I am a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Central Florida. My research is in systems, security, and privacy. My recent research addressed various questions related to ML/AI, malware analysis, web systems, IoT, wearables, and blockchains. I obtained my PhD from the University of Minnesota, in 2012. I spent seven years (in total) before and after attending Minnesota in the research and development industry. At UCF, I direct the Security and Analytics Lab (SEAL), where I have been fortunate to work with several talented graduate and undergraduate students.

I am on leave until Fall 2024. I cannot accept any new students nor commit to any services.

Current Research Interests

• Network security: NDSS 2023, CCS 2022, DSN 2022, INFOCOM 2020, DSN 2019, ICDCS 2019
• Blockchains security: IEEE S&P 2023, ACM CCS 2021, ACM CCS 2021 (b), ICDCS 2021, ICDCS 2019
• Wearable security and privacy: IEEE VR 2022, CHI 2022, WPES 2021, ICDCS 2020, NDSS 2018
• ML/software security: RAID 2022, ICCV 2021, WPES 2021, PETS 2020, ICDCS 2020, CCS 2018

Selected Recent Publications

Also see my DBLP and Google Scholar profiles for complete lists

• S&P 2023: Three Birds with One Stone: Efficient Partitioning of Interdependent Networks
  
• NDSS 2023: A Robust Counting Sketch for Data Plane Intrusion Detection
  
• CCS 2022: A Scalable and Dynamic ACL System for In-Network Defense
  
• VR 2022: A Keylogging Inference Attack on Air-Tapping Keyboards [Best Paper Candidate]
  
• HPCA 2022: Filesystem Encryption or Direct-Access for NVM Filesystems? Let’s 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
  
• CCS 2021: Revisiting Nakamoto Consensus in Asynchronous Networks
  
• CCS 2021: SyncAttack: Double-spending in Bitcoin Without Mining Power
  
• ICS 2021: Optimizing Integrity Tree Updates for Secure NVMs [Best Paper Candidate]
  
• ICCV 2021: Adversarial Example Detection Using Latent Neighborhood Graph
  

Recent Journal Publications

• 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 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 IoT Journal 2022 ShellCore: automating malicious IoT software detection using shell commands
  
• IEEE IoT Journal 2020 AUToSen: Deep Learning-based Implicit Continuous Authentication
  
• 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 TMC 2022 Learning Location from Shared Elevation Profiles in Fitness Apps
• IEEE TMC 2020 Rogue Access Point Detection Using Intentional Channel Interference
  
• ACM TOPS 2021 Large-Scale and Robust Code Authorship Identification with Deep Feature Learning
  

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)

Recent Teaching

• [F'2022] CAP 5150: Computer Security and Privacy (Sample Projects)
• [F'2021] CAP 5150: Computer Security and Privacy
• [S'2021] CAP 6640: Natural Language Processing
• [S'2021] CAP 5150: Computer Security and Privacy
• [S'2020] CAP 6640: Natural Language Processing
• [S'2020] CAP 5150: Computer Security and Privacy
• [S'2019] CAP 6640: Natural Language Processing
• [S'2019] CIS 4361: Secure Operating Systems
• [F'2018] CIS 4615: Secure Software Development
• [S'2018] CAP 6133: Computer Security and Computer Forensics
• [F'2017] CIS 4615: Secure Software Development

Current Services: TPC: WWW 2023, IEEE S&P 2023.

Current Doctoral Advisees⁽¹⁾

14. Mohammed Alkinoon (CS)
15. Soohyeon Choi (CS)
16. Hattan Althebeiti (ECE, SACM Fellow)
17. Ayodeji Adeniran (MST), part-time, self-funded
18. Mohamed Alqadhi (CS, SACM Fellow)
19. Ali Alkinoon (CS, ORC Fellow)
20. Jie Li (CS)
21. Aziz Alghamdi (ECE, SACM Fellow)

Graduated Doctoral Advisees⁽²⁾

1. Jeff Spaulding (2018) → Lead Engineer, Booz Allen
2. Ashar Ahmad (2019) → Clear Village Inc.
3. Mo Abuhamad (2020) → Asst Prof, Loyola Chicago
4. Hisham Alasmary (2020) → Asst Prof, King Khalid U
5. Rhongho Jang (2020) → Asst Prof, Wayne State
6. Jeman Park (2020) → Scientist, Georgia Tech
7. Jinchun Choi (2020) → Sr Researcher, ETRI
8. Afsah Anwar (2021) → Asst Prof, Florida A&M
9. Sultan Alshamrani (2021) → Asst Prof, Saudi Elec. U
10. Muhammad Saad (2021) → Sr Scientist, PayPal
11. Ahmed Abusnaina (2022) → Scientist, Facebook
12. Ülkü Meteriz-Yıldıran (2022) → Scientist, Facebook
13. A. Alabduljabbar (2022) → Asst Prof/Chair, PSAU

Contact: HPA2-240, 4000 Central Florida Blvd, Orlando, FL 32816, USA. mohaisen@ucf.edu