Cybersecurity |

SAGE: Similarity-Based Cleaning of Poisoned Training Data from Verified Examples

Sun, 01 Nov 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Adversarial Reinforcement Learning for Detecting False Data Injection Attacks in Vehicular Routing

Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning for Assessing False-Data Injection Attacks on Transportation Networks

Wed, 01 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Acceptance Rate: 25%

Bug Hunters’ Perspectives on the Challenges and Benefits of the Bug Bounty Ecosystem

Tue, 01 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Correct-by-Design Interacting Smart Contracts and a Systematic Approach for Verifying ERC20 and ERC721 Contracts with VeriSolid

Sat, 01 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Impact Factor: 7

Survey and Taxonomy of Adversarial Reconnaissance Techniques

Thu, 01 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Impact Factor: 23.8

The Benefits of Vulnerability Discovery and Bug Bounty Programs: Case Studies of Chromium and Firefox

Mon, 01 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Acceptance Rate: 19%

Bayesian Models for Node-Based Inference Techniques

Sat, 01 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Principled Data-Driven Decision Support for Cyber-Forensic Investigations

Wed, 01 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Acceptance Rate: 19.6%

Strategic Cyber Camouflage

Sun, 01 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Strategic Remote Attestation: Testbed for Internet-of-Things Devices and Stackelberg Security Game for Optimal Strategies

Fri, 01 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

DeimosBC: A Blockchain-based System for Crowdsensing after Natural Disasters

Wed, 01 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Selfish Mining Attacks Exacerbated by Elastic Hash Supply

Mon, 01 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Acceptance Rate: 25%

Data-Driven Decision Support for Optimizing Cyber Forensic Investigations

Fri, 01 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Impact Factor: 6.3

Safe and Private Forward-Trading Platform for Transactive Microgrids

Fri, 01 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Adversarial Deep Reinforcement Learning based Adaptive Moving Target Defense

Thu, 01 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

A Privacy-preserving Mobile and Fog Computing Framework to Trace and Prevent COVID-19 Community Transmission

Tue, 01 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Impact Factor: 6.7

Blockchains for Transactive Energy Systems: Opportunities, Challenges, and Approaches

Tue, 01 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Equilibrium of Blockchain Miners with Dynamic Asset Allocation

Tue, 01 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Vyper: A Security Comparison with Solidity Based on Common Vulnerabilities

Tue, 01 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Mechanisms for Outsourcing Computation via a Decentralized Market

Wed, 01 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Cyber-Attacks and Mitigation in Blockchain Based Transactive Energy Systems

Mon, 01 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Blockchain Security and Applications

Mon, 25 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

This project studies the following research topics:

Security of blockchain-based consensus protocols
Secure smart contracts
Applications of blockchains

Verified Development and Deployment of Multiple Interacting Smart Contracts with VeriSolid

Fri, 01 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Acceptance Rate: 22%

An Empirical Study of Android Security Bulletins in Different Vendors

Wed, 01 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Acceptance Rate: 19%

Finding Needles in a Moving Haystack: Prioritizing Alerts with Adversarial Reinforcement Learning

Sat, 01 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Acceptance Rate: 20.6%

Smart Contract Development from the Perspective of Developers: Topics and Issues Discussed on Social Media

Sat, 01 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Integrating Redundancy, Diversity, and Hardening to Improve Security of Industrial Internet of Things

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Detection and Mitigation of Attacks on Transportation Networks as a Multi-Stage Security Game

Fri, 01 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Impact Factor: 4.8

Post-Incident Audits on Cyber Insurance Discounts

Fri, 01 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Impact Factor: 4.8

A Game-Theoretic Approach for Selecting Optimal Time-Dependent Thresholds for Anomaly Detection

Mon, 01 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Database Audit Workload Prioritization via Game Theory

Sat, 01 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Cyber-Physical Simulation Platform for Security Assessment of the Transactive Energy Systems

Mon, 01 Apr 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Efficient and Scalable Bug-Bounty Programs

Fri, 01 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Many organizations and companies have recently chosen to use so-called bug-bounty programs (also known as vulnerability reward programs), which allow outside security experts to evaluate the security of an organization’s products and services and to report security vulnerabilities in exchange for rewards. Bug-bounty programs provide unique benefits by allowing organizations to publicly signal their commitment to security and to harness the diverse expertise of thousands of security experts in an affordable way. Despite their rapidly growing popularity, bug-bounty programs are not well understood and can be mismanaged. As a result, bug bounty programs can waste substantial resources and they rarely live up to their potential to improve cybersecurity. This project will significantly improve the efficiency of bug-bounty programs by collecting and publishing comprehensive datasets on the bug-bounty ecosystem, by establishing a sound theory of bug-bounty programs, and by providing practical recommendations for organizations and regulators. The project will directly benefit organizations and companies by enabling them to manage bug-bounty programs more efficiently, which will allow them to eliminate security vulnerabilities at a lower cost; and it will also benefit users by improving the security of software products and services.

