milcom'09 was reported by conference preview article published in IEEE communication magazine, October 2009, page 22.
  
• May  2008: The SMM rootkit work (paper published in Securecomm'08) was reported by PCWorld  (05/09/2008).
  
• Dec. 2007: Best Student Paper Award in conference ACSAC 2007.
• Mar. 2006: The research work in conference NDSS'06 paper "Modeling Botnet Propagation Using Time Zones" was reported by the New Scientist Magazine, Mar. 4, 2006 189(2541), pg. 32.
  

Teaching 

• CIS 6395: Incident Response Technologies (Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Fall 2024, Fall 2025)
• CNT 5410L: Cyber Operation Lab (Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Spring 2023, Spring 2024, Spring 2025 )
• CAP 6135: Malware and Software Vulnerability Analysis (Spring 2009, Spring 2010, Spring 2011, Spring 2012, Spring 2013, Spring 2014, Spring 2015, Spring 2016, Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019, Spring 2020, Spring 2021, Spring 2022, Spring 2023, Spring 2024, Spring 2025)
• CDA 6530: Performance Models of Computers and Networks (Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015)
• CNT 4704: Analysis of Computer Communication Networks  (Fall 2005, Fall 2006, Fall 2007, Fall 2008, Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015)
• COT 5405: Design and Analysis of Algorithms (Spring 2015)
  
• CNT 3004: Computer Network Concept (Spring 2011, Summer 2012)
• CIS 3360: Security in Computing (Spring 2012)
  
• CDA 5530: Performance Models of Computers and Networks (Fall 2008, Fall 2009) 
• CAP 6133: Advanced Topics in Computer Security and Forensics (Spring, 2008)
• CDA 6938: Special topic - Research in Computer and Network Security (Spring 2006, Spring 2007) 

Funding

• NSF DGE-2325452: Collaborative Research: SaTC: EDU: Creating Windows Advanced Memory Corruption Attack and Defense Teaching Modules ($70,000, PI, 100% share, 10/01/2023 to 09/30/2026, in collaboration with Dr. Xinwen Fu from UML)
• Millenium Cooperation, Incremental Fund. $100,910 (PI: Sean Mondesire, co-PI: Cliff Zou, 5/31/2022 to 05/01/2023)
• NSF DGE-2042996 supplemental fund ($563,697, PI, 38% share, 2/15/2022 to 1/31/2026)
• Millennium Cooperation: "Threat Systems Management Office (TSMO) Threat Cyberspace Operations Team (TCOT)" ($76,702, Co-PI, my share $38,351, 02/02/21 to 08/02/23)
• NSF DGE-2042996: "CyberCorps Scholarship for Service: Workforce Training and Preparation in Cybersecurity and Privacy" ($2,885,353, PI, 38% share,02/2021 - 01/2026)
• US Army PEO STRI: "Supporting the Development of the PCTE" ($763,911, Co-PI, 10% share, 09/2019 to 09/2020)
• NSF DGE-1915780: "SaTC: EDU: Collaborative: Building a Low-cost and State-of-the-art IoT Security Hands-on Laboratory", ($340,175, PI, 20% share, 10/2019-09/2022)
• US Army PEO STRI: "Enhancing the Persistent Cyber Training Environment" ($744,733, Co-PI, 10% share, 09/2018 to 09/2019 )
• REU supplement for NSF DGE-1723587 ($16,000, Co-PI, 50% share, 09/2018 ~ 08/2019)
• NSF DGE-1723587: "SaTC: EDU: Online Digital Forensics Courses and Labs for Students and Professionals", ($298,955,  Co-PI, 50% share, 09/2017 ~ 08/2019)
• Florida Center for Cybersecurity (FC2) seed grant: "Renewal: Smart Grid Security Protection through Cross Layer Approaches" (co-PI, my share: $15,000, 03/2016-05/2017)
• Florida Center for Cybersecurity (FC2) seed grant: "Smart Grid Security Protection through Cross Layer Approaches" (co-PI, my share: $16,666, 03/2015-05/2016)
• NSF REU supplement for CNS-0627318 ($16,000, 09/2009-08/2010).
  

• NSF Cyber Trust CNS-0627318: "Collaborative Research: CT-ISG: Modeling and Measuring Botnets" (PI, 100% share, 2006-2009, $175,000, in collaboration with Dr. Wenke Lee from Georgia Tech). 

• Intel Research Fund on vulnerability analysis and hardware validation (PI, 100% share, 08/2007-08/2010, $53,465).

• UCF in-house grant (PI, 100% share, 05/2006-04/2007, $7,500).

Publications (Google Scholar Citation)
     Book Chapter

• Zhen Ling, Yiling Xu, Yier Jin, Cliff Zou and Xinwen Fu, New Variants of Mirai and Analysis, In: Shen X., Lin X., Zhang K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Wireless Networks, Springer, First Online: 10 April 2020, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32903-1_174-1.
• Baber Aslam, Ping Wang, Cliff C. Zou, "An Economical, Deployable and Secure Architecture for the Initial Deployment Stage of Vehicular Ad-Hoc Network", Chang, Chip-Hong, Potkonjak, Miodrag (Eds.): Secure System Design and Trustable Computing, Springer, ISBN 978-3-319-14971-4, 2016.
• Ping Wang, Lei Wu, Baber Aslam and Cliff C. Zou, "Analysis of Peer-to-Peer Botnet Attacks and Defenses", to appear in Dariusz Krol, Damien Fay, Bogdan Gabrys (Ed): Propagation Phenomena in Real World Networks, Springer, ISSN: 1868-4394.
  
• Steven Zittrower and Cliff C. Zou, "Encrypted Ranked Proximity and Phrase Searching in the Cloud", Al-Sakib Khan Pathan (Ed): The State of the Art in Intrusion Prevention and Detection, CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, USA, January 2014.ISBN 9781482203516.
• Park, S., C. Zou, and D. Turgut, "Reliable Traffic Information Propagation in Vehicular Ad hoc Networks," in R. Beyah, J. McNair, and C. Corbett (Eds): Security in Ad-hoc and Sensor Networks, Chapter 9, World Scientific Press, 2009, pp. 261-291.
• Ping Wang, Baber Aslam, Cliff C. Zou, "Peer-to-Peer Botnets", in Stavroulakis, Peter; Stamp, Mark (Eds): Handbook of Information and Communication Security, Chapter 18, Springer Press, 2010, pp. 335-350.
• Sherri Sparks, Shawn Embleton, Cliff C. Zou. "Windows Rootkits - a Game of 'Hide and Seek'," in Y. Xiao, F.H. Li, and H. Chen (Eds): Handbook of Security and Networks, Chapter 14, pp.345-369, World Scientific Publishing Co., ISBN-10: 9814273031, ISBN-13: 978-9814273039, 2011.
  

