About Me

I am an Assistant Professor at IIIT Hyderabad, India. Here, I'm associated with Centre for Security, Theory, and Algorithmic Research (CSTAR). I am the founder and head of the SyPy Security and Privacy Research Group. Previously, I worked as a Post-Doctoral Researcher in Delft Blockchain Lab of TU Delft, Netherlands (advisors: Prof. Zekeriya Erkin and Prof. Stefanie Roos). I was also a DAAD Fellow (host: Prof. Kristof Van Laerhoven) at University of Siegen, Germany, an SSHN Fellow (host: Prof. Daniele Antonioli) at EURECOM, France, a Visiting Research Scholar (host: Prof. Giuseppe Ateniese) at Stevens Institute of Technology, USA. I earned my PhD degree in Brain, Mind, and Computer Science (supervisors: Prof. Mauro Conti and Prof. Anna Spagnolli) from University of Padua, Italy with a fully-funded fellowship by Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Padova e Rovigo (CaRiPaRo). I also hold an MTech degree (supervisor: Prof. Manoj Singh Gaur) in Computer Engineering from MNIT Jaipur, India.

Activities

• Awards/Honours
  • [A10] EU MSCA Seal of Excellence, 2025.
  • [A9] SSHN Fellowship by Institut Français en Inde, 2024.
  • [A8] DAAD AInet Fellowship for Safety and Security in AI, 2024.
  • [A7] Best Paper Award at ACM CODASPY '23, 2023.
  • [A6] Zoox Best Paper Runner-up Award at NDSS-VehicleSec '23, 2023.
  • [A5] DBL Post-doctoral Research Fellowship, 2020.
  • [A4] Exchange Visitor Grant, Stevens Institute of Technology, USA, 2019.
  • [A3] Young Researcher Award (2nd runner-up) at DIGITALmeet '18, 2018.
  • [A2] Intel Student Travel Grant at IEEE NFV-SDN '17, 2017.
  • [A1] Fully-funded CaRiPaRo Doctoral Research Fellowship, 2016.


• Invited Talks
  • [I7] "Intro to DeFi," DeFi 101 @ S&P Global, Online, Global event, June 06, 2022.
  • [I6] "From Crypto to DeFi," S&P Global, Hyderabad, India, April 18, 2022.
  • [I5] "Introduction to Layer-two Blockchains," CS Katha Barta, Bhubaneshwar, India, February 19, 2022.
  • [I4] "Scaling Blockchain with Off-chain Solutions," Workshop on Security & Privacy in Blockchain, Hyderabad, India, February 16, 2022.
  • [I3] "The Infamous Side of Cryptocurrencies," AICTE ATAL FDP on Cyber Security Oversight for Information Protection, Cochin, India, July 12, 2021.
  • [I2] "Modern Ransomware in the Bitcoin Playground," BLOCKCHAIN le sfide della sicurezza nell'era di Bitcoin, Padua, Italy, January 31, 2019.
  • [I1] "Software Defined Networks: An Overview," International Symposium on Future Internet: Security Issues and Opportunities, Padua, Italy, May 10, 2018.


• Program Committee Member
  • ACNS '25, Munich, Germany, June 23-26, 2025.
  • ESORICS '23, Hague, Netherlands, September 25-29, 2023.
  • AISec '23 (in conjunction with ACM CCS '23), Copenhagen, Denmark, November 30, 2023.
  • IEEE ANTS '22, Gandhinagar, India, December 18-21, 2022.


• Research Visits
  • [V4] SSHN Fellow (Host: Prof. Daniele Antonioli) at EURECOM, France, September, 2024.
  • [V3] DAAD Fellow (Host: Prof. Kristof Van Laerhoven) at University of Siegen, Germany, June-July, 2024.
  • [V2] Visiting Researcher (Host: Prof. Mauro Conti) at University of Padua, Italy, May-June, 2023.
  • [V1] Visiting Research Scholar (Host: Prof. Giuseppe Ateniese) at Stevens Institute of Technology, USA, April-October 2019.


• Reviewer
  • Journals: IEEE TIFS, IEEE TDSC, IEEE TNSM, IEEE TSC, ACM TCPS, IEEE Access, Elsevier COMCOM, Elsevier COMNET, Springer IJIS.
  • Conferences: ACM CODASPY '24, IEEE EuroS&P '23, ACNS '23, ACM CODASPY '23, ACM ASIACCS '22, WWW '22, ACNS '22, FC '21, ESORICS '21, ACM CODASPY '21, CANS '21, NDSS '20, ACM ASIACCS '20, ESORICS '20, ACM WiSec '20, IEEE CNS '20, IEEE ISCC '20, ICICS '20, ISC '20, ESORICS '19, WWW '19, ACNS '19, IEEE NFV-SDN '19, IEEE ICC '19 CISS, IEEE ICCE '19, ACM CIKM '18, IEEE NFV-SDN '18, IEEE/ACM ASONAM '18, WISTP '18, IEEE NFV-SDN '17, ICISS '17.
  • Workshops: CBT '23 (in conjunction with ESORICS '23), CBT '22 (in conjunction with ESORICS '22), CBT '20 (in conjunction with ESORICS '20), CPS4CIP '20 (in conjunction with ESORICS '20), CPSS '18 (in conjunction with ACM ASIACCS '18), CyberICPS '18 (in conjunction with ESORICS '18), CPS-Sec '18 (in conjunction with IEEE CNS '18), SPA '17 (in conjunction with IEEE CNS '17).


• Seminars/Guest Lectures
  • [S4] "A Tale of How Good Things Go Bad in Security," IIT Madras, India, March 25, 2025.
  • [S3] "Leaking Credentials from Mobile Password Managers via AutoSpill," EURECOM, France, September 20, 2024.
  • [S2] "Stealing Credentials from Mobile Password Managers," University of Siegen, Germany, July 02, 2024.
  • [S1] "Modern Problems in Modern Mobile OSes," Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, May 31, 2023.
  
  
  • [G5] "Intro to DeFi" in "Advanced Topics in Computer and Network Security" course, University of Padua, Italy, November 10, 2022.
  • [G4] "Introduction to Blockchains" in "Introduction to Information Security" course, Shandong University, China, April 06, 2022.
  • [G3] "A Look at Bitcoin Offshoots" in "Computer and Network Security: Advanced Topics" course, TU Delft, Netherlands, June 02, 2021.
  • [G2] "ABC: Algorand + Bitcoin-apps + Cryptominers" in "Computer and Network Security" course, University of Padua, Italy, November 11, 2020.
  • [G1] "ABC: Algorand + Bitcoin-apps + Cryptominers" in "Computer and Network Security: Advanced Topics" course, TU Delft, Netherlands, May 14, 2020.

Media Coverage

(check also the full list)

Recent/Selected News

• April 2025: Our two poster papers "Disappearing Ink: How Partial Model Extraction Erases Watermarks" and "Investigating Transferability of Adversarial Examples in Model Merging" have been accepted at ACM ASIACCS '25.
• February 2025: I earned EU MSCA Seal of Excellence.
• January 2025: SyPy Security and Privacy Research Group's website is live.
• [News archive]