This project comprises four research thrusts. The first thrust will build a dataset that captures the entire bug-bounty ecosystem by collecting activity data and rule descriptions from public bug-bounty programs, conducting interviews and focus-group studies with experts who regularly participate in programs, collecting social-media posts, and incorporating existing datasets, such as vulnerability databases. The second thrust will analyze this dataset to understand the ecosystem and its actors’ incentives and actions, and to characterize processes, such as discovering and reporting vulnerabilities and rewarding reports. To code textual data, the project will first develop a terminology and taxonomy of bug-bounty related concepts. Driven by the results of the data analysis, the third thrust will develop a formal model of the bug-bounty ecosystem, which will incorporate technological processes as well as behavioral and economic incentives. To capture all aspects of such a complex ecosystem, the project will employ models and techniques from multiple disciplines and areas, including economics and cybersecurity. Building on this model, the fourth thrust will propose and evaluate novel approaches for improving the efficiency and scalability of bug-bounty programs. The project will consider policies for individual bug-bounty programs, such as rules for rewarding vulnerability reports, as well as mechanisms for regulating bug-bounty programs and for instigating coordination between them.

VeriSolid: Correct-by-Design Smart Contracts for Ethereum

Fri, 01 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Acceptance Rate: 22%

Towards High-Resolution Multi-Stage Security Games

Tue, 01 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Improving Network Connectivity and Robustness Using Trusted Nodes with Application to Resilient Consensus

Sat, 01 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Impact Factor: 4

TRANSAX: A Blockchain-based Decentralized Forward-Trading Energy Exchange for Transactive Microgrids

Sat, 01 Dec 2018 00:00:00 +0000

On the Assessment of Systematic Risk in Networked Systems

Thu, 01 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Cyber-Insurance as a Signaling Game: Self-Reporting and External Security Audits

Mon, 01 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Synergistic Security for the Industrial Internet of Things: Integrating Redundancy, Diversity, and Hardening

Mon, 01 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Application-Aware Anomaly Detection of Sensor Measurements in Cyber-Physical Systems

Sun, 01 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Economic Analyses of Security Investments on Cryptocurrency Exchanges

Sun, 01 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Acceptance Rate: 15.3%

SolidWorx: A Resilient and Trustworthy Transactive Platform for Smart and Connected Communities

Sun, 01 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Acceptance Rate: 15.3%

A Game-Theoretic Approach for Integrity Assurance in Resource-Bounded Systems

Sun, 01 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Get Your Workload in Order: Game Theoretic Prioritization of Database Auditing

Sun, 01 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Acceptance Rate: 23.1%

Tool Demonstration: FSolidM for Designing Secure Ethereum Smart Contracts

Sun, 01 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000

An Economic Study of the Effect of Android Platform Fragmentation on Security Updates

Thu, 01 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Acceptance Rate: 26%

Designing Secure Ethereum Smart Contracts: A Finite State Machine Based Approach

Thu, 01 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Acceptance Rate: 26%

The Rules of Engagement for Bug Bounty Programs

Thu, 01 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Acceptance Rate: 26%

SURE: A Modeling and Simulation Integration Platform for Evaluation of SecUre and REsilient Cyber-Physical Systems

Mon, 01 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Impact Factor: 23.2

On the Design of Communication and Transaction Anonymity in Blockchain-Based Transactive Microgrids

Fri, 01 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

PlaTIBART: A Platform for Transactive IoT Blockchain Applications with Repeatable Testing

Fri, 01 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

On the Economics of Ransomware

Sun, 01 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Providing Privacy, Safety, and Security in IoT-Based Transactive Energy Systems using Distributed Ledgers

Sun, 01 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Blockchains for Transactive Energy Systems

Fri, 01 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Due to rapid growth in renewable energy resources and improvements in battery technology, power grids are undergoing major changes, which create significant management and control challenges. To tackle these challenges, decentralized solutions are needed, which can support the evolution of electrical power distribution systems. Transactive energy is a decentralized solution for dynamically balancing demand and supply, in which consumers, prosumers (i.e., consumers with energy storage or generation capabilities), providers, etc. can trade energy in an open market.

However, transactive energy solutions must also satisfy security, safety, and privacy requirements, which often seem to contradict each other. For example, to provide safety, detailed energy consumption and production information might need to be disseminated, but this threatens the privacy of prosumers. As another example, the complex and computationally expensive solutions required to provide security might not abide the real-time constraints of power systems.

In this project, we create a transactive energy system based on blockchain technology, using the distributed ledger provided by a blockchain to implement an energy trading platform. We develop protocols, smart contracts, middleware, and control algorithms to provide security, safety, and privacy for transactive energy.

Correct-by-Design Blockchain-based Smart Contracts

Fri, 01 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

The adoption of blockchain based distributed ledgers is growing fast due to their ability to provide reliability, integrity, and auditability without trusted entities. One of the key capabilities of these emerging platforms is the ability to create self-enforcing smart contracts. However, the development of smart contracts has proven to be error-prone in practice, and as a result, contracts deployed on public platforms are often riddled with security vulnerabilities. This issue is exacerbated by the design of these platforms, which forbids updating contract code and rolling back malicious transactions. In light of this, it is crucial to ensure that a smart contract is secure before deploying it and trusting it with significant amounts of cryptocurrency.