     Referred Journal

•  Hanxun Zhou, Zhihui Liu, Yufeng Hu, Shuo Zhang, Longyu Kang, Yong Feng, Yan Wang, Wei Guo, Cliff C. Zou, "Data reduction for black-box adversarial attacks against deep neural networks based on side-channel attacks", Elsevier Computers & Security, Volume 153, 2025, 104401, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cose.2025.104401.
• Ahod Alghuried, Mohammed Alkinoon, Manar Mohaisen, An Wang, Cliff C. Zou, David Mohaisen, "Blockchain Security and Privacy: Threats, Challenges, Applications, and Tools", to appear in ACM Journal of Distributed Ledger Technologies: Research and Practice, 2025. 
• Amoruso, Edward L., Richard Leinecker, and Cliff C. Zou. 2024. "User Privacy Protection via Windows Registry Hooking and Runtime Encryption" Sensors 24, no. 16: 5106. https://doi.org/10.3390/s24165106 (IF: 3.4)
• Xiaobin Tan, Shunyi Wang, Liguo Ji, Xinxin Tong, Cliff Zou, Quan Zheng, Jian Yang, "Hybrid-Coding Based Content Access Control for Information-Centric Networking," in IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, vol. 23, no. 7, pp. 6765-6777, July 2024, DOI: 10.1109/TWC.2023.3332930. (IF: 8.9)
• Ibrahim A. Alwhbi , Cliff C. Zou,  Reem N. Alharbi. "Encrypted Network Traffic Analysis and Classification Utilizing Machine Learning", Sensors 2024, 24, 3509. DOI: https://doi.org/ 10.3390/s24113509 (IF: 3.4)
• Rettore, Paulo H. L.; Zissner, Philipp; Alkhowaiter, Mohammed; Zou, Cliff; Sevenich, Peter. "Military Data Space: Challenges, Opportunities, and Use Cases", in IEEE Communications Magazine, Vol 62, issue 1, pp. 70-76, January 2024. DOI: 10.1109/MCOM.001.2300396. (IF: 8.3)
• Mnassar Alyami, Abdulmajeed Alghamdi, Mohammed A. Alkhowaiter, Cliff Zou, Yan Solihin, "Random Segmentation: New Traffic Obfuscation Against Packet-Size based Side-Channel Attacks", Electronics 2023, 12(18), 3816. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12183816​ (IF: 2.6)
• Mohammed Alkhowaiter, Cliff Zou, "Adversarial-Aware Deep Learning System based on a Secondary Classical Machine Learning Verification Approach", Sensors 2023, 23(14), 6287. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/s23146287. (IF: 3.4)
• Anne M. Tall, Cliff C. Zou, "A Framework for Attribute-Based Access Control in Processing Big Data with Multiple Sensitivities", Appl. Sci. 2023, 13(2), 1183; https://doi.org/10.3390/app13021183 (IF: 2.5) Best Paper Award
• Ibrahim Alwhbi Alharbi, Ali Jaber Almalki, Mnassar Alyami, Cliff Zou, Yan Solihin, "Profiling Attack on WiFi-based IoT Devices Using an Eavesdropping of an Encrypted Data Frames", Advances in Science, Technology and Engineering Systems Journal (ASTES), Vol. 7, No. 6, pp. 49-57, 2022. DOI: 10.25046/aj070606.
• Luo, Lan; Zhang, Yue; White, Clayton; Keating, Brandon; Pearson, Bryan; Shao, Xinhui; Ling, Zhen; Yu, Haofei; Zou, Cliff; Fu, Xinwen; "On Security of TrustZone-M Based IoT Systems",  in IEEE Internet of Things Journal, doi: 10.1109/JIOT.2022.3144405. (IF: 10.6)
• Amirfarhad Nilizadeh, Shirin Nilizadeh, Wojciech Mazurczyk, Cliff Zou, Gary T. Leavens, "Adaptive Matrix Pattern Steganography on RGB Images", in Journal of Cyber Security and Mobility, 2022: Vol 11 Iss 1.
• Zhou, Hanxun; yang, xinlin; Pan, Hong; guo, wei; Zou, cliff. "A Worm Detection System Based on Deep Learning", IEEE ACCESS, 2020, DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2020.3023434.
• Afraa Attiah, Faisal Amjad, Mainak Chatterjee, Cliff Zou, "An Evolutionary Routing Game for Energy Balance in Wireless Sensor Networks", in Elsevier Computer Networks (COMNET), Volume 138, 19 June 2018, Pages 31-43. (IF:2.516)
• Omar Nakhila, Muhmmad Faisal Amjad, Erich Dondyk, Cliff Zou, "Gateway independent user-side wi-fi Evil Twin Attack detection using virtual wireless clients", in Elsevier Computers & Security, Volume 74, May 2018, Pages 41-54  (IF: 2.849).
• Hayoung Oh, Cliff C. Zou, Soyoung Park, "An Enhanced Community-based Reputation System for Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks", in International Journal of Engineering and Technology (IJET), Vol 8 No 5 Oct-Nov 2016.
• Muhammad Faisal Amjad, Mainak Chatterjee, Omar Nakhila, Cliff C. Zou, "Evolutionary Non-Cooperative Spectrum Sharing Game: Long Term Coexistence for Collocated Cognitive Radio Networks", in Wiley Journal of Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing (WCM), Volume 16, Issue 15, October 2016, pp. 2166?178.
• Faisal Amjad, Mainak Chatterjee, Cliff C. Zou, "Coexistence in Heterogeneous Spectrum Through Distributed Correlated Equilibrium in Cognitive Radio Networks", in Elsevier Computer Networks (COMNET), Vol. 98, pp 109 -122, April 2016. (IF:2.516)
• Faisal Amjad, Baber Aslam, Affraa Attiah, Cliff C. Zou, "Towards Trustworthy Collaboration in Spectrum Sensing for Ad hoc Cognitive Radio Networks", in Springer Journal of Wireless Networks, Vol. 22, Issue 3, pp 781-797, April 2016.
  
• Xiaobin Tan, Jiangyu Zheng, Cliff Zou, Yukun Niu, "Pseudonym-based Privacy-preserving Scheme for Data Collection In Smart Grid", International Journal of Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing (IJAHUC),  Vol. 22, No. 2, 2016.
  
