News
(archive)
Last Updated: September 2022
Optus Breach Media
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In the wake of a massive data breach at Australia's second-largest telecommunications company, Optus, I've spent the past week doing a string of media appearances, in an effort to explain to victims how they can protect themselves from the risk of potential identity theft and fraud, and to advocate for stronger privacy regimes and improved incentives to reduce the amount of sensitive data that Australian businesses are holding and to place the onus onto them for protecting it. This has been a wonderful foray into public engagement that began when I wrote the first practical guide for how impacted customers can respond to this breach, on my personal blog, where I have actively tracked developments during the week since. That was picked-up by multiple media resulting in a range of media appearances across TV, radio, and podcast, and input into various written pieces, as well as an op ed that I wrote for Ingenium. These included:
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Congratulations Dongge Liu
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Eureka Prize for Outstanding Science in Safeguarding Australia
About MeI am an academic in the School of Computing and Information Systems of the University of Melbourne. Prior to joining Melbourne in May 2016, I was employed in the Software Systems Research Group of NICTA (now Data61), and was a Conjoint Senior Lecturer in the school of Computer Science and Engineering of UNSW. I joined NICTA and UNSW in 2010 from Oxford, where I completed a D.Phil. (PhD) in Computer Science, awarded in 2011. Before moving to Oxford, I worked for the Defence Science and Technology Organisation after my undergraduate study at the University of Adelaide. I live in Melbourne with my wife and two children, enjoy (and sometimes write and record) alternative music, and spend too much time on Twitter engaging a hot-cold obsession with Australian politics, security and privacy. I love great ales, informed by my days in Oxford, and rich reds, like any Adelaide native. Research and CollaborationsMy research is focused on the problem of how to build highly secure computing systems cost-effectively. As part of this, I work on ways to assess the security of computer systems, methods to ensure the absence of vulnerabilities in programs and systems, methods to detect vulnerabilities in programs, methods for designing secure systems, and related topics. Below is a snapshot of my current research projects. Current Research ProjectsMy current research projects include the following. This list does not include PhD student projects that are yet to be made public.
Past and Dormant Research ProjectsSome of my past and dormant research projects include the following.
My GroupResearchersCurrent postdocs: Previous postdocs and Research Assistants:
Research StudentsCurrent PhD students:
Previous research students:
Working with MeI'm always looking for motivated students to work with. Check out my page for prospective research students.PublicationsSee my publications page.Software and ArtifactsMy group has developed various pieces of software, plus formal artifacts embedded in interactive theorem provers such as program logics and compilers. All are available under open source licenses. SoftwareSecC: Verified Security for Concurrent C ProgramsSecC is the first autoactive program verifier able to verify information flow security for concurrent C programs. Legion: Principled Automatic Test Case GenerationLegion automatically generates test cases for programs, generalising traditional concolic testing and fuzzing, orchestrating program exploration via Monte-Carlo Tree Search. Underflow: Compositional Vulnerability Detection for C ProgramsUnderflow is the first first automatic tool able to compositionally detect memory-safety and information-leakage vulnerabilities in C programs. ArtifactsUnder-Approximate Relational Program Logic: How to Prove your Program is InsecureA general-purpose logic that enables one to perform under-approximate reasoning about relational properties, and the fist logic able to prove when programs are insecure. SecRSL: How to Prove Efficient, Concurrent Programs SecureThe first security separation program logic able to reason about C11's weak memory concurrency features used by highly-efficient concurrent C programs. VERONICA: Verified Secure Declassification for Concurrent ProgramsVERONICA is a verification method, embedded in the Isabelle/HOL theorem prover, for verifying secure declassification policies for concurrent programs. Security Concurrent Separation Logic (SecCSL): Proving Concurrent C Programs Information-Flow SecureA program logic for concurrent C-like programs with pointers, arrays etc., for proving they do not leak sensitive information. COVERN Compiler: Verified Secure Compilation for Concurrent ProgramsThe COVERN Compiler is a proof-of-concept compiler embedded in the Isabelle/HOL theorem prover that provably preserves information flow security when compiling concurrent programs. COVERN Logic: Verified Security for Concurrent ProgramsThe COVERN logic, embedded in the Isabelle/HOL theorem prover, allows one to prove that concurrent programs do not leak sensitive information. BugsLike any researcher who works on security, my work necessarily involves discovering bugs in software. As somebody who works on tools for proving things about programs (including the presence of bugs), my work not only uncovers bugs in ordinary programs but also bugs in programs that reason about other programs. Below is a list of some bugs I've uncovered in program analysis tools during my research:
TeachingIn 2022, I am teaching:
I previusly taught:
I have also taught half-day courses to industry on topics including:
ServiceI am the coordinator for the Master of IT Cyber Security degree specialisation and am a Research Integrity Advisor. I am also Deputy Director of the Defence Science Institute. I am an Associate Editor for IEEE Security & Privacy and serve on a range of Program Committees (see below). I am a member of IFIP WG 1.7 on Theoretical Foundations of Security Analysis and Design. Steering Committees
Edited Books
Program Committees
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