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Birhanu Eshete

Assistant Professor of Computer Science

University of Michigan, Dearborn

About

I am an Assistant Professor in the department of Computer and Information Science at the University of Michigan, Dearborn, where I lead the Data-Driven Security & Privacy Lab. I am also an affiliated faculty member in the Michigan Institute for Data Science (MIDAS) and a founding faculty member of the Dearborn AI Research Center (DAIR), where I lead the AI and Cybersecurity cluster. Previously, I was a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Systems and Internet Security Lab at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

My research interests include adversarial machine learning, cybercrime analysis, and cyber threat intellignce. I also organize the UM-Dearborn Cybersecurity Seminar and mentor the UMD Blue Bytes (an ethical hacking team on campus).

Latest News!

02/17/21: Our recent paper entitled “PRICURE: Privacy-Preserving Collaborative Inference in a Multi-Party Settting” has been accepted to the ACM International Workshop on Security and Privacy Analytics (IWSPA’21), co-located with ACM CODASPY’21.
06/26/20: Our work on best-effort adversarial approximation of ML malware classifiers is accepted to SecureComm’20.
02/18/20: I will be serving as PC member on USENIX Security’20 and SecureComm’20.

Recent Talks:

EAI SecureComm’20: Adversarial Extraction of Black-Box ML Models USENIX ENIGMA’20: Analysis of Cybercrime Toolkits

Research Areas

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Adversarial Machine Learning

poisoning, evasion, model/example inference.

Cyber Threat Intelligence

characterization, measurement, and forensics.

Cybercrime Analysis

reconstruction, measurement, and defense.

Publications

Ismat Jarin, Birhanu Eshete (2021). PRICURE: Privacy-Preserving Collaborative Inference in a Multi-Party Setting. Proceedings of the 7th International Workshop Security and Privacy Anlytics (IWSPA), co-located with ACM CODASPY’21.

PDF Code Project

Abdullah Ali, Birhanu Eshete (2020). Best-Effort Adversarial Approximation of Black-Box Malware Classifiers. Proceedings of the 16th EAI International Conference on Security and Privacy in Communication Networks (SECURECOMM).

Preprint PDF Project Video

Sadegh M. Milajerdi, Birhanu Eshete, Rigel Gjomemo, V.N. Venkatakrishnan (2019). Poirot: Aligning Attack Behavior with Kernel Audit Records for Cyber Threat Hunting. Proceedings of the 26th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS).

Preprint PDF Project

Sadegh M. Milajerdi, Rigel Gjomemo, Birhanu Eshete, R. Sekar, V.N. Venkatakrishnan (2019). HOLMES: Real-time APT Detection through Correlation of Suspicious Information Flows. Proceedings of the 40th IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (S&P).

Preprint PDF Dataset Project

Sadegh M. Milajerdi, Birhanu Eshete, Rigel Gjomemo, V.N. Venkatakrishnan (2018). ProPatrol: Attack Investigation via Extracted High-Level Tasks. Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Information Systems Security (ICISS).

PDF Project

Abeer Alhuzali, Rigel Gjomemo, Birhanu Eshete, V.N. Venkatakrishnan (2018). NAVEX: Precise and Scalable Exploit Generation for Dynamic Web Applications. Proceedings of the 27th USENIX Security Symposium (SEC).

PDF Code Slides Video

Md Nahid Hossain, Sadegh M. Milajerdi, Junao Wang, Birhanu Eshete, Rigel Gjomemo, R. Sekar, Scott D. Stoller, V.N. Venkatakrishnan (2017). SLEUTH: Real-time Attack Scenario Reconstruction from COTS Audit Data. Proceedings of the 26th USENIX Security Symposium (SEC).

PDF Project Slides Video

Birhanu Eshete, V.N. Venkatakrishnan (2017). DYNAMINER: Leveraging Offline Infection Analytics for On-the-Wire Malware Detection. Proceedings of the 47th IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN).

PDF Project Slides

Abeer Alhuzali, Birhanu Eshete, Rigel Gjomemo, V.N. Venkatakrishnan (2016). Chainsaw: Chained Automated Workflow-based Exploit Generation. Proceedings of the 23rd ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security(CCS).

PDF Video

Birhanu Eshete, Abeer Alhuzali, Maliheh Monshizadeh, Phillip Porras, V.N. Venkatakrishnan, Vinod Yegneswaran (2015). EKHunter: A Counter-Offensive Toolkit for Exploit Kit Infiltration. Proceedings of the 22nd Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS).

PDF Project Slides

Birhanu Eshete, V.N. Venkatakrishnan (2014). WebWinnow: Leveraging exploit kit workflows to detect malicious URLs. Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Data and Application Security and Privacy (CODASPY).

PDF Project

Birhanu Eshete (2013). Effective Analysis, Characterization, and Detection of Malicious Activities on the Web. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Trento.

PDF

Birhanu Eshete, Adolfo Villafiorita, Komminist Weldemariam, Mohammad Zulkernine (2013). EINSPECT: Evolution-Guided Analysis and Detection of Malicious Web Pages. Proceedings of the 37th IEEE International Conference on Computer Software and Applications (COMPSAC).

PDF

Birhanu Eshete, Komminist Weldemariam, Adolfo Villafiorita, Mohammad Zulkernine (2013). ConfEagle: Automated Analysis of Security Configuration Vulnerabilities in Web Applications. Proceedings of the 7th IEEE International Conference on Security and Reliability (SERE).

