Nick Nikiforakis

Department of Computer Science
Stony Brook University
Stony Brook, NY 11794-2424
+1 (631) 632-2464
nick@cs.stonybrook.edu

I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Stony Brook University.

My students and I work on all sorts of practical, hands-on security and privacy. The topics that I have been the most active in are:

  • Measurement and reduction of attack surface in web applications
  • Understanding the abuses of the Domain Name System
  • Identification of security and privacy issues specific to mobile web browsers
  • Measurement of online tracking and countermeasures against it
  • Assessment of the security of remote servers using mostly passive techniques
  • Client-side defense mechanisms against phishing and web application attacks

Downloadable CV

Teaching

 

Spring 2024CSE 361, Web Security
Fall 2023CSE 659, Computer Security Seminar
Spring 2023CSE 361, Web Security
Fall 2022CSE 659, Computer Security Seminar
Spring 2022CSE 361, Web Security
Fall 2021CSE 659, Computer Security Seminar
Spring 2021CSE 361, Web Security
Fall 2020CSE 659, Computer Security Seminar
Spring 2020CSE 659, Computer Security Seminar
Fall 2019CSE 331, Computer Security Fundamentals
Spring 2019CSE 509, System Security
Fall 2018CSE 331, Computer Security Fundamentals
Spring 2018CSE 659, Computer Security Seminar
Fall 2017CSE 361, Web Security
Fall 2016CSE 509, System Security
Spring 2016CSE 659, Computer Security Seminar
Fall 2015CSE 509, System Security
Spring 2015CSE 508, Network Security
Fall 2014CSE 509, System Security

News

 

Septenmber 2024IMC 2024 accepted our paper on ENS dropcatching. Congratulations to Muzammil and Zhengyu!
August 2024Our USENIX Security paper on web application fingerprinting won a Distinguished Paper Award!
 eCrime 2024 accepted our paper on Web3 typosquatting. Congratulations to Muzammil!
May 2024Paper on using deception to protect web applications accepted at DIMVA 2024. Congrats to Billy!
February 2024Our 2022 paper on Certificate Transparency Bots won the NSA Annual Best Scientific Cybersecurity paper award!
September 2023Two papers accepted at IEEE S&P 2024 and NDSS 2024. Congratulations to Chris, Xigao, and Brian!
June 2023Two papers accepted at USENIX Security 2023. Congratulations to Babak and Chris!
January 2023Two papers accepted at WWW 2023. Congratulations to Xigao, Babak, and Johnny!
December 2022Papers on debloating and cryptocurrency scams were accepted at CODASPY and NDSS. Congratulations Babak and Xigao!
August 2022Paper on continuous extension fingerprinting (in collaboration with UIC) was accepted at CCS. Congratulations Kostas and Panos!
May 2022Paper on Certificate Transparency bots was accepted to USENIX Security 2022. Congratulations to Brian and Johnny!
February 2022Paper on extension fingerprinting (in collaboration with UIC) was accepted to USENIX Security 2022. Congratulations Kostas, Panos, and Soroush!
January 2022Paper on post-publication title changes accepted at WWW 2022. Congratulations to Xingzhi and Brian!
November 2021Our work on MITM phishing kits got the 3rd place at the CSAW 2021 Applied Research Competition!
October 2021 Paper on mobile-sandbox evasions accepted to NDSS 2022. Congratulations to Brian and Babak!
August 2021 Paper on residual trust accepted at IEEE S&P 2022. Congratulations to Johnny!
  Year-long study on MITM phishing kits accepted at CCS 2021. Congratulations to Brian and Babak!
February 2021 Paper on deception-augmented authentication accepted at ASIACCS 2021. Congratulations to Tim and Johnny!
  Paper on characterization of web bots accepted at IEEE S&P 2021. Congratulations to Xigao and Babak!
January 2021 Paper accepted from collaboration with CMU at WWW 2021. Congratulations to Meng and Brian!
December 2020 Paper accepted at USENIX Security 2021. Congratulations to Pierre and Oleksii!
  Paper accepted at NDSS 2021. Congratulations to Brian!
April 2020 ONR funded my YIP proposal on monitoring web application updates. Thank you ONR!
  Two papers accepted at DIMVA! Congratulations to Babak, Pierre, and Oleksii!
March 2020 NSF funded my CAREER proposal on ensuring the integrity of web content! Thank you NSF!
  I have been promoted to Associate Professor with tenure.
February 2020 Paper accepted at IEEE S&P (Oakland) 2020. Congratulations Brian!
July 2019 Paper accepted at RAID 2019. Congratulations Tim and Najmeh!
May 2019 Paper accepted at DIMVA 2019. Congrats Pierre!
April 2019 Two papers accepted at USENIX Security 2019!! Congratulations to Babak, Pierre, and Oleksii!
  Paper accepted at AsiaCCS 2019! Congratulations to Najmeh!
January 2019 Paper accepted at WWW 2019!
  Amazon funded our proposal on using cloud services to detect bots. Thank you Amazon!
November 2018 Paper accepted at NDSS 2019!
September 2018 NSF funded our proposal on understanding and detecting malicious web bots. Thank you NSF!
December 2017 Three papers accepted at WWW 2018!
October 2017 Our S&P 2017 paper on malware sandbox evasion is a finalist in the CSAW 2017 competition!
August 2017 Three papers accepted at CCS 2017!
 Paper with Tim accepted at ACSAC 2017!
March 2017 Two papers accepted at IEEE S&P 2017!
  WIRED wrote about our work on technical support scams.
  Our paper on technical support scams received a "Distinguished Paper Award" at NDSS 2017!
Jan 2017 I am the publicity chair of RAID 2017. Don't forget to submit your cool work!
Dec 2016 Two papers accepted at WWW 2017!!
Oct 2016 Papers accepted at EuroS&P and NDSS!
Aug 2016I will be co-chairing eCrime 2017 with Damon McCoy! Consider submitting your best cybercrime work.
Jul 2016Our PETS paper got an Honorable Mention Award at PETS 2016
Jun 2016Our Dagstuhl Workshop on Online Privacy and Web Transparency was accepted!
Jun 2016NSF funded our two proposals on mobile web security and malware. Thank you NSF!
Mar 2016ONR funded our proposals on tripwires and honeypots. Thank you ONR!
Dec 2015Paper with Oleksii and Sharique accepted at WWW 2016!
Oct 2015Paper with Zubair accepted at NDSS 2016!
Jul 2015Paper with Oleksii accepted at PETS 2016!
Jan 2015Our paper got accepted at WWW 2015!
Oct 2014Two papers accepted at NDSS 2015!

