Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science
Virginia Tech
Google Scholar,
CV
Knowledge Works II, RM 2216
Blacksburg, VA 24060
Phone: 540-231-8702
My research interests broadly cover security and privacy aspects of large online services. I am particularly interested in the emerging space at the intersection of machine learning and security. Three research directions include: (1) Attacks using ML: Investigating how recent developments in ML can be misused to abuse online services. (2) Attacks on ML systems: Understanding vulnerabilities of ML systems (e.g., Face recognition) and improving robustness. (3) ML for better security/privacy: Leveraging advances in ML to build better defenses against attacks on online services.
I completed my Ph.D. in Computer Science at the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems where I was advised by Prof. Krishna P. Gummadi and Prof. Alan Mislove. After my Ph.D., I spent a year as a Researcher at Nokia Bell Labs, Stuttgart. Next, I spent ~2 years as a Postdoc as a member of SAND lab (at UCSB and UChicago) working with Prof. Ben Y. Zhao.
I am looking for immensely motivated students to work on some cool research projects. Email me if you are interested!
Latest Updates
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With Great Training Comes Great Vulnerability: Practical Attacks against Transfer Learning
Bolun Wang, Yuanshun Yao, Bimal Viswanath, Haitao Zheng, and Ben Y. Zhao
USENIX Security 2018, Baltimore, MD, USA, August 2018
PDF BIBTEX To appear
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I Spy with My Little Eye: Analysis and Detection of Spying Browser Extensions
Anupama Aggarwal, Bimal Viswanath, Liang Zhang, Saravana Kumar, Ayush Shah, and Ponnurangam Kumaraguru
EuroS&P 2018, London, UK, April 2018
PDF BIBTEX
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Towards Reliable Application Deployment in the Cloud
Ruichuan Chen, Istemi Ekin Akkus, Bimal Viswanath, Ivica Rimac and Volker Hilt
CoNEXT 2017, Seoul, South Korea, December 2017
PDF BIBTEX
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Sieve: Actionable Insights from Monitored Metrics in Distributed Systems
Jörg Thalheim, Antonio Rodrigues, Istemi Ekin Akkus, Pramod Bhatotia, Ruichuan Chen, Bimal Viswanath, Lei Jiao, Christof Fetzer
Middleware 2017, Las Vegas, NV, USA, December 2017
PDF BIBTEX Website Technical report
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Complexity vs. Performance: Empirical Analysis of Machine Learning as a Service
Yuanshun Yao, Zhujun Xiao, Bolun Wang, Bimal Viswanath, Haitao Zheng and Ben Y. Zhao
IMC 2017, London, UK, November 2017
PDF BIBTEX
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Automated Crowdturfing Attacks and Defenses in Online Review Systems
Yuanshun Yao, Bimal Viswanath, Jenna Cryan, Haitao Zheng and Ben Y. Zhao
CCS 2017, Dallas, TX, USA, October 2017
PDF BIBTEX
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Strengthening Weak Identities Through Inter-Domain Trust Transfer
Giridhari Venkatadri, Oana Goga, Changtao Zhong, Bimal Viswanath, Krishna P. Gummadi and Nishanth Sastry
WWW 2016, Montreal, Canada, April 2016
PDF BIBTEX
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Strength in Numbers: Robust Tamper Detection in Crowd Computations
Bimal Viswanath, M. Ahmad Bashir, M. Bilal Zafar, Simon Bouget, Saikat Guha, Krishna P. Gummadi, Aniket Kate, and Alan Mislove
COSN 2015, Stanford University, CA, USA, November 2015
PDF BIBTEX Best Paper Award
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Towards Detecting Anomalous User Behavior in Online Social Networks
Bimal Viswanath, Muhammad Ahmad Bashir, Mark Crovella, Saikat Guha, Krishna P. Gummadi, Balachander Krishnamurthy and Alan Mislove
USENIX Security 2014, San Diego, CA, USA, August 2014
PDF BIBTEX
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Understanding and Specifying Social Access Control Lists
Mainack Mondal, Yabing Liu, Bimal Viswanath, Krishna P. Gummadi and Alan Mislove
SOUPS 2014, Menlo Park, CA, USA, July 2014
PDF BIBTEX Distinguished Paper Award
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Defending Against Large-scale Crawls in Online Social Networks
Mainack Mondal, Bimal Viswanath, Allen Clement, Peter Druschel, Krishna P. Gummadi, Alan Mislove, and Ansley Post
CoNEXT 2012, Nice, France, December 2012
PDF BIBTEX
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Keeping Information Safe from Social Networking Apps
Bimal Viswanath, Emre Kıcıman, and Stefan Saroiu
WOSN 2012, Helsinki, Finland, August 2012
PDF BIBTEX
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Canal: Scaling Social Network-based Sybil Tolerance Schemes
Bimal Viswanath, Mainack Mondal, Krishna P. Gummadi, Alan Mislove, and Ansley Post
EuroSys 2012, Bern, Switzerland, April 2012
PDF BIBTEX
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Understanding and Combating Link Farming in the Twitter Social Network
Saptarshi Ghosh (co-primary author), Bimal Viswanath (co-primary author), Farshad Kooti, Naveen Kumar Sharma, Korlam Gautam, Fabricio Benevenuto, Niloy Ganguly, and Krishna P. Gummadi
WWW 2012, Lyon, France, April 2012
PDF BIBTEX
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Exploring the Design Space of Social Network-based Sybil Defenses (Invited Paper)
Bimal Viswanath, Mainack Mondal, Allen Clement, Peter Druschel, Krishna P. Gummadi, Alan Mislove, and Ansley Post
COMSNETS 2012, Bangalore, India, January 2012
PDF BIBTEX
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Sharing Social Content from Home: A Measurement-driven Feasibility Study
Massimiliano Marcon, Bimal Viswanath, Meeyoung Cha, and Krishna P. Gummadi
NOSSDAV 2011, Vancouver, Canada, June 2011
PDF BIBTEX
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An Analysis of Social Network-based Sybil Defenses
Bimal Viswanath, Ansley Post, Krishna P. Gummadi, and Alan Mislove
SIGCOMM 2010, New Delhi, India, August 2010
PDF BIBTEX
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You Are Who You Know: Inferring User Profiles in Online Social Networks
Alan Mislove, Bimal Viswanath, Krishna P. Gummadi, and Peter Druschel
WSDM 2010, New York, NY, USA, February 2010
PDF BIBTEX
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On the Evolution of User Interaction in Facebook
Bimal Viswanath, Alan Mislove, Meeyoung Cha, and Krishna P. Gummadi
WOSN 2009, Barcelona, Spain, August 2009
PDF Original PDF (with Errata) Errata Note BIBTEX
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CS4254: Network Architecture & Programming
Virginia Tech, Fall 2018.
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Security and Privacy in Social Computing Systems
Saarland University, Summer 2013.
Selected News
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Automated Crowdturfing Attacks and Defenses in Online Review Systems (CCS 2017)
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Towards Detecting Anomalous User Behavior in Online Social Networks (Usenix Security 2014)
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Understanding and combating link farming in the Twitter social network (WWW 2012)
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You are who you know: Inferring user profiles in Online Social Networks (WSDM 2010)