Myself

In everything I do, I am driven by curiosity, passion, and ambition to pursue excellence by addressing challenging and interesting problems with a combination of creative thinking and rigorous methodology, with the ultimate goal of having fun. I am always learning and growing as an individual, and I will continue to develop my skills and my passions for years to come.

Short Work Bio

Professionally speaking, I am a cyber-security researcher focusing on practical aspects of systems cyber-security. I analyse potential attacks at various architectural levels, and in different environments, and propose countermeasures for them. My recent work investigates the arms-race and evasion strategies among malware and anti-malware. I hold a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Pisa, with a dissertation on enforcing security properties of programs via introspection. My professional experience in cyber-security spans across academia (University of Pisa, Imperial College, and Royal Holloway University of London), in research centers (Italian National Research Center) and in industry (Finmatica, IBM, and Huawei).

Work News

I am member of the steering committee of 2nd ACM Workshop on Robust Malware Analysis (WoRMA).

Our paper, "Evaluating Anti-Virus Effectiveness in Linux", has been presented at 2022 IEEE International Conference on Big Data! Authors: Giuseppe Raffa, Daniele Sgandurra, Daniel O'Keeffe. The paper is available here.

Our paper, "Active TLS Stack Fingerprinting: Characterizing TLS Server Deployments at Scale", has been awarded the Best Paper Award at Network Traffic Measurement and Analysis Conference (TMA) 2022! Authors: Sosnowski, Markus; Zirngibl, Johannes; Sattler, Patrick; Carle, Georg; Grohnfeldt, Claas; Russo, Michele; Sgandurra, Daniele. The paper preprint is available here.

Our research Alexa versus Alexa: Controlling Smart Speakers by Self-Issuing Voice Commands" has been featured on The Register, on Ars Technica and on Wired.it! See also our informational website.

Our paper "Alexa versus Alexa: Controlling Smart Speakers by Self-Issuing Voice Commands" has been accepted at AsiaCCS 2022! Authors: Sergio Esposito, Daniele Sgandurra, Giampaolo Bella. The paper preprint is available here.

Our research "RansomClave: Ransomware Key Management using SGX" has been featured on The Record by Recorded Future!

Random Stuff

Art: see the beautiful painting View of Heath Street by Night, by Atkinson Grimshaw, visible at the Tate Modern, London.

Music: listen to The Boys Are Back In Town, by Thin Lizzy. (Note that most guitar tabs around are wrong: see here to learn how to play it correctly.)

Quote: "The goal is to be completely present with the note, to become the note - meaning your attention is absorbed in it fully." (Steve Vai, from the Vaideology book).

Fun fact: interested in (useless) fun facts? The 1939 novel Gadsby is the longest book ever published that doesn't contain the letter 'e' (except for the cover of the book that actually contains a few of thEm!).

Paradox: have a look at the exam paradox. (I guess you didn't expect it?)

Funny: "I intend to live forever. So far, so good." (Steven Wright).

Contacts