Publications

 

    2024

  1. Ready or Not, Here I Come: Characterizing the Security of Prematurely-public Web Applications
    Brian Kondracki, Michael Ferdman, and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC), 2024

  2. Harnessing Multiplicity: Granular Browser Extension Fingerprinting through User Configurations
    Konstantinos Solomos, Nick Nikiforakis, and Jason Polakis
    Proceedings of the Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC), 2024

  3. Panning for gold.eth: Understanding and Analyzing ENS Domain Dropcatching
    Muhammad Muzammil, ZhengYu Wu, Aruna Balasubramanian, and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the Internet Measurement Conference (IMC), 2024

  4. Typosquatting 3.0: Characterizing Squatting in Blockchain Naming Systems
    Muhammad Muzammil, ZhengYu Wu, Lalith Harisha, Brian Kondracki, and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the Symposium on Electronic Crime Research (eCrime), 2024

  5. Smudged Fingerprints: Characterizing and Improving the Performance of Web Application Fingerprinting
    Brian Kondracki and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the USENIX Security Symposium, 2024
    (Distinguished Paper Award)

  6. Knocking on Admin's Door: Protecting Critical Web Applications with Deception
    Billy Tsouvalas and Nick Nikiforakis
    Conference on Detection of Intrusions and Malware & Vulnerability Assessment (DIMVA)

  7. Secrets are forever: Characterizing sensitive file leaks on IPFS
    Zhengyu Wu, Brian Kondracki, Nick Nikiforakis and Aruna Balasubramanian
    International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) Networking Conference (NETWORKING 2024)

  8. Manufactured Narratives: On the Potential of Manipulating Social Media to Politicize World Events
    Chris Tsoukaladelis and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the SecWeb Workshop (SecWeb), 2024
    (Best Paper Award)

  9. The Times They Are A-Changin': Characterizing Post-Publication Changes to Online News
    Chris Tsoukaladelis, Brian Kondracki, Niranjan Balasubramanian, and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (IEEE S&P), 2024
    (Second place, CSAW 2024 competition, social impact award)

  10. Like, Comment, Get Scammed: Characterizing Comment Scams on Media Platforms
    Xigao Li, Amir Rahmati, and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), 2024
    11. (Distinguished Paper Award, CSAW 2024 Finalist)

    2023

  11. AnimateDead: Debloating Web Applications Using Concolic Execution
    Babak Amin Azad, Rasoul Jahanshahi, Christos Tsoukaladelis, Manuel Egele, and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the USENIX Security Symposium, 2023

