I am a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at NC State University, co-director of the Secure Computing Institute, 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)
Contact Information
Office: 2240M Engineering Building II
Phone: (919) 513-7905
Email: whenck at ncsu.edu
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Postal Mail
Department of Computer Science |
Deliveries
3320 Engineering Building II |
Office Hours (Fall 2023): Tuesdays 3-4pm via Zoom (waiting room). Please email ahead of time if you are not a student in my class.
Current PhD Students
- 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]
- Jonah Ghebremichael (expected 2028) [co-advised with Dr. Alexandros Kapravelos]
(all current and past students)
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
November 1, 2023: Our paper, UntrustIDE: Exploiting Weaknesses in VS Code Extensions has been accepted for publication at the 2024 ISOC Network and Distributed Systems Symposium (NDSS).
July 12, 2023: My PhD student, Iffat Anjum, successfully defended her dissertation. Congratulations, Iffat!
June 5, 2023: Our paper, ARGUS: A Framework for Staged Static Taint Analysis of GitHub Workflows and Actions has been accepted for publication at the 2023 USENIX Security Symposium.
May 23, 2023: My PhD student, Isaac Polinksy, successfully defended his dissertation. Congratulations, Isaac!
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).