Salman Ahmed

Salman Ahmed

Research Scientist

IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center

I am a Research Scientist at IBM Research in the System and Cloud Security group. I obtained my Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Virginia Tech supervised by Prof. Daphne Yao and I was former member of Yao Group. My research focuses on developing deployable tools with concrete methodologies and metrics to quantify and measure security assurance as well as improve cloud security.

I also worked on the automation and security of connected vehicle technology and the development of platform tools for embedded (e.g., smartwatches) and mobile devices. I obtained my bachelors in Computer Science and Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (2013). I also worked as both Software and Senior Software Engineer at Samsung R&D.

In my free time, I like to play soccer and cricket!

Interests
  • Confidential Computing
  • Measurable Cloud Security
  • Security Metrics & Methodologies
  • Attack Surface Quantification
  • Program Analysis
Education

  • PhD in Computer Science, Aug 2017 - Dec 2021

    Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA

  • MS in Computer Science, May 2017

    East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN, USA

  • BS in Computer Science and Engineering, Feb 2013

    Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology

What's New?

📖 09/19/2024: Our patent related to object guided fuzzing has been published!
📖 09/05/2024: Our patent related to dynamic quarantining of bad containers has been published!
📚 05/23/2024: Our paper on Split API-based confidential containers has been accepted in ACM CCS 2024!
📚 05/01/2024: Our paper titled Fast (Trapless) Kernel Probes Everywhere has been accepted in the USENIX ATC '24!
📖 03/05/2024: Our patent related to security risk-aware scheduling on container-based clouds has been granted!
📚 07/02/2023: Our workshop paper on eBPF-based kCFI has been accepted in The 1st SIGCOMM 2023 Workshop (eBPF '23)!
📚 05/22/2023: Our paper on prioritizing sensitive data has been accepted in USENIX Security'23 😀
📚 03/27/2023: Our paper on Intel TDX Demystified: A Top-Down Approach is available on arxiv!
📚 01/03/2023: Our paper on container security using system call aware scheduling has been accepted in AsiaCCS 2023!
✅ 08/05/2022: A patent related to OS fuzzing is filed!
✅ 10/19/2022: A patent related to container security through container scheduling is filed!
📚 04/14/2022: Our magazine article on privacy guarantees of BLE contact tracing has been published!
📚 02/01/2022: News article on BLE contact tracing has been published!
💼 01/04/2022: Joined as a Research Staff Member in IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center!
🎯 12/09/2021: Defended my Ph.D. dissertation on quantifying system security assurance!
📚 10/20/2021: A magazine article on privacy guarantees of BLE contact tracing accepted in IEEE Computer!
📚 08/07/2021: Our tutorial on system security assurance accepted in IEEE SecDev 2021!
📚 04/26/2021: Our journal on data-oritend attacks accepted in ACM TOPS!
🎯 01/25/2021: Another milestone achieved. Passed prelim!
📚 05/18/2020: Our ASLR measurement work has been accepted in ACM CCS 2020!
🎉 03/11/2020: Got an offer from IBM Research as a Research intern for the upcoming summer.
📚 02/07/2020: Our poster on fine-grained code randomization evaluation accepted by NDSS'20.
🎉 10/23/2019: Nominated for the IBM PhD Fellowship Award from CS@VT.
📚 10/08/2022: Our ASLR manuscript is released on arxiv.
📚 06/10/2019: Our SoK paper on Data-Oriented Attacks is accepted by SecDev.
🎯 02/16/2019: My Plan of Study (PoS) is approved.
🎯 02/15/2019: Passed Ph.D. Qualifier Exam.
🏅 02/28/2022: My MS thesis is selected as the outstanding MS thesis by TCGS [News]

Publications

Google Scholar Profile
Salman Ahmed, Hans Liljestrand, Hani Jamjoom, Matthew Hicks, N. Asokan, and Danfeng (Daphne) Yao. "Not All Data are Created Equal: Data and Pointer Prioritization for Scalable Protection Against Data-Oriented Attacks." USENIX Security Symposium. 2023.

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Michael V. Le, Salman Ahmed, Dan Williams, and Hani Jamjoom. "Securing Container-based Clouds with Syscall-aware Scheduling." ACM Asia Conference on Computer and Communications Security. 2023.

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Salman Ahmed, Ya Xiao, Taejoong (Tijay) Chung, Carol Fung, Moti Yung, and Danfeng (Daphne) Yao. "Privacy Guarantees of Bluetooth Low Energy Contact Tracing: A Case Study on COVIDWISE." In IEEE Computer, vol. 55, no. 2, pp. 54-62, Feb. 2022, doi: 10.1109/MC.2021.3125611.