  12. Minimalist: Semi-automated Debloating of PHP Web Applications through Static Analysis
    Rasoul Jahanshahi, Babak Amin Azad, Nick Nikiforakis, and Manuel Egele
    Proceedings of the USENIX Security Symposium, 2023

  13. The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same: Integrity of Modern JavaScript
    Johnny So, Michael Ferdman, and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the Web Conference (WWW), 2023

  14. Scan Me If You Can: Understanding and Detecting Unwanted Vulnerability Scanning
    Xigao Li, Babak Amin Azad, Amir Rahmati, and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the Web Conference (WWW), 2023

  15. Role Models: Role-based Debloating for Web Applications
    Babak Amin Azad and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Data and Application Security and Privacy (CODASPY), 2023

  16. Double and Nothing: Understanding and Detecting Cryptocurrency Giveaway Scams
    Xigao Li, Anurag Yepuri, and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), 2023

  17. Navigating Murky Waters: Automated Browser Feature Testing for Uncovering Tracking Vectors
    Mir Masood Ali, Binoy Chitale, Mohammad Ghasemisharif, Chris Kanich, Nick Nikiforakis, and Jason Polakis
    Proceedings of the Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), 2023


    18. 2022

  18. Escaping the Confines of Time: Continuous Browser Extension Fingerprinting Through Ephemeral Modifications
    Konstantinos Solomos, Panagiotis Ilia, Nick Nikiforakis, and Jason Polakis
    Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), 2022

  19. Uninvited Guests: Analyzing the Identity and Behavior of Certificate Transparency Bots
    Brian Kondracki, Johnny So, and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security), 2022

  20. The Dangers of Human Touch: Fingerprinting Browser Extensions through User Actions
    Konstantinos Solomos, Panagiotis Ilia, Soroush Karami, Nick Nikiforakis, and Jason Polakis
    Proceedings of USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security), 2022

  21. Verba Volant, Scripta Volant: Understanding Post-publication Title Changes in News Outlets
    Xingzhi Guo, Brian Kondracki, Nick Nikiforakis, and Steven Skiena
    Proceedings of the 31st Web Conference (WWW), 2022

  22. The Droid is in the Details: Environment-aware Evasion of Android Sandboxes
    Brian Kondracki, Babak Amin Azad, Najmeh Miramirkhani, and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the 29th Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), 2022

  23. Domains Do Change Their Spots: Quantifying Potential Abuse of Residual Trust
    Johnny So, Najmeh Miramirkhani, Mike Ferdman, and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (IEEE S&P), 2022

    24. 2021

  24. Catching Transparent Phish: Analyzing and Detecting MITM Phishing Toolkits
    Brian Kondracki, Babak Amin Azad, Oleksii Starov, and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), 2021 (3rd place at the Applied Research Competition, CSAW 2021)

  25. Good Bot, Bad Bot: Characterizing Automated Browsing Activity
    Xigao Li, Babak Amin Azad, Amir Rahmati, and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the 42nd IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (IEEE S&P), 2021

  26. Click This, Not That: Extending Web Authentication with Deception
    Timothy Barron, Johnny So, and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the 16th ACM ASIA Conference on Computer and Communications Security (ASIACCS), 2021

  27. Where are you taking me? Understanding Abusive Traffic Distribution Systems
    Janos Szurdi, Meng Luo, Brian Kondracki, Nick Nikiforakis, and Nicolas Christin
    Proceedings of the 30th Web Conference (WWW), 2021

  28. To Err.Is Human: Characterizing the Threat of Unintended URLs in Social Media
    Beliz Kaleli, Brian Kondracki, Manuel Egele, Nick Nikiforakis, and Gianluca Stringhini
    Proceedings of the 28th Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), 2021

  29. Fingerprinting in Style: Detecting Browser Extensions via Injected Style Sheets
    Pierre Laperdrix, Oleksii Starov, Quan Chen, Alexandros Kapravelos, and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security), 2021


    30. 2020

  30. You've Changed: Detecting Malicious Browser Extensions through their Update Deltas
    Nikolaos Pantelaios, Nick Nikiforakis, and Alexandros Kapravelos
    Proceedings of ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), 2020

  31. Web Runner 2049: Evaluating Third-Party Anti-bot Services
    Babak Amin Azad, Oleksii Starov, Pierre Laperdrix, and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the 17th Conference on Detection of Intrusions and Malware & Vulnerability Assessment (DIMVA), 2020

