December 2024

December 2024


 

Message from the Director

As we close another remarkable year, I want to extend my warmest wishes for a joyful holiday season and a prosperous New Year. The end of the year is an excellent time to reflect on our accomplishments. FICS Researchers have again led the way in ground-breaking research, from award-winning work on attacks against underwater data centers to creating a discussion around using AI to secure semiconductor designs, to helping set national policy and priorities around audio deepfakes, to developing global standards for securing mobile cash apps. Our tremendous faculty has created and led significant conferences in cybersecurity, advised government panels and boards, engaged deeply with numerous industry partners, and traveled around the world to magnify the impact of our work and make new connections. Our summit on cybersecurity was an example of the great opportunities FICS research provides to turn research from the lab into practical outcomes that benefit society at large. I am grateful to all of the faculty, staff, and students who have propelled us to another year of great success, and to everyone who has supported our efforts. We look forward to even greater heights in 2025. 

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year,

Kevin Butler

Director, Florida Institute for Cybersecurity Research


Student Updates

 

Image credit: Dr. Sara Rampazzi

 

Congratulations to PhD student Hrushikesh Varma for being selected as one of the 15 finalists in the prestigious 2024 US CSAW Competition. Only a select few made it this far, and Hrushikesh is among the distinguished group presenting his work at this renowned event.

The US CSAW Competition highlights the top scholarly security research from papers published between September 1, 2023, and July 31, 2024, in leading conferences such as IEEE Security and Privacy 2024, USENIX Security 2024, SOUPS 2024, ACM CCS 2023, NDSS 2024, IMC 2023, CSCW 2023, PETS 2024, and IMWUT/Ubicomp 2023. The competition specifically focuses on research that a practical impact on cybersecurity.

Hrushikesh’s joint research with Alfred Chen, Takeshi Sugawara, Takami Sato, and Michael Clifford, titled “Invisible Reflections: Leveraging Infrared Laser Reflections to Target Traffic Sign Perception,” explores innovative ways to protect self-driving cars from undetectable attacks.

For more details, visit: CSAW 2024.

 

Members from Dr. Bonnie Dorr’s Natural Language and Processing Lab presented at the EMLP in Miami

 

Image credit: Dr. Sara Rampazzi

Congratulations to the NLP&C members for their presentations at EMNLP 2024 and its collocated workshops! The following presenters from Dr. Bonnie Dorr’s lab contributed to the event: Eric Le Ferrand, Zoey Liu, Antti Arppe, Emily Prud’hommeaux, Chathuri Jayaweera, Sangpil Youm, Demi Zhang, Bushi Xiao, Chao Gao, and Sangpil Youm.

For more details click here.

 

Farewell to Dr. Tom Shrimpton

 

 

We wish Dr. Tom Shrimpton tremendous success as he takes on a new role as Principal Scientist at Galois. In this position, Dr. Shrimpton will be focused on pursuing large, multi-partner awards through agencies such as DARPA, IARPA, ARPA-H, AFRL, ARO, and NRL. During his time with FICS Research, Dr. Shrimpton made significant contributions to the field of cryptography, with a particular emphasis on addressing the practical needs of real-world cryptographic applications.

We look forward to opportunities for future collaboration and partnering.