I am an Associate 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: 3260 Engineering Building II
Phone: (919) 513-7905
Email: whenck at ncsu.edu
Postal Mail
Department of Computer Science |
Deliveries
3320 Engineering Building II |
Office Hours (Spring 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)
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
- Steering Committee, 2016-present ACM Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks (WiSec)
- Associate Editor, 2020-present ACM Transactions on Privacy and Security (TOPS)
- Department Editor, 2016-present IEEE Security and Privacy Magazine
- Program Committee, 2021 ISOC Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS)
- Program Committee, 2021 USENIX Security Symposium
- Program Committee, 2021 ACM ASIA Conference on Computer and Communications Security (ASIACCS)
- Program Committee, 2020 ACM Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks (WiSec)
News
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 5, 2020: TaintDroid received the SIGOPS Hall of Fame Award!
October 22, 2020: Our paper, Hey Alexa, is this Skill Safe?: Taking a Closer Look at the Alexa Skill Ecosystem has been accepted for publication at the 2021 ISOC Network and Distributed Systems Symposium (NDSS).
September 18, 2020: Our paper, LeakyPick: IoT Audio Spy Detector has been accepted for publication at the 2020 Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC).
June 11, 2020: I gave a keynote titled Analysis of Access Control Enforcement in Android at ACM SACMAT 2020.
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).