  32. Taming The Shape Shifter: Detecting Anti-fingerprinting Browsers
    Babak Amin Azad, Oleksii Starov, Pierre Laperdrix, and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the 17th Conference on Detection of Intrusions and Malware & Vulnerability Assessment (DIMVA), 2020

  33. Need for Mobile Speed: A Historical Study of Mobile Web Performance
    Javad Nejati, Meng Luo, Nick Nikiforakis, and Aruna Balasubramanian
    Proceedings of the 4th Network Traffic Measurement and Analysis Conference (TMA), 2020

  34. Meddling Middlemen: Empirical Analysis of the Risks of Data-Saving Mobile Browsers
    Brian Kondracki, Assel Aliyeva, Manuel Egele, Jason Polakis, and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the 41st IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (IEEE S&P), 2020

  35. Complex Security Policy? A Longitudinal Analysis of Deployed Content Security Policies
    Sebastian Roth, Timothy Barron, Stefano Calzavara, Nick Nikiforakis, and Ben Stock
    Proceedings of the 27th Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), 2020

    36. 2019

  36. Now You See It, Now You Don't: A Large-scale Analysis of Early Domain Deletions
    Timothy Barron, Najmeh Miramirkhani, and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the 22nd International Symposium on Research in Attacks, Intrusions and Defenses (RAID), 2019

  37. Less is More: Quantifying the Security Benefits of Debloating Web Applications
    Babak Amin Azad, Pierre Laperdrix, and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the 28th USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security), 2019

  38. Everyone is Different: Client-side Diversification for Defending Against Extension Fingerprinting
    Erik Trickel, Oleksii Starov, Alexandros Kapravelos, Nick Nikiforakis, and Adam Doupé
    Proceedings of the 28th USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security), 2019

  39. Morellian Analysis for Browsers: Making Web Authentication Stronger With Canvas Fingerprinting
    Pierre Laperdrix, Gildas Avoine, Benoit Baudry, and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the 16th Conference on Detection of Intrusions and Malware & Vulnerability Assessment (DIMVA), 2019

  40. Purchased Fame: Exploring the Ecosystem of Private Blog Networks
    Tom Van Goethem, Najmeh Miramirkhani, Wouter Joosen, and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the 14th ACM ASIA Conference on Computer and Communications Security (ASIACCS), 2019

  41. Unnecessarily Identifiable: Quantifying the fingerprintability of browser extensions due to bloat
    Oleksii Starov, Pierre Laperdrix, Alexandros Kapravelos, and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the Web Conference (WWW), 2019

  42. Time Does Not Heal All Wounds: A Longitudinal Analysis of Security-Mechanism Support in Mobile Browsers
    Meng Luo, Pierre Laperdrix, Nima Honarmand, and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the 26th Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), 2019

    43. 2018

  43. PrivacyMeter: Designing and Developing a Privacy-Preserving Browser Extension
    Oleksii Starov and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the 10th International Symposium on Engineering Secure Software and Systems (ESSoS) 2018

  44. Panning for gold.com: Understanding the dynamics of domain dropcatching
    Najmeh Miramirkhani, Timothy Barron, Michael Ferdman, and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the Web Conference (WWW), 2018

  45. Betrayed by Your Dashboard: Discovering Malicious Campaigns via Web Analytics
    Oleksii Starov, Yuchen Zhou, Xiao Zhang, Najmeh Miramirkhani, and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the Web Conference (WWW), 2018

  46. Exposing Search and Advertisement Abuse Tactics and Infrastructure of Technical Support Scammers
    Bharat Srinivasan, Athanasios Kountouras, Najmeh Miramirkhani, Monjur Alam, Nick Nikiforakis, Manos Antonakakis, and Mustaque Ahamad
    Proceedings of the Web Conference (WWW), 2018

    47. 2017

  47. Picky Attackers: Quantifying the Role of System Properties on Intruder Behavior
    Timothy Barron and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC), 2017

  48. Hindsight: Understanding the Evolution of UI Vulnerabilities in Mobile Browsers
    Meng Luo, Oleksii Starov, Nima Honarmand, and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the 24th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), 2017

  49. The Wolf of Name Street: Hijacking Domains Through Their Nameservers
    Thomas Vissers, Timothy Barron, Tom Van Goethem, Wouter Joosen, and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the 24th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), 2017

  50. Hiding in Plain Sight: A Longitudinal Study of Combosquatting Abuse
    Panagiotis Kintis, Najmeh Miramirkhani, Charles Lever, Yizheng Chen, Rosa Romero-Gomez, Nikolaos Pitropakis,
    Nick Nikiforakis, and Manos Antonakakis
    Proceedings of the 24th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), 2017

