November 2025 Newsletter
November 2025
Research Spotlight
Strengthening Security in Portable DNA Sequencing
FICS Researcher Dr. Sara Rampazzi alongside PhD student Carson Stilman, uncovered three critical vulnerabilities (now fully resolved) in portable Oxford Nanopore DNA sequencing devices. While these compact, field-ready tools have transformed genomics, their dependence on external host machines can introduce new cybersecurity risks.
The study, published as a Comment in Nature Communications titled “Toward security-aware portable sequencing”, highlights a vital message:
To safeguard genomic data, cybersecurity must begin at the very start of the sequencing process—not just after the data is produced.
The authors call for deeper collaboration between the bioinformatics and cybersecurity communities to ensure the future of genomic technology remains both innovative and secure. (Read More)
Student News
CSAW Applied Research Competition
FICS research entitled “Analyzing the AI Nudification Application Ecosystem” has been awarded the Social Impact Award at the CSAW Applied Research Competition!
This impactful work is the result of a collaborative effort by Daniel Olszewski, Cassidy Gibson, Anna Crowder, FICS Director Dr. Kevin Butler, Patrick Traynor, and members of the PRISM Center, a National Science Foundation project centered at UF. This prestigious award was selected from a pool of 189 papers submitted to top security research venues, highlighting the significant contributions and societal relevance of the team’s work.
DATE Conference 2026
Under the guidance of Dr. Mark Tehranipoor and FICS Research Associate Director Dr. Farimah Farahmandi, PhD student Md Ajoy Hasan’s research titled “LAsset: An LLM-Assisted Security Asset Identification Framework for SoC Verification” was accepted for presentation at the Design, Automation and Test in Europe (DATE) 2026 Conference.
LAsset introduces the first-ever LLM-assisted automated framework for security asset identification in SoC and IP designs—addressing one of the most fundamental challenges in hardware security: systematically and reliably identifying critical assets to build a strong foundation for threat modeling and later-stage security verification.
The framework leverages the SA-EDI standard and IEEE P3164 guidelines for initial asset identification using LLMs, and then cross-validates and refines these assets by mapping them against the CWE vulnerability database, ensuring thoroughness and trustworthiness.
Speaker Spotlight
Dr. Daniel Votipka presents talk for FICS
FICS Research hosted Dr. Daniel Votipka of Tufts University for a compelling talk titled “Vulnerability Discovery for All: A Human-Centric Approach to Software Vulnerability Discovery.” Dr. Votipka is the Lin Family Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Tufts University and earned his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Maryland. His research focuses on understanding the processes and mental models of professionals engaged in critical security tasks—including secure development, vulnerability discovery, network defense, and malware analysis.