This project introduces a framework for the formal verification of contracts that are specified using a transition-system based model with rigorous operational semantics. Our model-based approach allows developers to reason about and verify contract behavior at a high level of abstraction. Our framework allows the generation of smart-contract code from the verified models, which enables the correct-by-design development of smart contracts.

Monitoring Stealthy Diffusions

Fri, 01 Sep 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Synergic Security for Smart Water Networks: Redundancy, Diversity, and Hardening

Sat, 01 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

A Game-Theoretic Approach for Alert Prioritization

Wed, 01 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Devising Effective Policies for Bug-Bounty Platforms and Security Vulnerability Discovery

Sun, 01 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Becoming Cybercriminals: Incentives in Networks with Interdependent Security

Tue, 01 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Optimal Thresholds for Anomaly-Based Intrusion Detection in Dynamical Environments

Tue, 01 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Banishing Misaligned Incentives for Validating Reports in Bug-Bounty Platforms

Thu, 01 Sep 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Acceptance Rate: 21%

Optimal Thresholds for Intrusion Detection Systems

Fri, 01 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Vulnerability of Transportation Networks to Traffic-Signal Tampering

Fri, 01 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Multi-Defender Strategic Filtering Against Spear-Phishing Attacks

Mon, 01 Feb 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Acceptance Rate: 25.8%

Resilient Observation Selection in Adversarial Settings

Tue, 01 Dec 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Games of Timing for Security in Dynamic Environments

Sun, 01 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Monitoring Stealthy Diffusion

Sun, 01 Nov 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Acceptance Rate: 18.2%

Scheduling Intrusion Detection Systems in Resource-Bounded Cyber-Physical Systems

Thu, 01 Oct 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Should Cyber-Insurance Providers Invest in Software Security?

Tue, 01 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Acceptance Rate: less than 20%

Game-Theoretic Model of Incentivizing Privacy-Aware Users to Consent to Location Tracking

Sat, 01 Aug 2015 00:00:00 +0000

A Game-Theoretic Approach for Minimizing Security Risks in the Internet-of-Things

Mon, 01 Jun 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Adaptive Steganography and Steganalysis with Fixed-Size Embedding

Wed, 01 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Integrity Assurance in Resource-Bounded Systems through Stochastic Message Authentication

Wed, 01 Apr 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Network Topology Vulnerability/Cost Tradeoff: Model, Application, and Computational Complexity

Sun, 01 Feb 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Optimal Personalized Filtering Against Spear-Phishing Attacks

Thu, 01 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

When Bitcoin Mining Pools Run Dry: A Game-Theoretic Analysis of the Long-Term Impact of Attacks Between Mining Pools

Thu, 01 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

FlipThem: Modeling Targeted Attacks with FlipIt for Multiple Resources

Sat, 01 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Secure Team Composition to Thwart Insider Threats and Cyberespionage

Wed, 01 Oct 2014 00:00:00 +0000

A Survey of Interdependent Information Security Games

Fri, 01 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Impact Factor: 23.8
Note: see also CrySyS Lab Technical Report No. CRYSYS-TR-2012-11-15:

The Complexity of Estimating Systematic Risk in Networks

Tue, 01 Jul 2014 00:00:00 +0000

How Many Down? Toward Understanding Systematic Risk in Networks

Sun, 01 Jun 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Acceptance Rate: 20%

Estimating Systematic Risk in Real-World Networks

Sat, 01 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Acceptance Rate: 22.5%

Game-Theoretic Analysis of DDoS Attacks Against Bitcoin Mining Pools

Sat, 01 Mar 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Mitigating Covert Compromises: A Game-Theoretic Model of Targeted and Non-Targeted Covert Attacks

Sun, 01 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Acceptance Rate: 24%

Modeling Content-Adaptive Steganography with Detection Costs as a Quasi-Zero-Sum Game

Sun, 01 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Mitigation of Targeted and Non-Targeted Covert Attacks as a Timing Game

Fri, 01 Nov 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Quantifying Network Topology Robustness Under Budget Constraints: General Model and Computational Complexity

Fri, 01 Nov 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Bitspotting: Detecting Optimal Adaptive Steganography

Tue, 01 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000

A Game-Theoretic Analysis of Content-Adaptive Steganography with Independent Embedding

Sun, 01 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Managing the Weakest Link: A Game-Theoretic Approach for the Mitigation of Insider Threats

Sun, 01 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Acceptance Rate: 17.8%

Designing Robust Network Topologies for Wireless Sensor Networks in Adversarial Environments

Thu, 01 Aug 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Quantifying All-to-One Network Topology Robustness Under Budget Constraints

Sat, 01 Jun 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Note: published in ACM SIGMETRICS Performance Evaluation Review, Volume 41 Issue 4, March 2014

Linear Loss Function for the Network Blocking Game: An Efficient Model for Measuring Network Robustness and Link Criticality

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Game-theoretic Robustness of Many-to-one Networks

Tue, 01 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Optimal Selection of Sink Nodes in Wireless Sensor Networks in Adversarial Environments

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000