• Sheng Wen, Wei Zhou, Jun Zhang, Yang Xiang,Wanlei Zhou, Weijia Jia,Cliff C. Zou, "Modeling and Analysis on the Propagation Dynamics of Modern Email Malware", IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, Vol. 11, No. 4, pp. 361-374, July-Aug., 2014.
• Dondyk, E., Rivera, L. and Zou, C.C. "Wi-Fi Access Denial of Service Attack to Smartphones", Int. J. Security and Networks, Vol. 8, No. 3, pp.117–129, 2013.
  
• Baber Aslam, Ping Wang, Cliff C. Zou, "Extension of internet access to VANET via satellite receive-only terminals". International Journal of Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing (IJAHUC) Vol. 14, No. 3: 172-190 (2013).
  
• Shawn Embleton, Sherri Sparks, Cliff C. Zou, "SMM Rootkit: A New Breed of OS Independent Malware", Wiley Journal of Security and Communication Networks, Vol. 6, No. 12, 2013,pp. 1590-1605.
• Soyoung Park, Baber Aslam, Damla Turgut, Cliff C. Zou, "Defense against Sybil Attack in the Initial Deployment Stage of Vehicular Ad hoc Network based on Roadside Unit Support", Wiley Journal of Security and Communication Networks, Vol. 6, No. 4, 2013, pp. 523-538.
• Corey McCall, Branden Maynes, Cliff C. Zou, Ning Zhang. "An Automatic Medication Self-Management and Monitoring System for Independently Living Patients",Elsevier Journal of Medical Engineering & Physics, Vol. 35, No. 4, 2013, pp. 505-514. 
• Lei Wu, Jerome Harrington, Corey Kuwanoe, Cliff C. Zou, "Harnessing the Power of BitTorrent for Distributed Denial-of-Service Attacks", Wiley Journal of Security and Communication Networks, 4(8), p.860-870, 2011.
• Baber Aslam, Soyoung Park, Cliff Zou, and Damla Turgut. "Secure Traffic Data Propagation in Vehicular Ad hoc Networks", International Journal of Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing (IJAHUC), 6(1), p.24-39, 2010.
  
• Ping Wang, Lei Wu, Ryan Cunningham, Cliff C. Zou. "Honeypot Detection in Advanced Botnet Attacks", International Journal of Information and Computer Security (IJICS), 4(1), p.30-51, 2010.
  
• Ping Wang, Sherri Sparks, Cliff C. Zou. "An Advanced Hybrid Peer-to-Peer Botnet", IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, 7(2), 113-127, April-June,2010. 

• Cliff C. Zou, Don Towsley, Weibo Gong. "Modeling and Simulation Study of the Propagation and Defense of Internet Email Worm," IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, 4(2), p.105-118, April-June 2007.

• Cliff C. Zou, Nick Duffield, Don Towsley, Weibo Gong. "Adaptive Defense Against Various Network Attacks," IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications: High-Speed Network Security (J-SAC), 24(10), p.1877-1888, October 2006.  (Acceptance ratio: 14/70= 20%)

• Cliff C. Zou, Don Towsley, and Weibo Gong. "On the Performance of Internet Worm Scanning Strategies," Elsevier Journal of Performance Evaluation, 63(7), p.700-723, July 2006.

• Cliff C. Zou, Don Towsley, Weibo Gong, Songlin Cai. "Advanced Routing Worm and Its Security Challenges," Simulation: Transactions of the Society for Modeling and Simulation International, 82(1), p.75-85, 2006.

• Cliff C. Zou, Weibo Gong, Don Towsley, and Lixin Gao. "The Monitoring and Early Detection of Internet Worms," IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, 13(5), p.961-974, October 2005.
  
  

