Salman Ahmed
Research Staff Member, IBM Research
IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center
Email: sahmed at ibm dot com

I am a Research Staff Member (aka 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.

Recent News

  • [Jan 03, 2023] Our paper accepted in AsiaCCS 2023!
  • [Feb 14, 2022] Our magazine article published! Link
  • [Jan 04, 2022] Joined as a Research Staff Member in IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center!
  • [Oct 20, 2021] A magazine article on privacy guarantees of BLE contact tracing accepted in IEEE Computer!
  • [Aug 07, 2021] Our tutorial on system security assurance accepted in IEEE SecDev 2021!
  • [Apr 26, 2021] Our journal on data-oritend attacks accepted in ACM TOPS!
  • [Jan 25, 2021] Another milestone achieved. Passed prelim!
  • [May 18, 2020] Our ASLR measurement work has been accepted in ACM CCS 2020.
  • [Mar 11, 2020] Got an offer from IBM Research as a Research intern for the upcoming summer.
  • [Feb 07, 2020] Our poster on fine-grained code randomization evaluation accepted by NDSS'20.
  • [Oct 23, 2019] Nominated for the IBM PhD Fellowship Award from CS@VT.
  • [Oct 08, 2019] Our ASLR manuscript is released on arxiv.
  • [Jun 10, 2019] Our SoK paper on Data-Oriented Attacks is accepted by SecDev.
  • [Feb 16, 2019] My Plan of Study (PoS) is approved.
  • [Feb 15, 2019] Passed Ph.D. Qualifier Exam.
  • [Feb 28, 2018] My MS thesis is selected as the outstanding MS thesis by TCGS [News].

Publications

Privacy Guarantees of Bluetooth Low Energy Contact Tracing: A Case Study on COVIDWISE
Salman Ahmed, Ya Xiao, Taejoong (Tijay) Chung, Carol Fung, Moti Yung, and Danfeng (Daphne) Yao
In IEEE Computer, vol. 55, no. 2, pp. 54-62, Feb. 2022, doi: 10.1109/MC.2021.3125611.
Exploitation Techniques for Data-Oriented Attacks with Existing and Potential Defense Approaches
Long Cheng, Salman Ahmed, Hans Liljestrand, Thomas Nyman, Haipeng Cai, Trent Jaeger, N. Asokan, Danfeng (Daphne) Yao
In Proceedings of the ACM Transactions on Privacy and Security (TOPS), April 2021.
Methodologies for Quantifying (Re-)randomization Security and Timing under JIT-ROP
Salman Ahmed, Ya Xiao, Gang Tan, Kevin Snow, Fabian Monrose, and Danfeng (Daphne) Yao
In Proceedings of the 2020 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS'20). November 9-13, 2020, Orlando, USA.
Poster: Methodologies for Quantifying (Re-) Randomization Security and Timing under JIT-ROP.
Salman Ahmed, Ya Xiao, Gang Tan, Kevin Snow, Fabian Monrose, and Danfeng (Daphne) Yao
In Network and Distributed Systems Security (NDSS) Symposium 2020, San Diego, CA, USA.
Exploitation Techniques and Defenses for Data-Oriented Attacks
Long Cheng, Hans Liljestrand, Salman Ahmed, Thomas Nyman, Trent Jaeger, N. Asokan, and Danfeng (Daphne) Yao
In IEEE Secure Development Conference (SecDev) 2019, McLean, VA, USA.
POSTER: Extracting Anti-specifications from Vulnerabilities for Program Hardening
Salman Ahmed, Danfeng (Daphne) Yao, and Haipeng Cai
In IEEE Secure Development Conference (SecDev) 2018, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Freeway merge assistance system using DSRC
Salman Ahmed, Mohammad A. Hoque, Jackeline Rios-Torres, and Asad Khattak.
2nd ACM International Workshop on Smart, Autonomous, and Connected Vehicular Systems and Services, 2017
An Investigation into the Performance Evaluation of Connected Vehicle Applications: From Real..
Salman Ahmed
Dissertation, East Tennessee State University, 2017.
Reducing Inter-Process Communication Overhead in Parallel Sparse Matrix-Matrix Multiplication
Salman Ahmed, Jennifer Houser, Mohammad A. Hoque, Rezaul Raju, and Phil Pfeiffer
In International Journal of Grid and High Performance Computing (IJGHPC) 2017
Partitioning of urban transportation networks utilizing real-world traffic parameters for distributed...
Salman Ahmed and Mohammad A Hoque
In IEEE Vehicular Networking Conference (VNC) 2016, Columbus, OH, USA.
Demo: Real-time vehicle movement tracking on Android devices through Bluetooth communication...
Salman Ahmed, and Mohammad A Hoque
In IEEE Vehicular Networking Conference (VNC) 2016, Columbus, OH, USA.
Comparative study of connected vehicle simulators
Salman Ahmed, Mohammad A Hoque, and Phil Pfeiffer
In IEEE Southeas Conference 2016, Norfolk, VA, USA.

Service

  • Conference Sub-Reviewer: IEEE S&P (2020, 2019), CCS (2019, 2018), NDSS (2019), WWW (2019), ACSAC (2018), ASIACCS (2018), SecDev (2020), and CSET (2019)

Awards & Certifications

  • 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