Michail Maniatakos Moderates Executive Panel on Securing Critical Infrastructure

News

The Center for Cybersecurity at NYU Abu Dhabi is proud to highlight Michail Maniatakos, Co-PI, for moderating an Executive Panel Discussion hosted by the UAE Cybersecurity Council. The session focused on strategies to safeguard critical infrastructure from cyber threats.

Key topics discussed included:

  • Risk assessment and threat intelligence to identify and mitigate cyber threats

  • 24/7 monitoring systems for real-time incident detection and response

  • Best practices for protecting vital national infrastructure

Panelists included:

  • Sara Khalid Mohamed Alhosani, Director, Cyber Threat Intelligence Division, Department of Government Enablement

  • Ali Al Kaf Alhashmi, Vice President, Cyber Security and Technology, Mubadala Investment UAE

  • Khaled Al Teneiji, Cyber Security Head, Group IT- Shared Services Center, Emirates National Oil Company Limited (ENOC)

  • Ravi Baldev Singh, Senior Director, Systems Engineering, Emerging Markets CEE, CIS & META, Commvault

The discussion underscored the UAE’s dedication to strengthening national cybersecurity and highlighted the Center for Cybersecurity’s role in shaping thought leadership in the field.

Christina Pöpper Featured in World Police Summit Podcast

News

Christina Popper, Associate Professor of Computer Science at NYU Abu Dhabi and Co-Principal Investigator at our Center for Cyber Security, recently appeared on the World Police Summit podcast to discuss her research and passion for cybersecurity.

During the interview, Christina explored how her work at NYUAD, from designing secure systems to protecting privacy and addressing emerging digital threats, directly relates to the real-world challenges faced by law enforcement and security professionals worldwide. She also emphasized the critical role of collaboration between academia, industry, and public safety organizations, highlighting how this aligns closely with the Summit’s mission.

This insightful conversation underscores Christina’s dedication to making the digital world safer and reflects the impact our team aims to achieve every day.

CSAW’24 Cybersecurity Games & Conference

Past Events

CSAW’24 marks the 11th anniversary of CSAW MENA (Middle East North Africa) organized by NYU Abu Dhabi. CSAW NYU Abu Dhabi is managed by a team of undergraduate and graduate students, and researchers from the Engineering Department and the Center for Cyber Security.

CSAW 2024 MENA at NYUAD was a resounding success, bringing together cybersecurity researchers, students and professionals from across the region to share knowledge, engage in friendly competition, and contribute to the advancement of cybersecurity.

Total Participants in final rounds – 118 students and researchers, reflecting a 34% surge in participant numbers compared to previous years.

6 Competitions

  • Capture the Flag – CTF
  • Applied Research Competition – ARC
  • Hack My Robot – HMR
  • BioHack 3D 
  • LLM CTF Attack Competition
  • AI Hardware Attack Competition (New addition this Year)

CSAW’24 MENA featured an engaging keynote by Luca Di Bartolomeo, a seasoned CTF player turned PhD at EPFL. With extensive experience in global CTF finals, including DEFCON and XCTF, Luca’s talk, “The CTF Player Pipeline: From Noob to Addicted,” shared insights into the journey of becoming a dedicated CTF participant. His expertise inspired attendees to explore and excel in the dynamic world of cybersecurity challenges.

Capture the Flag

CSAW CTF is an entry-level, jeopardy style CTF, designed for university-level students who are interested in the field of security. Challenge categories will include: binary exploitation, reverse engineering, cryptography, web security, forensics, mobile security, industrial control systems, and miscellaneous challenges. CSAW CTF occurs over two rounds: a Qualifying Round in September and a Final Round in November.

The heart of CSAW, the CTF competition, saw intense battles of skill and strategy as teams competed to solve a series of challenging cybersecurity puzzles for a non-stop 36 hours. Participants demonstrated their technical prowess and problem-solving abilities in this highly competitive and engaging event.

  • 37 participants from four different countries competed in the final round, with 10 teams emerging as finalists out of a total of 90 teams. The top three scoring teams out of the 10 finalists were declared the winners.

Congratulations to the CTF 2024 Winners!

1st Place

0x1a4, TEK-UP University, Tunisia

Knani Alaaeddine
Chebbi Jasser
Badreddine Chamkhi
Knani Mohamed Aziz

2nd Place

Garidi, Higher National School of Computer Science, Algeria

Abderaouf Louggani
Abdelkhalek Beraoud
Abderahmane Oubahi
Abderraouf Dandani

3rd Place

DEADSEC, Applied Science Private University, Jordan

Jaleel Bolbol Abdalla
Hamza Abderrahim

Applied Research Competition 

This “Best Paper Award” assesses the top scholarly security research from the previous year. The focus of this competition is on research that has a practical impact.  With eligibility limited to already published papers or camera-ready papers, CSAW has a reputation for drawing some of the best security research worldwide. 