      Referred conferences and workshops

• Aaron L. Householder, Cliff C. Zou, and Emre H. Brookes. "Optimizing UltraScan Job Scheduling with Deep Learning-Based Performance Prediction," to appear in the  ACM Practice and Experience in Advanced Research Computing (PEARC'25), New York, NY, USA, July 20–24, 2025. 
• Mnassar Alyami, Cliff Zou, Yan Solihin, "Adaptive Segmentation: A Tradeoff Between Packet-Size Obfuscation and Performance", to appear in IEEE International Conference on Smart Applications, Communications and Networking (SmartNets), May 28-30, 2024.
• Edward Amoruso, Cliff Zou, Richard Leinecker, "User Profiling Attack Using Windows Registry Data", in IEEE 14th Annual Ubiquitous Computing, Electronics & Mobile Communication Conference (UEMCON), October 2023. https://doi.org/10.1109/UEMCON59035.2023.10315968
• Mohammed Alkhowaiter, Khalid Almubarak, Mnassar Alyami, Abdulmajeed Alghamdi, Cliff Zou, "Image Authentication Using Self-Supervised Learning to Detect Manipulation Over Social Network Platforms", in IEEE Military Communication (MILCOM), Nov. 28 - Dec. 2, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1109/MILCOM55135.2022.10017725
• Roy Laurens, Edo D. Christianto, Bruce Caulkins, Cliff Zou, "Side-Channel VoIP Profiling Attack against Customer Service Automated Phone System" in IEEE Global Communications Conference (Globecom), Dec. 4-8, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1109/GLOBECOM48099.2022.10001537
• Edward Amoruso, Richard Leinecker, Cliff Zou, "SeeShells: An Optimized Solution for Utilizing Shellbags in a Digital Forensic Investigation", in  IEEE International Conference on Cyber Security and Resilience (CSR), July 27-29, 2022.
• Mohammed Alkhowaiter, Khalid Almubarak, Cliff Zou, "Evaluating perceptual hashing algorithms in detecting image manipulation over social media platforms", in  IEEE International Conference on Cyber Security and Resilience (CSR), July 27-29, 2022.
• Edward L Amoruso, Raghu Avula, Cliff Zou, Stephen Johnson, "A Web Infrastructure for Certifying Multimedia News Content for Fake News Defense", in 27th IEEE Symposium on Computers and Communications (ISCC), Jun 30 - Jul 3, 2022.
• Mnassar Alyami, Mohammed Alkhowaiter, Mansour Al Ghanim, Cliff Zou, Yan Solihin, "MAC-Layer Traffic Shaping Defense Against WiFi Device Fingerprinting Attacks", in 27th IEEE Symposium on Computers and Communications (ISCC), Jun 30 - Jul 3, 2022.
• Bryan Pearson, Yue Zhang, Cliff Zou, Xinwen Fu, "FUME: Fuzzing Message Queuing Telemetry Transport Brokers", in IEEE INFOCOM, May 2-5, 2022.
• Mnassar Alyami, Ibrahim Alharbi, Cliff Zou, Yan Solihin, Karl Ackerman, "WiFi-based IoT Devices Profiling Attack based on Eavesdropping of Encrypted WiFi Traffic", in  IEEE Consumer Communications and Networking Conference (CCNC), Jan. 8-11, 2022.
• Ibrahim Alharbi, AJ Almalki, Cliff Zou, "Hyperparameter Optimization and Comparison of Student Performance Prediction Algorithms", International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence (CSCI), 2021.
• Lan Luo, Cliff Zou, Sashank Narain, and Xinwen Fu. "On teaching malware analysis on latest windows." CISSE Colloquium for Information Systems Security Education, 2021.
• Anne Tall, Cliff Zou, Jun Wang, "Integrating Cybersecurity Into a Big Data Ecosystem", to appear in IEEE Military Communications Conference (MILCOM), Nov. 29-Dec.2, 2021.
• Hossein Rezaeighaleh and Cliff Zou, "Efficient Off-Chain Transaction to Avoid Inaccessible Coins in Cryptocurrencies", in 3rd International Workshop on Blockchain Systems and Applications (BlockchainSys), held with the 19th IEEE International Conference on Trust, Security and Privacy in Computing and Communications (TrustCom 2020), Dec. 29, 2020-Jan. 1, 2021.
• Hossein Rezaeighaleh and Cliff Zou, "Multilayered Defense-in-Depth Architecture for Cryptocurrency Wallet", in 6th IEEE International Conference on Computer and Communications (ICCC), Dec. 11-14, 2020.
• Raghu Avula, Cliff Zou, "Performance Evaluation of TPC-C Benchmark on Various Cloud Providers", in 11th IEEE Annual Ubiquitous Computing, Electronics & Mobile Communication Conference (UEMCON), Oct. 28 - 31, 2020.
• Bryan Pearson, Cliff Zou, Yue Zhang, Zhen Ling, Xinwen Fu, "SIC²: Securing Microcontroller Based IoT Devices with Low-cost Crypto Coprocessors", in IEEE International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Systems (ICPADS) 2-4 December 2020.
• Kunpeng Liu, Xiaolin Li, Cliff C. Zou, Haibo Huang and Yanjie Fu, "Ambulance Dispatch via Deep Reinforcement Learning", in 28th ACM International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems (SIGSPATIAL), Nov. 3-6, 2020.
• Lan Luo, Yue Zhang, Cliff Zou, Xinhui Shao, Zhen Ling, Xinwen Fu, "On Runtime Software Security of TrustZone-M based IoT Devices", in IEEE Global Communications Conference (Globecom), Dec. 7-11 2020.
• Anne M. Tall, Cliff C. Zou, and Jun Wang, "Generating Connected Synthetic Electronic Health Records and Social Media Data for Modeling and Simulation", in Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC), Nov. 30- Dec. 4, 2020, Orlando, USA.
• Christopher Thompson, Gabriel A. Bearden, Ty Sloan, Roy Laurens, Cliff Zou, Bruce Caulkins, "Create and Host Cyber Competition Using the Preliminary Persistent Cyber Training Environment (PCTE)", in Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC), Nov. 30- Dec. 4, 2020, Orlando, USA.
• Hossein Rezaeighaleh, Cliff Zou, "New Secure Approach to Backup Cryptocurrency Wallets", in IEEE Global Communications Conference (Globecom), Waikoloa, HI, USA, 2019, pp. 1-6, doi: 10.1109/GLOBECOM38437.2019.9014007.
• Anne M. Tall, Cliff C. Zou, and Jun Wang, "Access Control in the Era of Big-Data Driven Models and Simulations",  in Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC), Dec. 2, 2019.
• Bryan Pearson, Lan Luo, Cliff Zou, Jacob Brian, Yier Jin, Xinwen Fu, "Building a Low-cost and State-of-the-art IoT Security Hands-on Laboratory", 2nd IFIP International Internet of Things (IoT) Conference, Oct.31-Nov. 1, 2019. (invited paper)
• Raghu N. Avula, Cliff Zou, "Improving Rider Safety Using QR Code & Fingerprint Biometrics", 2019 IEEE 10th Annual Ubiquitous Computing, Electronics & Mobile Communication Conference (UEMCON), New York City, NY, USA, 2019, pp. 0141-0144, doi: 10.1109/UEMCON47517.2019.8993069.
• Hossein Rezaeighaleh, Cliff Zou, "Deterministic Sub-Wallet for Cryptocurrencies", in IEEE International Conference on Blockchain,  Atlanta, GA, USA, 2019, pp. 419-424, doi: 10.1109/Blockchain.2019.00064.
• Arati Banerjee, Cliff Zou, Damla Turgut, "Automatic Creation of Fine-Grained Vulnerable Windows System for Penetration Testing Education", ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, June 16-19, 2019.
• Roy Laurens, Hossein Rezaeighaleh, Cliff Zou, Jusak Jusak, "Using Disposable Domain Names to Detect Online Card Transaction Fraud", IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), 20-24 May 2019.
• Afraa Attiah, Mainak Chatterjee and Cliff Zou, "A Game Theoretic Approach to Model Cyber Attack and Defense Strategies", in IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), 20-24 May 2018.
• Hossein Rezaeighaleh, Roy Laurens, Cliff Zou, "Secure Smart Card Signing with Time-based Digital Signature", in Workshop on Computing, Networking and Communications (CNC), in conjunction with the International Conference on Computing, Networking and Communications (ICNC), pp.182-187, Hawaii, Mar. 2018.
• Kutalmis Akpinar, Fereshteh Jafariakinabad, Kien Hua, Omar Nakhila, Jun Ye, Cliff Zou, "Fault-Tolerant Network-Server Architecture for Time-Critical Web Applications", IEEE 15th Intl Conf on Dependable, Autonomic and Secure Computing (DASC), Nov. 2017.
• Dean Wasil, Omar Nakhila, Salih Safa Bacanli, Cliff Zou and Damla Turgut, "Exposing Vulnerabilities in Mobile Networks: A Mobile Data Consumption Attack", Fourth National Workshop for REU Research in Networking and Systems (co-located with IEEE MASS), October 22, 2017, Orlando, FL.
• Roy Laurens, Cliff C. Zou, Jusak Jusak. "Invariant Diversity as Proactive Fraud Detection Mechanism for Online Merchant", IEEE Globecom, 4-8 December, 2017.
• Omar Nakhila, Cliff C. Zou, "Circumvent Wi-Fi Traffic Shaping Using Virtual Wireless Clients in IEEE 802.11 Wireless Local Area Networks", IEEE MILCOM, Nov., 2017.
• Heather Lawrence, Andrew Hughes, Robert Tonic, Cliff Zou,Yier Jin, "D-miner: A Framework for Mining, Searching, Visualizing, and Alerting on Darknet Events", in IEEE Conference on Communications and Network Security (CNS), 9-11 October 2017, Las Vegas, NV USA.
• Amirfarhad Nilizadeh, Wojciech Mazurczyk, Cliff Zou, Gary Leavens, "Information Hiding in RGB Images using an Improved Matrix Pattern Approach", in Bright and Dark Sides of Computer Vision: Challenges and Opportunities for Privacy and Security (CV-COPS 2017). In conjunction with the IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition. Hawaii Convention Center, Honolulu, Hawaii, July 21, 2017.
• Afraa Attiah, Cliff C. Zou, Mainak Chatterjee, "A Game Theoretic Approach for Energy-Efficient Clustering in Wireless Sensor Networks", in IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC), March 2017.
• Omar Nakhila, Cliff C. Zou, "User-Side Wi-Fi Evil Twin Attack Detection Using Random Wireless Channel Monitoring", IEEE MILCOM, Nov., 2016.
• Omar Nakhila, Cliff C. Zou, "Parallel Active Dictionary Attack on IEEE 802.11 Enterprise Networks", IEEE MILCOM, Nov., 2016.
• Roy Laurens, Cliff Zou, "Using Credit/Debit Card Dynamic Soft Descriptor as Fraud Prevention System for Merchant",  IEEE GLOBECOM, Dec., 2016.
• Afraa Attiah, Faisal Amjad, Mainak Chatterjee, Cliff Zou, "An Evolutionary Game for Efficient Routing in Wireless Sensor Networks",  IEEE GLOBECOM, Dec., 2016.
• Afraa Attiah, Faisal Amjad, Omar Nakhila, Cliff Zou, "ADP: An Adaptive Feedback Approach for Energy-Efficient Wireless Sensor Networks", in International Conference on Computing, Networking and Communications (ICNC), Workshop on Computing, Networking and Communications (CNC), February 2016.
• Graham Fleener, Marco Mayor, Cliff Zou, "Risk Management Framework (RMF) Transition Impacts in Training Simulation Systems", in Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC), Nov.30 - Dec.4, 2015, Orlando, USA. 
• Omar Nakhila, Afraa Attiah, Yier Jin, Cliff C. Zou, "Parallel Active Dictionary Attack on WPA2-PSK Wi-Fi Networks", to appear in IEEE Military Communications Conference (MILCOM), October 26-28, Tampa, FL, 2015.
• Kien Hua, Ning Jiang, Jason Kuhns, Vaithiyanathan Sundaram, Cliff C. Zou, "Redundancy Control through Traffic Deduplication", in IEEE INFOCOM, 2015.(Acceptance rate: 316/1640=19.3%)
  
