Adil Ahmad

Reliable and Secure Systems Lab
Department of Computer Science
Purdue University

Research

I am a final-year PhD student in the Department of Computer Science @ Purdue (Boiler up!). I am advised by Pedro Fonseca (Purdue University) and Byoungyoung Lee (Seoul National University).

My interests broadly lie within the research domains of computer security, systems, and architecture. Currently, I investigate two complementary approaches to protect sensitive data in remote machines. First, I design techniques to strengthen machines and significantly reduce the likelihood of breaches that leak sensitive data. Second, I build systems that protect sensitive data even afer a machine is compromised. These systems leverage trusted computing hardware (e.g., Intel SGX), while overcoming their shortcomings (e.g., side-channel vulnerabilities).

Updates

• [04/27/2022] I accepted a tenure-track assistant professor position at Arizona State University (ASU). A huge thanks to everyone who supported my job search. Super-excited for this next chapter!
• [03/04/2022] Hardlog, a secure auditing framework for enterprise machines, will appear at IEEE S&P (Oakland) 2022!
• [10/01/2021] Submitted my recent PhD work on side-channel attack prevention at a top-tier conference.
• [08/15/2021] Completed my internship at Microsoft Research. I submitted my internship work at a top-tier conference.
• [07/15/2021] Invited to preview the Operating Systems sessions at USENIX ATC and OSDI 2021.
• [05/13/2021] Began my internship at Microsoft Research Redmond under Sangho Lee and Marcus Peinado.
• [04/23/2021] Presented Kard at ACM ASPLOS 2021.
• [02/27/2021] Presented Chancel at ISOC NDSS 2021.
• [12/22/2020] Chancel, an efficient sandbox for multi-client adversarial programs, will appear at ISOC NDSS 2021!
• [11/22/2020] Kard, a lightweight data race detector, will appear at ACM ASPLOS 2021!
• [11/03/2020] Invited to give a talk at the Microsoft Research Cryptography Colloquium on enabling efficient side-channel secure storage in trusted execution environments such as Intel SGX.
• [05/13/2019] Began my internship at Microsoft Research Redmond under Sangho Lee.
• [02/27/2019] Presented my paper, Obfuscuro, at ISOC NDSS 2019.
• [11/06/2018] Obfuscuro, a system commoditizing obfuscation using Intel SGX, will appear at NDSS 2019!
• [05/07/2018] Began my internship at NEC Labs under Chung Hwan Kim.
• [04/06/2018] My undergraduate thesis on preventing mass internet surveillance through compelled certificate attacks was accepted at SecureComm 2018!
• [02/22/2018] Presented Obliviate at ISOC NDSS 2018. (Video)
• [02/14/2018] Invited to give a talk at the CERIAS Security Seminar on securing file systems in trusted hardware. (Description, Video).
• [10/26/2017] Obliviate, an side-channel-free filesystem compatible with Intel SGX, will appear at NDSS 2018!

Publications

1. Hardlog: Practical Tamper-Proof System Auditing Using a Novel Audit Device (to appear) [paper]
   Adil Ahmad, Sangho Lee, and Marcus Peinado
   IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (Oakland), 2022


2. Chancel: Efficient Multi-client Isolation Under Adversarial Programs [paper] [slides] [video]
   Adil Ahmad, Juhee Kim, Jaebaek Seo, Insik Shin, Pedro Fonseca, and Byoungyoung Lee
   ISOC Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), 2021


3. Kard: Lightweight Data Race Detection with Per-thread Memory Protection [paper] [abstract]
   Adil Ahmad, Sangho Lee, Pedro Fonseca, and Byoungyoung Lee
   ACM International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages (ASPLOS), 2021


4. Shard: Fine-grained Kernel Specialization with Context-aware Hardening [paper] [code]
   Muhammad Abubakar, Adil Ahmad, Pedro Fonseca, and Dongyan Xu
   Usenix Security Symposium (Security), 2021


5. BlackMirror: Preventing wallhacks in 3D Online FPS Games [paper] [slides]
   Seounghyun Park, Adil Ahmad, and Byoungyoung Lee
   ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), 2020


6. Trustore: Side-Channel Resistant Storage for SGX using Intel Hybrid CPU-FPGA [paper] [slides]
   Hyunyoung Oh, Adil Ahmad, Seounghyun Park, Byoungyoung Lee, and Yunheung Park
   ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), 2020


7. A Tale of Two Trees: One Writes, and Other Reads. Optimized Oblivious Accesses to Large-Scale Blockchains [paper] [code] [video]
   Duc V. Le, Lizzy Tengana Hurtado, Adil Ahmad, Mohsen Minaei, Byoungyoung Lee, and Aniket Kate
   Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS), 2020


8. Obfuscuro: A Commodity Obfuscation Engine on Intel SGX [paper] [slides] [code] [video]
   Adil Ahmad*, Byunggill Joe*, Yuan Xiao, Yinqian Zhang, Insik Shin and Byoungyoung Lee
   ISOC Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), 2019
   (* means equal contribution)


9. Obliviate: A Data Oblivious File System for Intel SGX [paper] [slides] [video]
   Adil Ahmad, Kyungtae Kim, Muhammad Ihsanulhaq Sarfaraz and Byoungyoung Lee
   ISOC Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), 2018


10. Detecting and Defending against Compelled Certificate Attacks using Origin-Bound CAPTCHAs [paper]
    Adil Ahmad, Faizan Ahmad, Lei Wei, Vinod Yegneswaran and Fareed Zaffar
    International Conference on Security and Privacy in Communication Networks (SecureComm) 2018

Talks

1. Chancel: Efficient Multi-client Isolation under Adversarial Programs
   Microsoft Research Security Mini-Workshop, Jul. 2021


2. Preview Session: Operating Systems
   USENIX Operating Systems Design and Implementation (OSDI), Jul. 2021 [Video]


3. Kard: Lightweight Data Race Detection with Per-thread Memory Protection
   ACM International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages (ASPLOS), Apr. 2021


4. Side-channel Security in SGX
   Intel Tech Talk, Mar. 2021


5. Chancel: Efficient Multi-client Isolation under Adversarial Programs
   Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), Feb. 2021


6. Side-channel Secure Storage for SGX Enclaves
   Microsoft Research Cryptography Colloquium, Nov. 2020


7. Obfuscuro: A Commodity Obfuscation Engine for Intel SGX
   Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), Feb. 2019 [video]


8. Obliviate: A Data Oblivious File System for Intel SGX
   Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), Feb. 2018 [video]
   CERIAS Security Seminar, West Lafayette, IN, Feb. 2018 [Video]

Contact