📢 Honored to return to Yale University last week to speak at the Department of Computer Science colloquium on Operating Systems security -- exactly 10 years after my first talk there on the same topic!

#brownssl #browncs 🧵

📢 Last week, Andreas Kellas presented our work on secure deserialization of pickle-based Machine Learning (ML) models at @acm.org CCS 2025!

#pickleball #mlsec #mlsecops #brownssl #browncs

👏 Kudos to Marius Momeu (leading author) who did a terrific job presenting our paper -- joint work Alexander Gaidis (Brown University) and Jasper von der Heidt (TU Munich).

✳️ Paper: cs.brown.edu/~vpk/papers/...
💾 Code: github.com/tum-itsec/iu... (coming soon)

#brownssl #browncs #ieeesp2025

📢 Last week, Brown Secure Systems Lab (SSL, gitlab.com/brown-ssl) was at the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (S&P) 2025, where we presented our latest work on hardening OS kernels against attacks that (ab)use heap-based memory-safety vulnerabilities.

#brownssl #browncs #ieeesp2025 🧵

✳️ SafeSLAB (ACM CCS 2024: 📄 cs.brown.edu/~vpk/papers/..., 💾 github.com/tum-itsec/sa...) — Kernel heap hardening through memory tagging.

#safeslab #brownssl

✳️ xMP (IEEE S&P 2020: 📄 cs.brown.edu/~vpk/papers/..., 💾 github.com/virtsec/xmp) — Selective intra-kernel memory isolation using hardware-assisted virtualization.

#xmp #brownssl

✳️ EPF (USENIX ATC 2023: 📄 cs.brown.edu/~vpk/papers/..., 💾 gitlab.com/brown-ssl/epf) — Exploiting the (e)BPF sub-system for bypassing modern protections and ways to fix this.

#epf #brownssl

(Joint work with @mikepo.bsky.social, Marius Momeu, Vaggelis Atlidakis, Di Jin, and Sergej Proskurin.)

Contributing to the community—through both research and reviewing—has been one of the most fulfilling aspects of my academic career. Many thanks to the organizers, colleagues, and students who make CCS such a vibrant and rigorous forum for computer security research!

#acm_ccs #browncs #brownssl 🚀

We also show hand-crafted attacks can still bypass CFI built on even the most precise of these call graphs. (8/8)

Joint work with Fabian Monrose and Michalis Polychronakis (@mikepo.bsky.social)!

✳️ Paper: cs.brown.edu/people/vpk/p...
💾 Code: github.com/yufeidu/SoK-...

#woot26 #browncs #brownssl

✳️ Paper: cs.brown.edu/people/vpk/p...
💾 Code: github.com/meghna-panch...

#DIMVA2026 #browncs #brownssl

#IUBIK leverages memory tagging (MTE) and pointer authentication (PA), available in #ARM CPUs, to efficiently and effectively isolate attacker-controlled input from security-critical data in the kernel heap.

#iubik #mte #pac #arm #brownssl #browncs #ieeesp2025

#IUBIK hardens OS kernel code against attacks that (ab)use memory errors via means of: (1) attacker-controlled input isolation, (2) memory tagging (ARM MTE), and pointer encryption (ARM PA).

✳️ cs.brown.edu/~vpk/papers/...
💾 github.com/tum-itsec/iu... (soon)

#iubik #mte #pac #arm #brownssl #browncs

Thank you, Xing Gao and the University of Delaware CIS department for the warm welcome, thoughtful discussions, and the tour of the acclaimed CAR (www.thecarlab.org) lab!

#binwrap #sysfilter #nibbler #brownssl

📢 Last week, I had the pleasure of visiting the beautiful University of Delaware (@udelaware.bsky.social) to speak about supply chain security, and reconnect with friends and colleagues!

#brownssl #browncs 🧵

As we welcome 2025, I'd like to take a moment to reflect on what an extraordinary year 2024 has been for Brown CS Secure Systems Lab (gitlab.com/brown-ssl/).

#brownssl #browncs 🧵