• Erich Dondyk, Omar Nakhila, Cliff C. Zou, "SPS: an SMS-based Push Service for Energy Saving in Smartphone's Idle State", in 12th Annual IEEE Consumer Communications and Networking Conference (CCNC), Jan. 9-12, Las Vegas, 2015.
• Omar Nakhila, Erich Dondyk, Faisal Amjad, Cliff C. Zou, "User-Side Wi-Fi Evil Twin Attack Detection Using SSL/TCP Protocols", in 12th Annual IEEE Consumer Communications and Networking Conference (CCNC), Jan. 9-12, Las Vegas, 2015.
  
• Faisal Amjad, Mainak Chatterjee, Omar Nakhila, Cliff C. Zou, "An Evolutionary Game Theoretic Framework for Coexistence in Cognitive Radio Networks", in IEEE Global Conference on Signal and Information Processing (GlobalSIP), Atlanta, Georgia, Dec. 3-5, 2014.
  
• Graham Fleener, Cliff C. Zou, Jason Eddy, "Cybersecurity Impacts of a Cloud Computing Architecture in Live Training", in Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC), Dec. 1-5, 2014, Orlando, USA.
  
• Xiaobin Tan, Zifei Zhou, Cliff Zou, Yukun Niu, Xin Chen, "Copyright Protection in Named Data Networking", in International Conference on Wireless Communications and Signal Processing (WCSP), Hefei, China, Oct., 2014.
  
• Faisal Amjad, Mainak Chatterjee, Cliff C. Zou, "Inducing Cooperation for Optimal Coexistence in Cognitive Radio Networks: A Game Theoretic Approach", in IEEE Military Communications Conference (MILCOM), Baltimore, Oct. 6-8, 2014.
  
• Roberto Alberdeston, Erich Dondyk, Cliff C. Zou, "Click-Tracking Blocker: Privacy Preservation by Disabling Search Engines' Click-Tracking", in IEEE GLOBECOM, Dec. 2014.
  
• Jiangyu Zheng, Xiaobin Tan, Cliff C. Zou, Yukun Niu, Jin Zhu, "A Cloaking-Based Approach to Protect Location Privacy in Location-Based Services", in 33rd Chinese Control Conference (CCC), Nanjing, China, July 28-30, 2014.
  
• Baber Aslam, Faisal Amjad, Cliff C. Zou, "PMTR: Privacy-enhancing Multilayer Trajectory-based Routing Protocol for Vehicular ad hoc Networks", IEEE Military Communications Conference (MILCOM), San Diego, Nov. 18-20, pp. 882-887, 2013.
• Faisal Amjad, Baber Aslam, Cliff C. Zou, "Reputation Aware Collaborative Spectrum Sensing for Mobile Cognitive Radio Networks", IEEE Military Communications Conference (MILCOM), San Diego, Nov. 18-20, 2013.
• Faisal Amjad, Baber Aslam, Cliff C. Zou, "DS3: A Dynamic and Smart Spectrum Sensing Technique for Cognitive Radio Networks Under Denial of Service Attack", IEEE Globecom, Atlanta, Dec. 9-13, 2013.
  