  51. XHOUND: Quantifying the Fingerprintability of Browser Extensions
    Oleksii Starov and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the 38th IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (IEEE S&P), 2017

  52. Spotless Sandboxes: Evading Malware Analysis Systems using Wear-and-Tear Artifacts
    Najmeh Miramirkhani, Mahathi Priya Appini, Nick Nikiforakis and Michalis Polychronakis
    Proceedings of the 38th IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (IEEE S&P), 2017
    (CSAW 2017 Finalist)

  53. Extended Tracking Powers: Measuring the Privacy Diffusion Enabled by Browser Extensions
    Oleksii Starov and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the 26th International World Wide Web Conference (WWW), 2017

  54. What's in a Name? Understanding Profile Name Reuse on Twitter
    Enrico Mariconti, Jeremiah Onaolapo, Sharique Ahmad, Nicolas Nikiforou, Manuel Egele, Nick Nikiforakis and Gianluca Stringhini
    Proceedings of the 26th International World Wide Web Conference (WWW), 2017

  55. Block Me If You Can: A Large-Scale Study of Tracker-Blocking Tools
    Georg Merzdovnik, Markus Huber, Damjan Buhov, Nick Nikiforakis, Sebastian Neuner, Martin Schmiedecker, Edgar Weippl
    Proceedings of the 2nd IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy (IEEE EuroS&P), 2017

  56. Dial One for Scam: A Large-Scale Analysis of Technical Support Scams
    Najmeh Miramirkhani, Oleksii Starov, and Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the 24th Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), 2017
    57. (Distinguished Paper Award)

    2016

  57. Why Allowing Profile Name Reuse Is A Bad Idea
    Enrico Mariconti, Jeremiah Onaolapo, Syed Sharique Ahmad, Nicolas Nikiforou, Manuel Egele, Nick Nikiforakis, and Gianluca Stringhini
    Proceedings of the 9th European Workshop on System Security (EUROSEC), 2016

  58. No Honor Among Thieves: A Large-Scale Analysis of Malicious Web Shells
    Oleksii Starov, Johannes Dahse, Syed Sharique Ahmad, Thorsten Holz, Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the 25th International World Wide Web Conference (WWW), 2016

  59. It's Free for a Reason: Exploring the Ecosystem of Free Live Streaming Services
    Zubair Rafique, Tom Van Goethem, Wouter Joosen, Christophe Huygens, Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the 23rd Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), 2016

  60. Are You Sure You Want to Contact Us? Quantifying the Leakage of PII via Website Contact Forms
    Oleksii Starov, Phillipa Gill, Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the 16th Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS), 2016
    (Honorable mention)

    61. 2015

  61. The Clock is Still Ticking: Timing Attacks in the Modern Web
    Tom Van Goethem, Wouter Joosen, Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the 22nd ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), 2015

  62. Maneuvering Around Clouds: Bypassing Cloud-based Security Providers
    Thomas Vissers, Tom Van Goethem, Wouter Joosen, Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the 22nd ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), 2015

  63. Drops for Stuff: An Analysis of Reshipping Mule Scams
    Shuang Hao, Kevin Borgolte, Nick Nikiforakis, Gianluca Stringhini, Manuel Egele, Michael Eubanks, Brian Krebs, Giovanni Vigna
    Proceedings of the 22nd ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), 2015

  64. PriVaricator: Deceiving fingerprinters with Little White Lies
    Nick Nikiforakis, Wouter Joosen, Benjamin Livshits
    Proceedings of the 24th International World Wide Web Conference
    (WWW 2015)

  65. Parking Sensors: Analyzing and Detecting Parked Domains
    Thomas Vissers, Wouter Joosen, Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the 22nd Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS 2015)

  66. Seven Months' Worth of Mistakes: A Longitudinal Study of Typosquatting Abuse
    Pieter Agten, Wouter Joosen, Frank Piessens, Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the 22nd Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS 2015)

    67. 2014

  67. Soundsquatting: Uncovering the use of homophones in domain squatting
    Nick Nikiforakis, Marco Balduzzi, Lieven Desmet, Frank Piessens, Wouter Joosen
    Proceedings of the 17th Information Security Conference (ISC 2014), Hong Kong (Best Paper Award)

  68. Clubbing Seals: Exploring the Ecosystem of Third-party Security Seals
    Tom Van Goethem, Frank Piessens, Wouter Joosen, Nick Nikiforakis
    Proceedings of the 21st ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS 2014), Scottsdale, Arizona, USA


