I am a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at NC State University, co-director of the Secure Computing Institute (SCI), and director of the Wolfpack Security and Privacy Research (WSPR) laboratory. I earned my Ph.D. and M.S. in Computer Science and Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University in 2011 and 2006, respectively, and my B.S. in Computer Engineering from Penn State in 2004.

My research investigates access control in emerging and complex systems such as those found in mobile platforms, Internet of Things (IoT), networks, and cloud infrastructure. These investigations include studying the need for access control through application analysis, the correctness of access control enforcement and policy, and the incorporation of new access control primitives. (Short Bio)

Quick Links

• Weir practical enforcement of information flow in Android
• ASM research at androidsecuritymodules.org
• NativeWrap privacy tool source code and app on the Google Play Store
• WHYPER natural language processing (NLP) of app descriptions
• TaintDroid research at appanalysis.org
• Android app decompliation at siis.cse.psu.edu/ded

Contact Information

Office: 2240M Engineering Building II
Phone: (919) 513-7905
Email: whenck at ncsu.edu

Office Hours (Fall 2021): Mondays, 4-5pm (Zoom - Waiting Room Enabled)

Students

Current PhD Students

• Isaac Polinsky (expected 2021)
• Iffat Anjum (expected 2023)
• Samin Yaseer Mahmud (expected 2023)
• Ben Demick (expected 2024)
• Trevor Dunlap (expected 2025) [co-advised with Dr. Brad Reaves]
• Seaver Thorn (expected 2026)

Current Masters Students

• Virgil English (expected 2022)

Past PhD Students

• Albert Gorski (Spring 2020) (now at Booz Allen Hamilton)
• Benjamin Andow (Summer 2019) (now at Google)
• TJ OConnor (Spring 2019) (now Assistant Professor, Florida Institute of Technology)
• Luke Deshotels (Fall 2018) (now at TikTok)
• Michael Grace (Summer 2017) [co-advised with Dr. Xuxian Jiang] (now at Samsung Research America)
• Adwait Nadkarni (Spring 2017) (now Assistant Professor, William and Mary)
• Ruowen Wang (Spring 2016) [co-advised with Dr. Peng Ning] (now at Google)
• Jason Gionta (Spring 2015) [co-advised with Dr. Peng Ning]

Recent Professional Activities

• Director at Large, 2020-present USENIX Association Board of Directors
• Steering Committee, 2019-present USENIX Security Symposium
• Associate Editor, 2020-present ACM Transactions on Privacy and Security (TOPS)
• Department Editor, 2016-present IEEE Security and Privacy Magazine
• Program Committee, 2022 USENIX Security Symposium
• Program Committee, 2022 ACM ASIA Conference on Computer and Communications Security (ASIACCS)
• Program Committee, 2021 ACM Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks (WiSec)

News

September 24, 2021: Our paper, FReD: Identifying File Re-Delegation in Android System Services has been accepted for publication at the 2022 USENIX Security Symposium.

April 17, 2021: Our paper, SCIFFS: Enabling Secure Third-Party Security Analytics using Serverless Computing has been accepted for publication at the 2021 ACM Symposium on Access Control Models and Technologies (SACMAT).

February 12, 2021: Our paper, PolyScope: Multi-Policy Access Control Analysis to Compute Authorized Attack Operations in Android Systems has been accepted for publication at the 2021 USENIX Security Symposium.

December 22, 2020: Our paper, Role-Based Deception in Enterprise Networks, has been accepted for publication at the 2021 ACM Conference on Data and Application Security and Privacy (CODASPY).

November 9, 2020: I was named a October 2020 winner of the "The Carla Savage Award" in the Department of Computer Science at NC State.

(more news)

Professional Highlights

• My research won a 2020 SIGOPS Hall of Fame Award.
• I am a National Science Foundation CAREER Award winner (CNS-1253346).
• My research has been covered by The New York Times and CNET among other international press venues. I was also interviewed by FOX News (video). More recently, my research has been covered by PBS News Hour.
• I am a founding member and former lead graduate student of the Systems and Internet Infrastructure Security Laboratory.
• I was a member of 2007 EVEREST academic study [pdf] of voting equipment sponsored by the Ohio Secretary of State.
• My Erdös number is 3 (Paul Erdös--Fan Chung--William Aiello--Me).