• Erich Dondyk, Cliff C. Zou, "Denial of Convenience Attack to Smartphones Using a Fake Wi-Fi Access Point," in 10th Annual IEEE Consumer Communications and Networking Conference (CCNC), Las Vegas, Jan. 11-14, 2013, pp. 164-170. (Acceptance ratio: 94/313 = 30.0%)
• Faisal Amjad, Baber Aslam, Cliff C. Zou, "Transparent Cross-Layer Solutions for Throughput Boost in Cognitive Radio Networks," in 10th Annual IEEE Consumer Communications and Networking Conference (CCNC), Las Vegas, Jan. 11-14, 2013, pp. 580-586. (Acceptance ratio: 94/313 = 30.0%)
• Rung-Ching Chen, Wei-Lung Chang, Chia-Fen Shieh, Cliff C. Zou, "Using Hybrid Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm to Extend Wireless Sensor Network Lifetime", Third International Conference on Innovations in Bio-Inspired Computing and Applications (IBICA), pp. 156-161, 2012.
  
• Steven Zittrower, Cliff C. Zou, "Encrypted Phrase Searching in the Cloud", IEEE GLOBECOM,Dec. 3-7, 2012, pp. 764-770.
  
• Baber Aslam, Faisal M. Amjad, Cliff C. Zou, "Optimal Roadside Units Placement in Urban Areas for Vehicular Networks", in 17th IEEE Symposium on Computers and Communications (ISCC), Turkey, July 1-4, 2012, pp. 423-429.
  
• Jim Bardgett, Cliff C. Zou, "nSwitching: Virtual Machine Aware Relay Hardware Switching to improve intra-NIC Virtual Machine Traffic", in IEEE International Conference on Communications, (ICC),Ottawa, Canada,Jun. 10-15, 2012, pp. 2700-2705.
  
• Huy D. Truong, Christopher F. Turner, Cliff C. Zou, "iCAPTCHA: The Next Generation of CAPTCHA Designed to Defend Against 3rd Party Human Attacks", in IEEE International Conference on Communications, (ICC), Kyoto, Japan, Jun. 5-9, 2011.
  
• Soyoung Park, Baber Aslam, Cliff C. Zou, "Long-term Reputation System for Vehicular Networking based on Vehicle's Daily Commute Routine", in 8th Annual IEEE Consumer Communications and Networking Conference (CCNC), Las Vegas, Jan. 9-12, 2011. (Acceptance ratio: 95/305 = 31.1%)
  
• Baber Aslam, Cliff C. Zou, "One-way-linkable Blind Signature Security Architecture for VANET", in 8th Annual IEEE Consumer Communications and Networking Conference (CCNC), Las Vegas, Jan. 9-12, 2011. (Acceptance ratio: 95/305 = 31.1%)
• Corey McCall, Branden Maynes, Cliff C. Zou, Ning Zhang. "RMAIS: RFID-based Medication Adherence Intelligence System", in 32nd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), Buenos Aires, Argentina, Aug.31 - Sept. 4, 2010.
  
• Baber Aslam, Lei Wu and Cliff C. Zou. "PwdIP-Hash: A Lightweight Solution to Phishing and Pharming Attacks", to appear in IEEE  International Symposium on Network Computing and Applications (NCA), 15-17 July, 2010 (6-page short paper).
  
• Peter Matthews, Andrew Mantel, Cliff C. Zou. "Scene Tagging: Image-Based CAPTCHA Using Image Composition and Object Relationships",in Proceedings of ACM Symposium on Information, Computer and Communications Security (ASIACCS),p. 345-350, Beijing,China, 13-16 Apr. 2010. (6-page short paper, acceptance ratio: 38/166=23%)
• Baber Aslam, Cliff C. Zou. "Distributed Certificate and Application Architecture for VANETs", IEEE Military Communications Conference (MILCOM'09), Boston, Oct. 18-21, 2009.
  
• Soyoung Park, Baber Aslam, Damla Turgut, Cliff C. Zou. "Defense against Sybil Attack in Vehicular Ad-Hoc Network based On Roadside Units Support", IEEE Military Communications Conference (MILCOM'09), Boston, Oct. 18-21, 2009.
• Baber Aslam, Ping Wang, Cliff C. Zou. "Pervasive Internet Access by Vehicles through Satellite Receive-only Terminals", International Conference on Computer Communications and Networks (ICCCN), San Francisco,Aug. 2-6, 2009.(Acceptance ratio: 114/387 = 29.5%)
  
• Ping Wang, Lei Wu, Baber Aslam, Cliff C. Zou. "A Systematic Study on Peer-to-Peer Botnets", International Conference on Computer Communications and Networks (ICCCN), San Francisco,Aug. 2-6, 2009.(Acceptance ratio: 114/387 = 29.5%)
• Sherri Sparks, Shawn Ambleton, Cliff C. Zou. "A Chipset Level Network Backdoor: Bypassing Host-Based Firewall & IDS", Proceedings of ACM Symposium on Information, Computer and Communications Security (ASIACCS), Sydney, Australia, 10-12 Mar 2009. (full paper, acceptance ratio: 33/147 = 22.5%)
  
• Baber Aslam, Ping Wang, Cliff C. Zou. "An Economical, Deployable and Secure Vehicular Ad hoc Network", in Proceedings of IEEE Military Communications Conference (MILCOM'08), San Diego, November 17-19, 2008.
  
• Shawn Embleton, Sherri Sparks, Cliff C. Zou. "SMM Rootkits:  A New Breed of OS Independent Malware", in Proceedings of 4th International Conference on Security and Privacy in Communication Networks (SecureComm), Istanbul, Turkey, Sept. 22-25, 2008. (full paper, Acceptance ratio: 26/123=21%)
  
• Soyoung Park, Cliff C. Zou. "Reliable Traffic Information Propagation in Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks," IEEE Sarnoff Symposium, Apr. 28-30, NJ, 2008 (invited paper).
  

• Sherri Sparks, Ryan Cunningham, Shawn Embleton, Cliff C. Zou. "Automated Vulnerability Analysis: Leveraging Control Flow for Evolutionary Input Crafting", in 23rd Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC), p.477-486, Miami Beach, Florida, Dec. 10-14, 2007. (acceptance ratio: 40/191=21%) Best Student Paper Award

• Jerome Harrington, Corey Kuwanoe, Cliff C. Zou. "A BitTorrent-Driven Distributed Denial-of-Service Attack", 3^rd International Conference on Security and Privacy in Communication Networks (SecureComm), Nice, France, Sept. 17-20, 2007. (Acceptance ratio 26%=31/119)

• Ping Wang, Sherri Sparks, and Cliff C. Zou, "An Advanced Hybrid Peer-to-Peer Botnet", USENIX Workshop on Hot Topics in Understanding Botnets (HotBots'07), Cambridge, MA, April 10th, 2007. (acceptance ratio: 11/32=34.4%) 

• Jingfei Kong, Cliff C. Zou, and Huiyang Zhou, "Improving Software Security via Runtime Instruction-Level Taint Checking", Workshop on Architectural and System Support for Improving Software Dependability (ASID) held with 12th International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Sytems (ASPLOS-XII), p.18-24,San Jose, CA, October, 2006.