Congratulations to the ARC 2024 Winners!

1st Place

Marouene Boubakri, University of Carthage Tunis, Tunisia
for the paper “Architectural Security and Trust Foundation for RISC-V”

2nd Place

Robert Merget, Technology Innovation Institute (TII), UAE
for the paper “With Great Power Come Great Side Channels: Statistical Timing Side-Channel Analyses with Bounded Type-1 Errors”

Hack My Robot 

This year’s Hack My Robot competition pushed the boundaries with a focus on autonomous soil compactors, highlighting the critical safety and quality implications of potential compromises. Out of 9 stellar teams, 5 advanced to the intense finals, where students aimed to hack a construction environment robot, disrupting its functionalities and stealing data. The competition witnessed creative and technically complex attacks from all finalists, but ultimately, the 3 best teams emerged as the ultimate winners.
.

  • 19 participants from four different countries competed in the final round, with 5 teams emerging as finalists out of a total of 9 teams.

Congratulations to the HMR 2024 Winners!

1st Place

Mr. Robot
Princess Sumaya University for Technology, Jordan

Badi AbuAlGhanam
Mohammad AlSarabi

2nd Place

Botics
Higher Institute of Computer Science Tunis Elmanar, Tunisia

Ichrak Eddor Mnijli
Foued Saidi

3rd Place

MakerSpace
American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

Hassan Abouelela
Malik Hader
Abdulla Bin Saifudheen
Yousef Irshaid

BioHack 3D 

BioHack 3D at CSAW 2024 marked a groundbreaking event as the second workshop and hackathon solely dedicated to Biochip Security and its intersection with 3D printing technology. The one-day event focused on exploring vulnerabilities related to PCR biochips, shedding light on crucial aspects of security in this emerging field. With participation from across the UAE, a total of 21 teams engaged in the virtual qualifying round. However, the competition was fierce, allowing only 5 elite teams to advance to the final round. In the end, one exceptional team emerged victorious, claiming the top spot.

  • 5 Teams qualified to the finals out of 21 teams

Congratulations to the BioHack 3D 2024 Winners!

1st Place

Team AltF4
University of Wollongong in Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Hadiyya Mattummathodi
Mariah Khalifa
Riaz Mohammed
Muhammad Ansari

LLM Attack Competition 

With rapid advancements in large language models, LLMs have become integral to modern systems—introducing new and complex security challenges. The LLM CTF Attack Competition 2024 builds on prior successes, challenging participants to explore, exploit, and defend against vulnerabilities unique to language model–powered applications, pushing the boundaries of AI security research.

Congratulations to the LLM CTF Attack Competition 2024 Winners!

1st Place

Team PBD

Pearl Rwauya
Simon Grange
Safa Al Almeri

2nd Place

Team 原神 (Transliteration: Genshin Impact)

Qi Sun
Pavel Nikolaitchev
Yiyi Chen

3rd Place

Team Pokémon Master

Joonha Yu
Jun Lee
Yumi Omori

ACNS 2024: 22nd International Conference on Applied Cryptography and Network Security

Past Events

The 22nd International Conference on Applied Cryptography and Network Security (ACNS 2024) was held in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, from March 5 to 8, 2024, at the New York University Abu Dhabi campus. The proceedings of ACNS 2024 were published by Springer in the Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) series.

ACNS is an annual conference that focuses on current developments advancing the areas of applied cryptography, cybersecurity (including network and computer security), and privacy. The conference aims to represent both academic research and developments in industrial and technical frontiers.

Submissions typically address the modeling, design, analysis (including security proofs and attacks), development (e.g., implementations), deployment (e.g., system integration), and maintenance (e.g., performance measurements, usability studies) of algorithms, protocols, standards, implementations, technologies, devices, and systems related to applied cryptography, cybersecurity, and privacy—while contributing novel insights to the field.

ACNS 2024 Program Highlights

The conference program included:

  • 54 technical presentations

  • 3 keynote speeches

  • 8 workshops

  • 1 poster session

  • 2 social events

Sessions consisted of peer-reviewed research presentations, invited talks, and discussions covering various topics in applied cryptography, cybersecurity, and privacy. Keynote speakers addressed topics in cryptography and cybersecurity. Workshops focused on specialized subjects. The poster session showcased early-stage research.

CSAW’23 Cybersecurity Games & Conference

Past Events

CSAW’23 marks the 10th anniversary of CSAW MENA (Middle East North Africa) organized by NYU Abu Dhabi. CSAW NYU Abu Dhabi is managed by a team of undergraduate and graduate students, and researchers from the Engineering Department and the Center for Cyber Security.

CSAW 2023 MENA at NYUAD was a resounding success, bringing together cybersecurity researchers, students and professionals from across the region to share knowledge, engage in friendly competition, and contribute to the advancement of cybersecurity.

