Research Interests

  • Malware Detection via Encrypted Packet Analysis

    The recent security reports from highly reputable security firms such as Symantec unanimously describe the rapidly growing presence of malware seeking for a financial advantage. While many countermeasures such as firewalls and anti-malware software are developed to fight against this emerging threat, most of them put a heavy computational burden on the devices themselves, and therefore, they are not suitable for the ever-increasing number of resource-limited personal devices. The monitoring of network packets coming from / going into devices is a promising approach to address this issue. Unfortunately, this method is not highly effective for the group of malware which are exploiting message encryption to hide their presence from network monitoring systems. On the other hand, the most state-of-art approaches are not suitable for real-time monitoring of malware activities as requiring significant amount of time to determine the presence of a malware. To address this issue, this project aims to develop novel algorithms to detect the presence of malware exploiting encryption based on various techniques from both worlds, Analytical Data Science and Cryptanalysis, throughout network packet monitoring only.

  • Security, Privacy, and Efficiency of Networked Storages

    Given the widespread desire to use Big Data and their applications over resource hungry end user Internet of Things (IoT) terminals, the significance of networks storages such as cloud storage and fog storage are rapidly growing. Due to the high financial value of the data on the networked storages, they tend to be an attractive target of cybercrimals. To address this issue, the development and adoption of well-verified defense machnism against the cyberattacks are of great importance. This project aims to investigate new emerging network storage systems, identify their weakness in terms of security and privacy, and propose technical measures for the identified issues.


  • Blockchain Technologies and Their Applications

    The recent years have witnessed the exploding popularity of various virtual currencies such as Bitcoin. Thanks to the popularity of the virtual currencies, Blockchain technology, which is a distributed computing technology enabling the implementation of most virtual currencies, are also attracting lots of attentions. Currently, many researchers are making serious efforts to further expand the adoption of Blockchain technology to various applications outside the realm of virtual currency. Most noticeably, IEEE has initiated IEEE Blockchain Adoption Initiative in 2017. This project aims to investigate the fundamental aspects of blockchain technologies and introduce new applications.


  • Computer Science Education for Al

    During recent years, Computer Science (CS) has been recognized as an important discipline in preparing K-12 students to be critical participants and creators in a digital age. The U.S. Department of Education (DoE), National Science Foundation, and most importantly President of United States have designated CS as one of the top educational priorities. Despite all the efforts described above, the field of CS education remains to be largely inaccessible to female as well as students with disabilities, low SES, and linguistically diverse background. This project aims to design innovative tools and approaches to resolve the disparity, provide equal opportunities to students, especially those from traditionally under-represented groups.