  69. Security Analysis of the Chinese Web: How well is it protected?
    Ping Chen, Nick Nikiforakis, Lieven Desmet, Christoph Huygens
    Workshop of Cyber Security Analytics and Automation
    (SafeConfig 2014), Scottsdale, Arizona, USA

  70. Crying Wolf? On the Price Discrimination of Online Airline Tickets
    Thomas Vissers, Nick Nikiforakis, Nataliia Bielova, Wouter Joosen
    Workshop on Hot Topics in Privacy Enhancing Technologies
    (HotPETs 2014), Amsterdam, Netherlands

  71. Secure multi-execution of web scripts: Theory and practice
    Willem De Groef, Dominique Devriese, Nick Nikiforakis, Frank Piessens
    Journal of Computer Security

  72. Large-scale Security Analysis of the Web: Challenges and Findings
    Tom Van Goethem, Ping Chen, Nick Nikiforakis, Lieven Desmet, Wouter Joosen
    Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Trust & Trustworthy Computing
    (TRUST 2014), Heraklion, Crete, Greece

  73. Monkey-in-the-browser: Malware and vulnerabilities in augmented browsing script markets
    Steven Van Acker, Nick Nikiforakis, Lieven Desmet, Frank Piessens, Wouter Joosen
    Proceedings of the 9th ACM Symposium on Information, Computer and Communications Security (ASIACCS 2014), Kyoto, Japan

  74. Stranger Danger: Exploring the Ecosystem of Ad-based URL Shortening Services
    Nick Nikiforakis, Federico Maggi, Gianluca Stringhini, M Zubair Rafique, Wouter Joosen, Christopher Kruegel, Frank Piessens, Giovanni Vigna, Stefano Zanero
    Proceedings of the 23rd International World Wide Web Conference (WWW 2014), Seoul, Korea

    75. 2013

  75. A Dangerous Mix: Large-scale analysis of mixed-content websites
    Ping Chen, Nick Nikiforakis, Lieven Desmet, Christophe Huygens Proceedings of the 16th Information Security Conference (ISC 2013), Dallas, Texas, USA

  76. FPDetective: Dusting the web for fingerprinters
    Güneş Acar, Marc Juárez Miró, Nick Nikiforakis, Claudia Diaz, Seda Gürses, Frank Piessens, Bart Preneel
    Proceedings of the 20th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS 2013), Berlin, Germany (Runner up for 2015 Caspar Bowden PET award)

  77. HeapSentry: Kernel-assisted Protection against Heap Overflows
    Nick Nikiforakis, Frank Piessens, Wouter Joosen Proceedings of the 10th Conference on Detection of Intrusions and Malware & Vulnerability Assessment (DIMVA 2013), Berlin, Germany

  78. Bitsquatting: Exploiting bit-flips for fun, or profit?
    Nick Nikiforakis, Steven Van Acker, Wannes Meert, Lieven Desmet, Frank Piessens, Wouter Joosen
    Proceedings of the 22nd International World Wide Web Conference (WWW 2013), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

  79. Cookieless Monster: Exploring the Ecosystem of Web-based Device Fingerprinting
    Nick Nikiforakis, Alexandros Kapravelos, Wouter Joosen, Christopher Kruegel, Frank Piessens, Giovanni Vigna Proceedings of the 34th IEEE Symposium of Security and Privacy (IEEE S&P 2013), San Francisco, CA, USA

  80. TabShots: Client-side detection of tabnabbing attacks
    Philippe De Ryck, Nick Nikiforakis, Lieven Desmet, Wouter Joosen
    Proceedings of the 8th ACM Symposium on Information, Computer and Communications Security (ASIACCS 2013), Hangzhou, China

    81. 2012

  81. You Are What You Include: Large-scale Evaluation of Remote JavaScript Inclusions
    Nick Nikiforakis, Luca Invernizzi, Alexandros Kapravelos, Steven Van Acker, Wouter Joosen, Christopher Kruegel, Frank Piessens and Giovanni Vigna
    Proceedings of the 19th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS 2012), Raleigh, NC, USA

  82. FlowFox: a Web Browser with Flexible and Precise Information Flow Control
    Willem De Groef, Dominique Devriese, Nick Nikiforakis, and Frank Piessens
    Proceedings of the 19th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS 2012), Raleigh, NC, USA

  83. There is Safety in Numbers: Preventing Control-Flow Hijacking by Duplication
    Job Noorman, Nick Nikiforakis, and Frank Piessens
    Proceedings of the 17th Nordic Conference on Secure IT Systems (NordSec 2012), Karlskrona, Sweden

