Research Interests

• Computer and network security

• 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)

Teaching

• CAP 6135: Malware and Software Vulnerability Analysis (Spring 2009, Spring 2010)
• CDA 5530: Performance Models of Computers and Networks (Fall 2008, Fall 2009)
  

• CNT 4704: Computer Communication Networks  (Fall 2005, Fall 2006, Fall 2007, Fall 2008, Fall 2009) 

• CAP6133: Advanced Topics in Computer Security and Forensics (Spring, 2008)

• CDA6938: Special topic - Research in Computer and Network Security (Spring 2006, Spring 2007) 

Students

• PhD:  Ping Wang, Baber Aslam, Lei Wu

• Part-time PhD: Sherri Sparks, Shawn Embleton, Peter Matthews, Huy Truong
  

Funding

• 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

     Book Chapter

• 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.
• 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 19, to be published by World Scientific Press.
  
• Ping Wang, Baber Aslam, Cliff C. Zou, "Peer-to-Peer Botnets: The Next Generation of Botnet Attacks", in Stavroulakis, Peter; Stamp, Mark (Eds): Handbook of Information and Communication Security, Springer Press. Mar. 2010.
  

     Referred Journal

• Lei Wu, Jerome Harrington, Corey Kuwanoe, Cliff C. Zou, "Harnessing the Power of BitTorrent for Distributed Denial-of-Service Attacks", to appear in Wiley Journal of Security and Communication Networks.
• Shawn Embleton, Sherri Sparks, Cliff C. Zou, "SMM Rootkit: A New Breed of OS Independent Malware", to appear in Wiley Journal of Security and Communication Networks.
  
• Baber Aslam, Soyoung Park, Cliff Zou, and Damla Turgut. "Secure Traffic Data Propagation in Vehicular Ad hoc Networks", to appear in International Journal of Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing (IJAHUC).
  
• Ping Wang, Lei Wu, Ryan Cunningham, Cliff C. Zou. "Honeypot Detection in Advanced Botnet Attacks", to appear in International Journal of Information and Computer Security (IJICS).
  
• Ping Wang, Sherri Sparks, Cliff C. Zou. "An Advanced Hybrid Peer-to-Peer Botnet", to appear in IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing.
  

• 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

• Peter Matthews, Cliff C. Zou. "Scene Tagging: Image-Based CAPTCHA Using Image Composition and Object Relationships",to appear in Proceedings of ACM Symposium on Information, Computer and Communications Security (ASIACCS), Beijing,China, 13-16 Apr. 2010. (6-page short paper)
• 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", to appear in 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", to appear in 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", to appear in 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.

Honors

• 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.
• 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.

Professional Service

• Editorial Board Member: International Journal of Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing (IJAHUC), Wiley Journal of Security and Communication Networks (SCN).
  

• Program Co-Chair: IEEE LCN workshop on network security 2006, Malware 2010.
  

• Session Chair: WORM 2006,SecureComm 2008, Malware 2008.

• TPC Member: MMM-ACNS 2010, Trustcom 2010, IWCMC 2010, ICC 2010,IWCMC 2009, CHINACOM 2009, NSS 2010,2009,2008, PACCF 2008, SecureComm 2009, 2008, Malware 2008, 2009, GLOBECOM 2007, ICESS 2007, WORM 2006.

• Local Arrangement: ANCS 2007, ICNP 2008, UbiComp 2009.

Students graduated

MS:   Ryan Cunningham (continuing PhD in UIUC)
      Haiou Xiang
      Tao Li (Epic Systems Corp., Verona, WI)