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Long Cheng, Salman Ahmed, Hans Liljestrand, Thomas Nyman, Haipeng Cai, Trent Jaeger, N. Asokan, Danfeng (Daphne) Yao "Exploitation Techniques for Data-Oriented Attacks with Existing and Potential Defense Approaches." In Proceedings of the ACM Transactions on Privacy and Security (TOPS), April 2021.

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Salman Ahmed, Ya Xiao, Gang Tan, Kevin Snow, Fabian Monrose, and Danfeng (Daphne) Yao. "Methodologies for Quantifying (Re-)randomization Security and Timing under JIT-ROP." In Proceedings of the 2020 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS'20). November 9-13, 2020, Orlando, USA.

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Salman Ahmed, Ya Xiao, Gang Tan, Kevin Snow, Fabian Monrose, and Danfeng (Daphne) Yao. "Poster: Methodologies for Quantifying (Re-) Randomization Security and Timing under JIT-ROP." In Network and Distributed Systems Security (NDSS) Symposium 2020, San Diego, CA, USA.

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Long Cheng, Hans Liljestrand, Salman Ahmed, Thomas Nyman, Trent Jaeger, N. Asokan, and Danfeng (Daphne) Yao. "Exploitation Techniques and Defenses for Data-Oriented Attacks." In IEEE Secure Development Conference (SecDev) 2019, McLean, VA, USA.

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Salman Ahmed, Danfeng (Daphne) Yao, and Haipeng Cai. "POSTER: Extracting Anti-specifications from Vulnerabilities for Program Hardening." In IEEE Secure Development Conference (SecDev) 2018, Cambridge, MA, USA.

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Mohammad A. Hoque,Jackeline Rios-Torres, Ramin Arvin, Asad Khattak, and Salman Ahmed. "The extent of reliability for vehicle-to-vehicle communication in safety critical applications: an experimental study." In Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems 24.3 (2020): 264-278.

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Salman Ahmed, Mohammad A. Hoque, Jackeline Rios-Torres, and Asad Khattak. "Freeway merge assistance system using DSRC." 2nd ACM International Workshop on Smart, Autonomous, and Connected Vehicular Systems and Services, 2017.

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Salman Ahmed. "An Investigation into the Performance Evaluation of Connected Vehicle Applications: From Real-World Experiment to Parallel Simulation Paradigm." Dissertation, East Tennessee State University, 2017.

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Salman Ahmed, Jennifer Houser, Mohammad A. Hoque, Rezaul Raju, and Phil Pfeiffer. "Reducing Inter-Process Communication Overhead in Parallel Sparse Matrix-Matrix Multiplication." In International Journal of Grid and High Performance Computing (IJGHPC) 2017.

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Salman Ahmed and Mohammad A Hoque. "Partitioning of Urban Transportation Networks Utilizing Real-World Traffic Parameters for Distributed Simulation in SUMO." In IEEE Vehicular Networking Conference (VNC) 2016, Columbus, OH, USA.

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Salman Ahmed and Mohammad A Hoque. "Demo: Real-time Vehicle Movement Tracking on Android Devices through Bluetooth Communication with DSRC Devices." In IEEE Vehicular Networking Conference (VNC) 2016, Columbus, OH, USA.

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Salman Ahmed, Mohammad A Hoque, and Phil Pfeiffer. "Comparative study of connected vehicle simulators." In IEEE Southeas Conference 2016, Norfolk, VA, USA.

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Services

I have served as a sub-reviewer on the following program committees:

  • IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (S&P): 2019, 2020.
  • The ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS): 2018, 2019.
  • The Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS): 2019.
  • The Web Conference (formerly known as WWW): 2019.
  • The Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC): 2018.
  • ACM ASIA Conference on Computer and Communications Security (ACM ASIACCS): 2018.
  • IEEE Secure Development Conference: 2020.
  • Cyber Security in Networking Conference (CSNet): 2019.

In addition, I have also served as a session chair in 2020 Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC'20).

Awards

  • ETSU School of Graduate Studies Outstanding Thesis Award, April 18, 2018.
  • Tennessee Conference of Graduate Schools Outstanding Master's Thesis Award, Feb 28, 2018. [Photo]
  • Outstanding Computing Graduate Student Award, Department of Computing, ETSU, April 20, 2017.
  • Samsung R&D Icon of the Month Award, Samsung R&D Institute Bangladesh, March 2015.

Contact

IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center

1101 Kitchawan Rd, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598

Email: sahmed AT ibm DOT com