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SPIES Lab, Computer Science and Engineering

Texas A&M University College of Engineering

Welcome to the SPIES Lab at Texas A&M!

The SPIES research group, led by Prof. Nitesh Saxena, in the Computer Science and Engineering Department at the Texas A&M University (A&M/TAMU) conducts research on multitude of topics related to the security and privacy of “emerging” systems or paradigms. A computing and networking system is considered emerging if it has already started getting deployed in the real-world (albeit not to its fullest capacity), or is deemed promising for a wide-scale deployment in the near future. The security and privacy issues surrounding such emerging systems, however, may prevent end users from utilizing their full potential, or, even worse, may rule out the chances of their deployment in the future. Currently, these emerging systems range from mobile and wireless networks (such as those involving smartphones, wearables, IoT, sensors and RFID devices) to the Internet class of systems (such as web browsing, online social networks, and P2P).

The SPIES of the spies lab, from left to right: Amy Hays, Zengrui Liu, Ahmed Tanvir Mahdad, Dr. Nitesh Saxena, Md Imanul Huq, Jimmy Dani, Md Mojibur Rahman Redoy Akanda.

The SPIES of the spies lab, from left to right: Jimmy Dani, Ahmed Tanvir Mahdad, Md Mojibur Rahman Redoy Akanda, Mashari Alatawi, Zengrui Liu, Shalini Saini, Md Imanul Huq, Cagri Arisoy.

The goal of the SPIES group is to improve the security of emerging systems, to say in short. With this goal in mind, the group is currently running many projects centered around the following topics:

  • Human-in-the-Loop Security: secure association of wireless devices, end-to-end encryption security, user authentication, including voice authentication, two-factor low-effort authentication, and behavioral biometrics, neuro-inspired or neurosecurity and extrinsically motivated or playful security.
  • Mobile Systems and IoT Security: security for smartphones, wearables, smarthome, medical implants and RFID tags.
  • Fault-Tolerant Distributed Security and Cryptographic Services: secure storage in the cloud, password management and multi-factor authentication.
  • Privacy and Anonymity: side channel attacks/defenses, web search privacy, online social network privacy and location privacy.

SPIES is supported by multiple grants from NSF, DoJ, Google, Cisco, Comcast, Microsoft, Intel, Nokia and Research in Motion. The SPIES researchers consistently publish in top-tier conferences and journals in Computer Science. The SPIES graduates can be found spying around, and earning big bucks :-), in the premises of major software and research organizations, and top academic institutions in the US. The SPIES affiliates like to go by the tag line, “Spying for a Safer World.”

 

Recent News

  • Paper accepted to CCS 2023 September 2, 2023
  • Paper accepted to PETS 2024 August 31, 2023
  • Paper accepted to CNS 2023 August 13, 2023
  • Paper accepted to MobiCom 2023 August 6, 2023
  • Presenting SPIES’ 13th PhD Graduate — Shalini Saini June 20, 2023
  • Dr. Saxena appointed as Associate Director of Cybersecurity Institute June 7, 2023
  • Saxena and team awarded $6M DOD grant on cognitive security May 3, 2023
  • Dr. Saxena appointed as the Vice Chair of EFAC May 3, 2023
  • Paper accepted to MobiSys 2023 May 2, 2023
  • Paper accepted to ICDCS 2023 April 11, 2023
  • Journal paper accepted to ACM Computing Surveys April 2, 2023
  • 3 full papers accepted to WiSec 2023 March 28, 2023
  • Paper accepted to Oakland 2023 March 14, 2023
  • Paper accepted to USENIX Security 2023 February 21, 2023
  • Cybersecurity Program Led By Dr. Saxena Ranks Best! January 26, 2023
  • EarSpy in Media January 26, 2023
  • Dr. Saxena is a Co-PI on Thematic AI Lab November 28, 2022
  • Paper accepted to PMC 2022 November 28, 2022
  • Paper accepted to ICISC 2022 November 28, 2022
  • A New Grant from NSA October 17, 2022

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