Towards Visual Analytics for Web Security Data
19th Passive and Active Measurement Conference
CV
Work experience
- DistriNet, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
- PhD researcher, September 2017-May 2023
- Postdoctoral researcher, June 2023-
Publications
Idea: Visual Analytics for Web Security
10th International Symposium on Engineering Secure Software and Systems
Tranco: A Research-Oriented Top Sites Ranking Hardened Against Manipulation
26th Annual Network and Distributed System Security Symposium ACSAC 2022 Cybersecurity Artifacts Competition Impactful Dataset Award
Funny Accents: Exploring Genuine Interest in Internationalized Domain Names
20th Passive and Active Measurement Conference
A Smörgåsbord of Typos: Exploring International Keyboard Layout Typosquatting
4th International Workshop on Traffic Measurements for Cybersecurity Distinguished Paper Award
Mobile Friendly or Attacker Friendly?: A Large-scale Security Evaluation of Mobile-first Websites
2019 ACM Asia Conference on Computer and Communications Security
Evaluating the Long-term Effects of Parameters on the Characteristics of the Tranco Top Sites Ranking
12th USENIX Workshop on Cyber Security Experimentation and Test
A Practical Approach for Taking Down Avalanche Botnets Under Real-World Constraints
27th Annual Network and Distributed System Security Symposium
Mis-shapes, Mistakes, Misfits: An Analysis of Domain Classification Services
2020 Internet Measurement Conference
Helping hands: Measuring the impact of a large threat intelligence sharing community
31st USENIX Security Symposium
An Audit of Facebook’s Political Ad Policy Enforcement
31st USENIX Security Symposium Distinguished Paper Award
Tracking the Evolution of Cookie-based Tracking on Facebook
21st Workshop on Privacy in the Electronic Society
A Run a Day Won’t Keep the Hacker Away: Inference Attacks on Endpoint Privacy Zones in Fitness Tracking Social Networks
2022 ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security 2022 CNIL-Inria Privacy Protection Award Runner-up
Analyzing Cyber Security Research Practices through a Meta-Research Framework
16th Cyber Security Experimentation and Test Workshop
Reflecting on Research Practices
Communications of the ACM
Talks
- “Tranco: A Research-Oriented Top Sites Ranking Hardened Against Manipulation”: NDSS 2019; Ad Blocker Dev Summit 2019; guest lecture in “Web Security Seminar” course of prof. Phani Vadrevu at University of New Orleans, December 2020; “Identifying Benign Websites Is About to Get Harder: The Demise of the Alexa Top Million” webinar for Ultimate IT Security, April 2022.
- “A Practical Approach for Taking Down Avalanche Botnets Under Real-World Constraints”: NDSS 2020; OWASP Chapters All Day 2020.
- “Mis-shapes, Mistakes, Misfits: An Analysis of Domain Classification Services”: IMC 2020.
- “Exploring (domain abuse for) deceptive advertising”: talk at CISPA WebSec reading group, October 2021.
- “An Audit of Facebook’s Political Ad Policy Enforcement”: CIF Seminar (Q&A), 16 December 2021; panel “Regulating Big Tech was never so urgent” organized by MEP Tom Vandenkendelaere, 14 December 2021; seminar for the SLIDE team of prof. Oana Goga at Grenoble Alps University, April 2022; OWASP Belgium Chapter Meeting, September 2022; Ad Filtering Dev Summit 2022, October 2022; TU Delft TPM seminar, October 2022; CIF review, November 2022.
- “Sound data sets and methods for web security research”: Stanford Security Lunch, February 2023; CISPA WebSec Reading Group, February 2023; PhD defense, May 2023.
- “A Run a Day Won’t Keep the Hacker Away: Inference Attacks on Endpoint Privacy Zones in Fitness Tracking Social Networks”: Black Hat Asia (with Karel Dhondt), May 2023.
- “Empirical Web Security and Privacy”: CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security, April 2024.
International mobility
- March-April 2019: research visit to prof. Maciej Korczyński at Grenoble Alps University (Grenoble, France), a.o. for collaboration on the Avalanche project, two months.
- October 2021-January 2022: research visit to prof. Damon McCoy and prof. Tobias Lauinger at New York University, Tandon School of Engineering (New York City, NY, United States), four months.
- April 2022: research visit to prof. Maciej Korczyński at Grenoble Alps University (Grenoble, France), two weeks.
- October 2022: research visit to prof. Georgios Smaragdakis and prof. Michel van Eeten at TU Delft (Delft, the Netherlands).
- April 2024: research visit to dr. Bhupendra Acharya and prof. Thorsten Holz at CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security (Saarbrücken, Germany), one week.
- Participation in academic conferences (workshops): PAM 2018, ESSoS 2018, NDSS 2019, PAM 2019, S&P 2019 (WTMC 2019), USENIX Security 2019 (CSET 2019), IMC 2019, NDSS 2020, EuroS&P 2020 (WTMC 2020), IMC 2020, EuroS&P 2021 (SecWeb 2021), S&P 2022, USENIX Security 2022, IMC 2022, CCS 2022 (WPES 2022), ACSAC 2022, USENIX Security 2023 (CSET 2023).
- Participation in industry/government events: Ad Blocker Dev Summit 2019, Ad Filtering Dev Summit 2022, Black Hat Asia 2023, CNIL Privacy Research Day 2023.
- Participation in summer schools: TMA PhD school 2018, 2nd SecHuman Summer School 2018, 3rd SecHuman Summer School 2019.
Service
- Artifact Evaluation Publication Chair for USENIX Security 2024.
- Publicity Chair for CSET 2024.
- PC member for WTMC 2021, SecWeb 2021, S3 2021, MADWeb 2022, SecWeb 2022, WTMC 2022, CCS 2022, MADWeb 2023, SecWeb 2023, MADWeb 2024, SecWeb 2024, Web Conference 2024.
- Representative on the Departmental Council (2020-2024) and Departmental Board (2022-2024) of the Department of Computer Science at KU Leuven.
- Member of the PhD committee of Karel Dhondt (DistriNet, KU Leuven - Gent), 2024.
Grants
- Research Foundation – Flanders, October 2018-2022: individual PhD fellowship, four years (21% success rate).
- ACM Internet Measurement Conference, October 2022: full travel grant.
- Research Foundation – Flanders, August 2022: travel grant to attend USENIX Security 2022.
- Erasmus+ Staff Mobility for Training, April 2022: full grant (€1843) for a visit to Grenoble Alps University.
- Research Foundation – Flanders, October-December 2021: grant (€4290 + travel) for a long stay abroad at New York University.
- Google Cloud, November 2020: research credits ($1000).
- 3rd SecHuman Summer School, June 2019: full grant.
- Erasmus+ Staff Mobility for Training, March-April 2019: full grant (€1500 + travel) for a visit to Grenoble Alps University.
- 2nd SecHuman Summer School, September 2018: full grant.
- 8th Network Traffic Measurement and Analysis PhD School, June 2018: full grant.
Education
- Doctor of Engineering Science (PhD): Computer Science
- KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, 2017-2023
- Master of Science, Engineering: Computer Science (Secure Software)
- KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, 2015-2017
- Summa cum laude
- Bachelor of Science, Engineering: Computer Science/Electrical Engineering
- KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, 2012-2015
- Magna cum laude
Miscellaneous
- CVE-2018-4429: I found a phishing vulnerability in iOS (up to 12.1.1) as part of my ‘Funny Accents’ paper.
- I am part of the core team of Stellar Vector, the CTF team powered by DistriNet and KU Leuven. I contributed and presented a self-made OSINT challenge to the 2023 CTF 101 event (80 participants).