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 studies the security of a wide range of systems, including mobile platforms, Internet of Things (IoT), networks, cloud and 5G infrastructure, and the software supply chain. I commonly apply a range of systems design, program analysis, and empirical studies to demonstrate how novel techniques and tools can improve the security of our computing systems. (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

Warning!

August 2022: There are scam emails being sent to NC State students indicating that I am in pressing need for research assistants and asking responses via text message. If you are not communicating with my @ncsu.edu email address, it is likely a scam.

Contact Information

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

Virtual Office Hours (Fall 2022): Mondays 3-4pm (CSC/ECE 574) and Tuesdays 3-4pm (CSC 474) via Zoom (Waiting Room Enabled). If you are not in CSC 474 or CSC/ECE 574, please email me ahead of time.

Students

Current PhD Students

• Iffat Anjum (expected 2023)
• Samin Yaseer Mahmud (expected 2023)
• Trevor Dunlap (expected 2025) [co-advised with Dr. Brad Reaves]
• Seaver Thorn (expected 2026)
• K. Virgil English (expected 2027)
• Elizabeth Lin (expected 2027)
• Greg Tystahl (expected 2027) [co-advised with Dr. Alexandros Kapravelos]

Past PhD Students

• Isaac Polinsky (Summer 2023) (now at Google)
• 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

• Secretary, 2022-present USENIX Association Board of Directors
• Steering Committee, 2019-present USENIX Security Symposium
• Associate Editor, 2020-present ACM Transactions on Privacy and Security (TOPS)
• Program Co-Chair, 2024 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (S&P)
• Program Committee, 2023 USENIX Security Symposium
• Program Committee, 2023 ACM CCS Workshop on Software Supply Chain Offensive Research and Ecosystem Defenses (SCORED)

News

April 14, 2023: Our paper, MSNetViews: Geographically Distributed Management of Enterprise Network Security Policy has been accepted for publication at the 2023 ACM Symposium on Access Control Models and Technologies (SACMAT).

April 7, 2023: Our paper, It's like flossing your teeth: On the Importance and Challenges of Reproducible Builds for Software Supply Chain Security has been accepted for publication at the 2023 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (S&P).

April 3, 2023: Our paper, Finding Fixed Vulnerabilities with Off-the-Shelf Static Analysis has been accepted for publication at the 2023 IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy (EuroS&P).

September 2, 2022: Our paper, Analysis of Payment Service Provider SDKs in Android has been accepted for publication at the 2022 Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC).

August 1, 2022: We were awarded a $9M grant from the National Science Foundation for our SaTC Frontiers project titled "Enabling a Secure and Trustworthy Software Supply Chain".

(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).