• Cliff C. Zou and Ryan Cunningham. "Honeypot-Aware Advanced Botnet Construction and Maintenance," in the International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN), June 25-28, p.199-208, Philadelphia, 2006 (Acceptance ratio: 34/187=18.2%).

• David Dagon, Cliff C. Zou, and Wenke Lee. "Modeling Botnet Propagation Using Time Zones," in 13th Annual Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), p.235-249, Feb. 2-4, San Diego, 2006 (Acceptance ratio: 17/127=13.4%).

• Cliff C. Zou, Nick Duffield, Don Towsley, and Weibo Gong. "Adaptive Defense Against Various Network Attacks," in SRUTI: Steps to Reducing Unwanted Traffic on the Internet, p.69-75, July 7-8, Boston 2005 (Acceptance ratio: 13/35=37.1%).

• Cliff C. Zou, Don Towsley, Weibo Gong, and Songlin Cai. "Routing Worm: A Fast, Selective Attack Worm based on IP Address Information," 19th ACM/IEEE/SCS Workshop on Principles of Advanced and Distributed Simulation (PADS'05), p.199-206, June 1-3, Monterey, 2005 (Best Paper Award Runner-up, Acceptance ratio: 22/46=48%).

• Cliff C. Zou, Don Towsley, and Weibo Gong. "Email Worm Modeling and Defense," 13th International Conference on Computer Communications and Networks (ICCCN'04), p.409-414, Oct. 11-13, Chicago, USA, 2004 (Best Paper Award Runner-up, Acceptance ratio: 73/207=35.3%).

• Cliff C. Zou, Weibo Gong, and Don Towsley. "Worm Propagation Modeling and Analysis under Dynamic Quarantine Defense," ACM CCS Workshop on Rapid Malcode (WORM'03), p.51-60, Oct. 27, Washington DC, USA, 2003 (Acceptance ratio: 10/25=40%).

• Cliff C. Zou, Lixin Gao, Weibo Gong, and Don Towsley. "Monitoring and Early Warning for Internet Worms," 10th ACM Conference on Computer and Communication Security (CCS'03), p.190-199, Oct. 27-31, Washington DC, USA, 2003 (Acceptance ratio: 35/253=13.8%).

• Cliff C. Zou, Weibo Gong, Don Towsley. "Code Red Worm Propagation Modeling and Analysis," 9th ACM Conference on Computer and Communication Security (CCS'02), p.138-147, Nov. 18-22, Washington DC, USA, 2002 (Acceptance ratio: 27/153=17.6%).

          Technical reports and other publications

• Cliff C. Zou. "PCB: Physically Changeable Bit for Preserving Privacy in Low-End RFID Tags," RFID Journal "RFID White Paper Library", May 2006.
•  Cliff C. Zou, Weibo Gong, and Don Towsley. "Feedback Email Worm Defense System for Enterprise Networks," Umass ECE Technical Report TR-04-CSE-05, April 2004. 
• Cliff C. Zou, Don Towsley, and Weibo Gong. "A Firewall Network System for Worm Defense in Enterprise Networks," Umass ECE Technical Report TR-04-CSE-01, February 2004. 
• Cassandras, C.G., C.G. Panayiotou, G. Diehl, W. Gong, Z. Liu, and C.C. Zou, "Clustering Methods for Multi-Resolution Simulation Modeling," Proceedings of SPIE's 14th Annual Internation Symposium on Aerospace/Defense Sensing, Simulation, and Control, Orlando, FL, April 24-28, 2000.
• Cliff C. Zou, Hongsheng Xi, Baoqun Yin, Yaping Zhou, and Demin Sun.  "Derivative Estimates Parallel Simulation Algorithm Based on Performance Potentials Theory,"  International Federation of Automatic Control Conference (IFAC), Jul. 5-9, Beijing, China, 1999.

Patent

• 7587761: "Adaptive Defense Against Various Network Attacks", Patent granted on September 8, 2009, by Nicholas Duffield, Weibo Gong, Don Towsley, Changchun Zou.
  
• 10341263: "System and Method for Routing Network Frames Between Virtual Machines". Patent granted on July 2, 2019, by Changchun Zou and Jim Bardgett.
  

Professional Service

• Senior Member of IEEE (2010); Member of ACM.
• NSF review panel, 2011, 2016, 2021, 2024.
• NIH review panel, 2014.
• Program Track Co-Chair: 19th International Conference on Mobility, Sensing and Networking 2023

• Program Co-Chair: IEEE LCN workshop on network security 2006, International Conference on Malicious and Unwanted Software (Malware) 2010, IEEE International Workshop on Cyberspace Safety and Security (CSS) 2011.
  

• Session Chair: WORM 2006,SecureComm 2008, Malware 2008, AsiaCCS 2010, CCNC 2013, Globecom 2017, Blockchain 2019, SecureComm 2019.

• Technical Program Committee Member:

2025: ICCC, ADIoT
2024: SciSec , ICCC, ADIoT, SECON
2023: DFRWS, MSN, ICCC, UEMCON
2022: WoWMoM, Blockchain, DFRWS,  ICCC,
2021: WoWMoM, SciSec, ICCC, SocialSec, BSC, Blockchain
2020: ICDCN, WoWMoM, SPTM, SciSec, FutureTech, SocialSec, SecureComm, Blockchain, BSC, IEMCON, HotICN, ICCC, UEMCON
2019: WoWMoM, SocialSec, SciSec, FutureTech, DSIT, IEMCON, Malcon, CloudNet
2018: WoWMoM, Securecomm, SciSec, CloudNet, IEMCON, Inscrypt, Malware
2017: WoWMoM, DCNET, TrustCom, Malware, Securecomm, Inscrypt
2016: ICC, ICC, DCNET, WoWMoM, Securecomm, FutureTech, Malcon, Inscrypt
2015: ICDCN,ICC,WoWMoM,DCNET,TrustCom, MALCON,SecureComm, Inscrypt  
2014: ICDCN,DCNET, WoWMoM, Globecom, SMPE,NSS,DHSS, STA,CIACS, ICCVE,  TrustCom, Inscrypt, WCSP   
2013: NSS,GLOBECOM,WoWMoM,STA, ICC,DCNET,TrustCom,FutureTech, INTERNET, ICCVE,Inscrypt, NCIA          
2012: ICC,WoWMoM,DCNET,NPC,STA,GLOBECOM, INTERNET, Future Tech, Malware,ICCVE   
2011: Malware, SecureComm, Trustcom, CSA,DCNET, WoWMoM, ICCCN, GLOBECOM, STA
2010: STA, ICPADS, Milcom, MMM-ACNS, Trustcom, IWCMC, ICC,NSS
2009: IWCMC, CHINACOM, NSS, PACCF , SecureComm, Malware
2008: SecureComm, NSS, Malware
2007: GLOBECOM, ICESS,
2006: WORM

• Local Co-Chair: ANCS 2007, ICNP 2008, UbiComp 2009, Multimedia 2014, IoTDI 2018, IC2E 2018, Securecomm 2019, ACM CCS 2020.