  84. DEMACRO: Defense against Malicious Cross-domain Requests
    Sebastian Lekies, Nick Nikiforakis, Walter Tighzert, Frank Piessens and Martin Johns
    Proceedings of the 15th International Symposium on Research In Attacks, Intrusions and Defenses (RAID 2012), Amsterdam, The Netherlands

  85. Serene: Self-Reliant Client-Side Protection against Session Fixation
    Philippe De Ryck, Nick Nikiforakis, Lieven Desmet, Frank Piessens and Wouter Joosen
    Proceedings of the 7th International Federated Conference on Distributed Computing Techniques (DAIS 2012), Stockholm, Sweden

  86. Exploring the Ecosystem of Referrer-Anonymizing Services
    Nick Nikiforakis, Steven Van Acker, Frank Piessens and Wouter Joosen
    Proceedings of the 12th Privacy Enhancing Technology Symposium (PETS 2012), Vigo, Spain

  87. Recent Developments in Low-Level Software Security
    Pieter Agten, Nick Nikiforakis, Raoul Strackx, Willem De Groef and Frank Piessens
    Proceedings of the 6th Workshop in Information Security Theory and Practice (WISTP 2012), London, UK

  88. FlashOver: Automated Discovery of Cross-site Scripting Vulnerabilities in Rich Internet Applications
    Steven Van Acker, Nick Nikiforakis, Lieven Desmet, Wouter Joosen and Frank Piessens
    Proceedings of the 7th ACM Symposium on Information, Computer and Communications Security (ASIACCS 2012), Seoul, South Korea

  89. HyperForce: Hypervisor-enForced Execution of Security-Critical Code
    Francesco Gadaleta, Nick Nikiforakis, Jan Tobias Muhlberg and Wouter Joosen
    Proceedings of the 27th IFIP International Information Security and Privacy Conference (IFIP SEC 2012), Heraklion, Crete, Greece

    90. 2011

  90. RIPE: Runtime Intrusion Prevention Evaluator
    John Wilander, Nick Nikiforakis, Yves Younan, Mariam Kamkar and Wouter Joosen
    Proceedings of the 27th Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC 2011), Orlando, US

  91. Hello rootKitty: A lightweight invariance-enforcing framework
    Francesco Gadaleta, Nick Nikiforakis, Yves Younan and Wouter Joosen
    Proceedings of the 14th Information Security Conference (ISC 2011), Xi'an, China

  92. Abusing Locality in Shared Web Hosting
    Nick Nikiforakis, Wouter Joosen and Martin Johns in Proceedings of the 4th European Workshop on System Security (EuroSec 2011), Salzburg, Austria

  93. Exposing the Lack of Privacy in File Hosting Services
    Nick Nikiforakis, Marco Balduzzi, Steven Van Acker, Wouter Joosen and Davide Balzarotti in Proceedings of the 4th USENIX Workshop on Large-scale Exploits and Emergent Threats (LEET 2011), Boston, US

  94. SessionShield: Lightweight Protection against Session Hijacking
    Nick Nikiforakis,Wannes Meert, Yves Younan, Martin Johns and Wouter Joosen in Proceedings of the 3rd International Symposium on Engineering Secure Software and Systems (ESSoS 2011), Madrid, Spain

    95. 2010 and earlier

  95. ValueGuard: Protection of native applications against data-only buffer overflows
    Steven Van Acker, Nick Nikiforakis, Pieter Philippaerts, Yves Younan and Frank Piessens in Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Information Systems Security (ICISS 2010), Gujarat, India

  96. HProxy: Client-side detection of SSL stripping attacks
    Nick Nikiforakis, Yves Younan and Wouter Joosen
    Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Detection of Intrusions and Malware, and Vulnerability Assessment, DIMVA 2010, Bonn, Germany


  97. Monitoring three National Research Networks for Eight Weeks: Observations and Implications
    Demetris Antoniades, Michalis Polychronakis, Nick Nikiforakis, Evangelos P. Markatos, Yiannis Mitsos in the 6th IEEE Workshop on End-to-End Monitoring Techniques and Services (E2EMon). April 2008, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil.

  98. Alice, what did you do last time? Fighting Phishing Using Past Activity Tests
    Nikos Nikiforakis, Andreas Makridakis, Elias Athanasopoulos, and Evangelos P. Markatos in Proceedings of the 3rd European Conference on Computer Network Defense (EC2ND). October 2007, Heraklion, Greece.

