I am an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Central Florida. My research interests are in the broad area of computer security and online privacy, including applied machine learning^[1][2], DDoS attacks and defeses^[3][4], blockchain systems and their security^[5][6], software analysis and security^[7][8], critical infrastructure security^[9][10], IoT security^[11][12], and wearables security^[13][14]. I obtained my PhD from the University of Minnesota in 2012, where I was advised by Prof. Yongdae Kim (now at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology). At UCF, I direct the Security and Analytics Research Lab (SEAL)

Selected Publications

• Multi-χ: Identifying Multiple Authors from Source Code Files (PoPETs/PETS 2020)
• Detecting Adversarial Examples in Control Flow Graph-based Malware Classifiers (IEEE ICDCS 2020)
• Adversarial Learning-based Approach to Defend Against Website Fingerprinting (IEEE INFOCOM 2020)
• SketchFlow: Per-Flow Systematic Sampling Using Sketch Saturation Event (IEEE INFOCOM 2020)
• Exploring Spatial, Temporal, and Logical Attacks on the Bitcoin Network (IEEE ICDCS 2019)
• Mempool Optimization for Defending Against DDoS Attacks in PoW-based Blockchains (IEEE ICBC 2019)
• Where Are You Taking Me? Behavioral Analysis of Open DNS Resolvers (IEEE DSN 2019)
• Large-Scale and Language-Oblivious Code Authorship Identification (ACM CCS 2018)
• ABC: Enabling Smartphone Authentication with Built-in Camera (ISOC NDSS 2018)
• ShmCaffe: A Distributed Deep Learning Platform with Shared Memory (IEEE ICDCS 2018)
• Defending Against Voice Impersonation Attacks on Smartphones (IEEE ICDCS 2017; best paper)
• Uncovering game bots in MMORPGs via self-similarity in the wild (ISOC NDSS 2016)
• Delving into Internet DDoS Attacks by Botnets: Characterization and Analysis (IEEE DSN 2015)
• Measuring Botnets in the Wild: Some New Trends (ACM AsiaCCS 2015)
• Measuring Domain Forwarding and Applications at the Internet Scale (ACM IMC 2014)
• Losing control of the Internet: Using the data plane to attack the control plane (ISOC NDSS 2011)
• Measuring the mixing time of social graphs (ACM IMC 2010)
• Low-Cost Mechanisms to Restoration of Encrypted Non-Volatile Memories (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 TDSC, 2020)
• Characterizing blockchain-based systems for highly-accurate predictions (IEEE Systems Journal, 2020)
• Rogue Access Point Detection Using Intentional Channel Interference (IEEE TMC, 2020)
• SSD-assisted Ransomware Detection and Data Recovery Techniques (IEEE TC, 2020)
• Exploring the Attack Surface of Blockchain: A Systematic Overview (IEEE CS&T, 2020)
• AUToSen: Deep Learning-based Implicit Continuous Authentication (IEEE IoT Journal, 2020)

Published in top conferences such as CCS, NDSS, PETS, IMC, DSN, ICDCS, INFOCOM, DIMVA, and AsiaCCS, and archival journals, such as IEEE TDSC, TMC, TNET, and IoT Journal, our work was awarded several best paper awards, including IEEE Systems Journal 2020, IEEE DSC 2019, ACM DLoT 2018, IEEE ICDCS 2017, WISA 2014 (DBLP, Google Scholar). I received a Faculty Fellowship from the US AFOSR (2016).

Recent Doctoral Advisees

I am proud of the talented students I have had the privilege of working with, including my doctoral advisees:

• Jeffrey Spaulding (2018), Assistant Professor at Canisius College
• Ashar Ahmad (2019), Director of Research at Clear Village Inc.
• Hisham Alasmary (2020), Assistant Professor at King Khalid University
• Mo Abuhamad (2020), Assistant Professor at Loyola University Chicago
• Rhongho Jang (2020), Assistant Professor at Wayne State University
• Jeman Park (2020), Postdctoral Researcher at Georgia Institute of Technology
• Jinchun Choi (2020), Postdoctoral researcher at Texas A&M University

I am currently an editor of IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, Elsevier Computer Networks, and ETRI Journal (Wiley), and on the PC of PETS 2021, INFOCOM 2021, and ICDCS 2020. Previously, I served on ACM CoNEXT 2019 (general chair), SecureComm 2019 (PC chair), ISOC NDSS, PETS, ACM MobiSys, WiSec, and ACM AsiaCCS, IEEE INFOCOM, ICDCS, CNS, WWW, etc. My work was supported by NSF, NRF, AFRL, AFOSR, NVIDIA and CyberFlorida. I am a Senior Member of ACM (2018) and IEEE (2015).

Projects: NSF CNS-180900

Outreach: K-12 STEM Day, Fox 35 (Available for media stories via UCF Communications)

Trivia: Up until late 2019, I went by Aziz Mohaisen. I enjoy endurance running

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