PDF

Birhanu Eshete (2013). Effective Analysis, Characterization, and Detection of Malicious Web Pages. Proceedings of the 22nd ACM International Conference on World Wide Web Companion (WWW).

PDF

Aaron Ciaghi, Birhanu Eshete, Pietro Molini, Adolfo Villafiorita (2013). SAMo: Experimenting a Social Accountability Web Platform. Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Computing for Development (ACM DEV).

PDF

Aaron Ciaghi, Birhanu Eshete, Pietro Molini, Adolfo Villafiorita (2012). Social Accountability for Mozambique: an Experience Report from the Moamba District. Proceedings of the International IEEE EAI Conference on e-Infrastructure and e-Services for Developing Countries (AFRICOMM).

PDF

Birhanu Eshete, Adolfo Villafiorita, Komminist Weldemariam (2012). BINSPECT: Holistic Analysis and Detection of Malicious Web Pages. Proceedings of the 8th Springer EAI International Conference on Security and Privacy in Communication Networks (SECURECOMM).

PDF

Birhanu Eshete, Komminist Weldemariam, Adolfo Villafiorita (2011). Early Detection of Security Misconfiguration Vulnerabilities in Web Applications. Proceedings of the 6th IEEE Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security (ARES).

Code

Birhanu Eshete, Adolfo Villafiorita, Komminist Weldemariam (2011). Malicious Website Detection: Effectiveness and Efficiency Issues. Proceedings of 1st IEEE System Security Workshop (SysSec), Co-Located with DIMVA.

PDF

Valentino Sartori, Birhanu Eshete, Adolfo Villafiorita (2011). Measuring the Impact of Different Metrics on Software Quality: a Case Study in the Open Source Domain. Proceedings of the 5th IEEE International Conference on Digital Society (ICDS).

Biniyam Asfaw, Dawit Bekele, Birhanu Eshete, Komminist Weldemariam, Adolfo Villafiorita (2010). Host-based Anomaly Detection for Pervasive Medical Systems. Proceedings of the 5th IEEE Conference on Risks and Security of Internet and Systems (CRiSIS).

Birhanu Eshete, Dawit Bekele, Komminist Weldemariam, Adolfo Villafiorita (2010). Context Information Refinement for Pervasive Medical Systems. Proceedings of the 5th IEEE International Conference on Digital Society (ICDS).

Birhanu Eshete, Komminist Weldemariam, Adolfo Villafiorita, Andrea Mattioli (2010). ICT for Good: Opportunities, Challenges and the Way Forward. Proceedings of the 5th IEEE International Conference on Digital Society (ICDS).

Birhanu Eshete (2007). Context Information Refinement for Pervasive Medical Systems. Master’s Thesis, Addis Ababa University.

PDF

Teaching

[undergrad, grad]

Graduate

  • Winter 2021: Compiler Design (CIS574)
  • Fall 2020: Data Security and Privacy (CIS545)
  • Fall 2020: Foundations of Information Security (CIS540)
  • Winter 2020: Compiler Design (CIS574)
  • Fall 2019: Data Security and Privacy (CIS545)
  • Winter 2019: Compiler Design (CIS574)
  • Fall 2018: Data Security and Privacy (CIS545)

    • Undergraduate

  • Winter 2021: Digital Forensics II (CIS467)
  • Winter 2020: Compiler Design (CIS474)
  • Fall 2019: Data Security and Privacy (CIS4851)
  • Winter 2019: Compiler Design (CIS474)
  • Fall 2018: Data Security and Privacy (CIS4851)

    • Professional Service

    [Conferences, Journals, Misc]

    Program Committee Member

  • USENIX SEC: USENIX Security Symposium, 2020.
  • SecureComm: Security and Privacy in Communication Networks, 2020.
  • SecureComm: Security and Privacy in Communication Networks, 2019.
  • SecureComm: Security and Privacy in Communication Networks, 2018.
  • SecureComm: Security and Privacy in Communication Networks, 2017.
  • MAICS: Modern Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science Conference, 2017.
  • SecureComm: Security and Privacy in Communication Networks, 2016.
  • MAICS: Modern Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science Conference, 2016.

    • Invited Journal Article Reviewer

  • ITS: IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Magazine, 2021.
  • TIFS: IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics & Security, 2021.
  • ITS: IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Magazine, 2019.
  • TIFS: IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics & Security, 2018.
  • TDSC: IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, 2017.
  • IJIS: International Journal of Information Security, 2016.
  • NEPL: Neural Processing Letters, 2015.
  • TDSC: IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, 2015.
  • ESEJ: e-Informatica Software Engineering Journal, 2015.
  • JSS: Journal of Systems and Software, 2013.

    • External Conference Reviewer

  • CCS: ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, 2018.
  • NDSS: Network and Distributed Systems Security Symposium, 2016.
  • QRS: International Conference on Software Quality, Reliability & Security, 2015.
  • ICWE: International Conference on Web Engineering, 2015.
  • NDSS: Network and Distributed Systems Security Symposium, 2015.
  • ICISS: International Conference on Information Systems Security, 2014.
  • SERE: International Conference on Security and Reliability, 2014.

    • Misc

  • UIC SRF: Faculty Judge: UIC Student Research Forum, University of Illinois at Chicago, 2015.

    • Contact Me