Total Participants in final rounds – 88 students and researchers, reflecting a 90% surge in participant numbers compared to previous years, attributed also to the addition of two new competitions

5 Competitions

  • Capture the Flag – CTF
  • Applied Research Competition – ARC
  • Hack My Robot – HMR
  • BioHack 3D (New addition this Year)
  • LLM Attack Challenge (New addition this Year)

Capture the Flag

CSAW CTF is an entry-level, jeopardy style CTF, designed for university-level students who are interested in the field of security. Challenge categories will include: binary exploitation, reverse engineering, cryptography, web security, forensics, mobile security, industrial control systems, and miscellaneous challenges. CSAW CTF occurs over two rounds: a Qualifying Round in September and a Final Round in November. 

The heart of CSAW, the CTF competition, saw intense battles of skill and strategy as teams competed to solve a series of challenging cybersecurity puzzles for a non-stop 36 hours. Participants demonstrated their technical prowess and problem-solving abilities in this highly competitive and engaging event.

 

  • 37 participants from four different countries competed in the final round, with 10 teams emerging as finalists out of a total of 90 teams.

Congratulations to the CTF 2023 Winners!

1st Place

TEAM_7EVEN, ESTIN, Algeria

Mohammed Reda Sbaihi
Chiheb Chahine Yaici
Yahia Hachemi
Mohamed El Amine

2nd Place

SHELLSEC, Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Informatique, Algeria

Allouche Imene
Abderahmane Oualili
Mohamed Amokrane Abdelmalek
Smail Djerrai

3rd Place

DEADSEC, Applied Science Private University, Jordan

Mahmoud Seif
Ghaidaa Alassaf
Jameel Abdalla
Hamza Abderrahim

Applied Research Competition 

This “Best Paper Award” assesses the top scholarly security research from the previous year. The focus of this competition is on research that has a practical impact.  With eligibility limited to already published papers or camera-ready papers, CSAW has a reputation for drawing some of the best security research worldwide. 

Congratulations to the ARC 2023 Winners!

1st Place

Priyanka Dodia, Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI)
for the paper “Exposing the Rat in the Tunnel: Using Traffic Analysis for Tor-based Malware Detection”

2nd Place

Saleh Hamad Al-Daajeh, UAE University
for the paper “The Role of National Cyber-security Strategies on the Improvement of Cybersecurity Education”

Hack My Robot 

The Hack My Robot Challenge aims to raise awareness about the cybersecurity aspects of increasingly digitalized construction environments with a particular focus on robotics. This year’s Hack my Robot competition pushed the boundaries with a focus on autonomous excavators, highlighting the critical safety risks of potential compromises. Out of 23 stellar teams, 5 advanced to the intense finals, where students aimed to hack a construction environment robot, disrupting its functionalities. The competition witnessed fierce battles of wit and skill, but in the end, 3 standout teams emerged as the ultimate champions.

  • 19 participants from two countries competed in the final round, with 5 teams emerging as finalists out of a total of 23 teams.

Congratulations to the HMR 2023 Winners!

1st Place

BOTRAIDERS TEAM
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia

David Felipe Alvear Goyes
Nouf Farhoud
Luis Alberto Vazquez Limon
Erick Rodrigues e Silva

2nd Place

BIT SHIFTERS TEAM
American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

Shahed Obaid
Ansah Siddiqui
Mahmoud Darwish
Muhammed Noshin

3rd Place

BIN10 Team
Abu Dhabi University, United Arab Emirates

Ahmad Al-Remawi
Ahmed Elsayed
Nayef Abusharia
Abdelrahman Tameem

BioHack 3D 

BioHack 3D at CSAW 2023 marked a groundbreaking event as the first workshop and hackathon solely dedicated to Biochip Security and its intersection with 3D printing technology. The one-day event focused on exploring vulnerabilities related to PCR biochips, shedding light on crucial aspects of security in this emerging field. With participation from across the UAE, a total of 20 teams engaged in the virtual qualifying round. However, the competition was fierce, allowing only 5 elite teams to advance to the final round. In the end, one exceptional team emerged victorious, claiming the top spot.

  • 5 Teams qualified to the finals out of 20 teams – 23 Participants

Congratulations to the BioHack 3D 2023 Winners!

1st Place

Team Korea
New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD), United Arab Emirates

Sunghyeon Kim
Seung-Jean Kang
Haram Jeong

LLM Attack Challenge 

With the burgeoning popularity of large language models (LLM), the capabilities of new models are rising, including the ability to pinpoint the vulnerabilities in software and generate code to attack it. The success of the LLM Attack Challenge in CSAW 2023 sets the stage for future editions, inspiring anticipation for continued advancements and innovation in the field of language model manipulation within the cybersecurity domain.

Congratulations to the LLM Attack Challenge 2023 Winners!

1st Place

Ahmad Fraij & Omar El Herraoui
New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD), United Arab Emirates

2nd Place

Ulan Kundizbay
New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD), United Arab Emirates