Honors

• April 2024: I was awarded with UCF Teaching Incentive Program (TIP) award.  
• May 2nd, 2024: I gave a guest seminar to University of North Dakota on our cybersecurity research (Youtube)    
• Nov. 22nd, 2022: I was interviewed by reporter Michelle Meredith from WESH 2 News on online shopping safety (WESH news story).  
• Our paper on Wiley Journal of Security and Communication Networks "SMM Rootkit: A New Breed of OS Independent Malware" is reported by Advances in Engineering Magazine (July 4th, 2014).
  
• Nov. 2013: I was interviewed by Local 6 News about hacked baby monitor and how to defend against it (aired news).
• UCF-Teaching Incentive Program (UCF-TIP) Award, May 2013.
  
• Undergraduate research project "Personal Medication Monitor" won the first price in the first annual UCF Inventing Entrepreneurs Innovation Competition in March 2010 (UCF News).
  
• Paper "Honeypot detection in advanced botnet attacks" published in International Journal of Information and Computer Security, 4(1),30-51,2010 was reported by EurekAlert! News Service and The Register, respectively.
  
• Paper in Milcom'09 reported by a conference preview article published in IEEE communication magazine, October 2009, page 22.
  
• The SMM rootkit work (paper published in Securecomm'08) was reported by PCWorld (05/09/2008).
  
• Best Student Paper Award in conference ACSAC 2007.
• The research work in NDSS'06 paper "Modeling Botnet Propagation Using Time Zones" was reported by the New Scientist Magazine, Mar. 4, 2006 189(2541), pg. 32.
• Best Paper Award runner-up in PADS 2005.
• Best Paper Award runner-up in ICCCN 2004.
• Interviewed by National Public Radio (NPR) on our research "dynamic quarantine of Internet worm" (by Correspondent Larry Abramson), September 2003.
• The paper in conference CCS’02 was ranked 112th among the top 200 "most cited articles in Computer Science published in 2002 - generated in September 2006" according to CiteSeer.Continuity database.
  
• The paper in conference CCS’03 was ranked 151st among the top 200 "most cited articles in Computer Science published in 2003 - generated in September 2006" according to CiteSeer.Continuity database.
  
• Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant, University of Massachusetts, 2000/2001.
• Graduate School Fellowship, University of Massachusetts, 1999/2000.
• "Guo Moruo" Scholarship, the highest scholarship in the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), 1996.

• Cameron Whitehead, Caitlin Whitehead, Raghu Avula, Abdulmajeed Alghamdi,  Aaron Householder
  

Graduated Students

BS (Honors in the Major with a research thesis): 
      Erich Dondyk (graduated in May 2012), thesis: "Denial of Convenience Attack to Smartphones Using a Fake Wi-Fi Access Point"
      Corey McCall (graduated in December 2010), thesis: "A System that Implements Automatic Medication Management and Passive Remote Monitoring to Enable Independent Living of Healthcare Patients"

MS:  
      Haiou Xiang (graduated in August 2007), thesis: "Bluetooth-based Worm Modeling and Simulation"
PhD: 
      Baber Aslam (graduated in May 2012), Assistant Professor at National University of Sciences and Technology, Pakistan. Dissertation: "Networking and Security Solutions for VANET Initial Deployment Stage"
      Ping Wang (graduated in December 2010, working in Symantec Inc., Lake Mary, FL), dissertation: "The Next Generation Botnet Attacks And Defenses"
      Faisal Amjad (graduated in May 2015), Assistant Professor at National University of Sciences and Technology, Pakistan. Dissertation: "Opportunistic Spectrum Utilization by Cognitive Radio Networks: Challenges and Solutions" 
      Omar Nakhila (graduated in May 2018), dissertation: "MASQUERADING TECHNIQUES IN IEEE 802.11 WIRELESS LOCAL AREA NETWORKS"
      Afraa Attiah (graduate in May 2018), Assistant Professor at College of Computing and Information Technology, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. dissertation: "ENERGY EFFICIENT AND SECURE WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS DESIGN"
     Hossein Rezaeighaleh (graduated in December 2020), dissertation: "Improving Security of Crypto Wallets in Blockchain Technologies"
     Lan Luo (graduated May 2022, co-advised with Dr. Xinwen Fu), dissertation: "TOWARDS SECURE AND TRUSTWORTHY IOT SYSTEMS"
     Anne Tall (graduated May 2022), dissertation: "BIG DATA PROCESSING ATTRIBUTE BASED ACCESS CONTROL SECURITY"
     Roy Laurens (graduated May 2023), dissertation: "A SEMI-AUTONOMOUS CREDIT/DEBIT CARD TRANSACTION FRAUD DEFENSE FRAMEWORK FOR ONLINE MERCHANTS"
     Bryan Pearson (graduated May 2023, co-advised with Dr. Xinwen Fu), dissertation: "DISCOVERING VULNERABILITIES AND DESIGNING TRUSTWORTHY DEFENSES IN IOT SYSTEMS AND DEVICES"
     Mohammed Alkhowaiter (graduated December 2023) dissertation: "Detecting Manipulated and Adversarial Images: A Comprehensive Study of Real-world Applications"
     Mnassar Alyami (graduated May 2024, co-advised with Dr. Yan Solihin), dissertation: "Internet-of-things Privacy In Wifi Networks: Side-channel Leakage And Mitigations"
     Edward Amoruso (graduated May 2024), dissertation: "Privacy and Security of the Windows Registry"
     Ibrahim Alwhbi (graduated August 2024), dissertation: "Eavesdropping-driven Profiling Attacks On Encrypted Wifi Networks: Unveiling Vulnerabilities In Iot Device Security"