    Content Integrity and Residual Trust


    Deception and Honeypots


    Attack Surface Measurement and Reduction


    Browser Fingerprinting


    Mobile Web Browsers


    Online tracking and privacy


    DNS security


    Malicious advertising and cybercrime


    Attacks and Forensics


    Security Measurements


    Countermeasures for the web


    Low-level Security

Magazine Articles

 

  1. Protected Web Components: Hiding Sensitive Information in the Shadows
    Philippe De Ryck, Nick Nikiforakis, Lieven Desmet, Frank Piessens, Wouter Joosen in IEEE IT Pro magazine, January/February 2015

  2. Browse at your own risk
    Nick Nikiforakis and Gunes Acarin in IEEE Spectrum, Volume 41, Issue 8, August 2014

  3. On the Workings and Current Practices of Web-based Device Fingerprinting
    Nick Nikiforakis, Alexandros Kapravelos, Wouter Joosen, Christopher Kruegel, Frank Piessens, Giovanni Vigna in IEEE Security & Privacy Magazine, Issue 99, 2013

  4. Direct Object Reference or, How a Toddler can hack your Web application
    Nick Nikiforakis in Hackin9, Volume 1, Number 3, 2011

  5. IPv6 Resiliency Study
    Sotiris Ioannidis,George Apostolopoulos, Kostas Anagnostakis, Nick Nikiforakis, Andreas Makridakis and Charalampos Gkikas with the collaboration of ENISA STA staff

Service

 

Program Committee Chair

  • PC co-chair of Information Security Conference (ISC): 2024
  • Track co-chair (Web Security) at the Web Conference (WWW): 2024
  • Track chair (Web Security) at Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS): 2023
  • Workshop on Active Defense and Deception (AD&D), co-chair with Merve Sahin and Timothy Barron: 2023
  • Workshop on Active Defense and Deception (AD&D), co-chair with Merve Sahin and Timothy Barron: 2022
  • Workshop on Measurements, Attacks, and Defenses for the Web (MADWeb), co-chair with Alexandros Karpavelos and
    Oleksii Starov: 2020
  • Security, Privacy, and Trust track of The Web Conference (WWW), co-chair with Bruno Crispo: 2020
  • Workshop on Measurements, Attacks, and Defenses for the Web (MADWeb), co-chair with Alexandros Karpavelos: 2019
  • Symposium on Electronic Crime Research (eCrime), co-chair with Gianluca Stringhini: 2018
  • Symposium on Electronic Crime Research (eCrime), co-chair with Damon McCoy: 2017
  • OWASP AppSec Europe - Research Track: 2015

Conference Organization

  • Sponsorship Chair, Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS): 2019
  • Poster Chair, USENIX Security Symposium: 2017
  • Publicity Chair, International Symposium on Research in Attacks, Intrusions and Defenses (RAID): 2017

Program Commitee member

  • Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS): 2018, 2019, 2020, 2025
  • Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS): 2015, 2016, 2017, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2024
  • IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (IEEE S&P): 2019, 2020, 2021, 2023, 2024
  • Conference on Detection of Intrusions and Malware & Vulnerability Assessment (DIMVA): 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023, 2024
  • Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC): 2016, 2017, 2022, 2023
  • IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy (EuroS&P): 2017, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023
  • International World Wide Web Conference (WWW): 2015, 2017, 2018, 2022, 2023
  • SecWeb Workshop: 2021, 2022, 2023
  • USENIX Security Symposium: 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2021, 2022
  • SecWeb Workshop: 2021, 2022
  • European Symposium on Research in Computer Security (ESORICS): 2021
  • Workshop on Technology and Consumer Protection (ConPro): 2019, 2020
  • International Symposium on Research in Attacks, Intrusions and Defenses (RAID): 2019, 2020
  • Information Security Conference (ISC): 2019
  • Symposium on Electronic Crime Research (eCrime): 2016, 2019
  • International Symposium on Engineering Secure Software and Systems (ESSoS): 2015, 2016, 2018
  • ACM ASIA Conference on Information, Computer and Communications Security (AsiaCCS): 2018
  • European Workshop on Usable Security (EuroUSEC): 2017
  • Conference on Data and Application Security and Privacy (CODASPY): 2016, 2017
  • Symposium On Applied Computing (SAC), Security Track : 2017
  • ACM Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks (WiSec): 2015
  • European Workshop on System Security (EuroSec): 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015
  • IEEE International Conference on Embedded and Ubiquitous Computing (EUC): 2014
  • IFIP Conference on Communications and Multimedia Security (CMS): 2012, 2013
  • International Conference on Emerging Ubiquitous Systems and Pervasive Networks (EUSPN): 2013
  • IEEE Workshop on Network Measurements (IEEE WNM): 2013
  • OWASP AppSec Europe 2013 - Research Track (AppSec EU): 2013