Vir V. Phoha

Professor

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

4-183 CST

vvphoha@syr.edu

315.443.4404

Degree:

  • Ph.D. Texas Tech University

Research Interests:

  • Cyber Security – Cyber offense and defense
  • Machine Learning
  • Smart phones and tablets security
  • Biometrics — network based and standalone

Current Research:

My focus is to do original research that cuts across conventional rigorously defined disciplines and unifies basic and common concepts across disciplines. In particular, my research centers around security (malignant systems, active authentication, for example touch based authentication on mobile devices) and machine learning (decision trees, statistical, and evolutionary methods) with a focus on large time series data streams and static data sets, and computer networks (anomalies, optimization). I am also using these methods to build field realizable defensive and offensive Cyber-based systems.

Courses Taught:

  • Security and Machine learning; Biometrics
  • Applied Cryptography

Honors:

  • IEEE Fellow
  • AAAS Fellow (elected 2018);  NAI Fellow (elect 2020)
  • IEEE Region 1 Technological Innovation  Award, 2017
  • SDPS Fellow (elected 2010)
  • ACM Distinguished Scientist (elected 2008)
  • ACM Distinguished Speaker (2012-2015)

Selected Publications:

  • Amith K. BelmanVir V. Phoha. Discriminative Power of Typing Features on Desktops, Tablets, and Phones for User Identification.ACM Transactions on Privacy and Security. 23(1): 4:1-4:36 (2020)
  • Jin, Vir V. Phoha and R. Zafarani, “Graph-based Identification and Authentication: A Stochastic Kronecker Approach,” in IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, doi: 10.1109/TKDE.2020.3025989.
  • Li, W. Wang, Y. Gao, Vir V. Phoha and Z. Jin, “Wrist in Motion: A Seamless Context-Aware Continuous Authentication Framework Using Your Clickings and Typings,” in IEEE Transactions on Biometrics, Behavior, and Identity Science, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 294-307, July 2020, doi: 10.1109/TBIOM.2020.2997004.
  • Yang Gao; Wei Wang; Vir V Phoha; Wei Sun; Zhanpeng JinEarEcho: Using Ear Canal Echo for Wearable Authentication.Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (IMWUT), Vol. 3, No. 3, Article 81. Publication date: September 2019. Presented in The 2019 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp 2019), London, UK, September 11-13, 2019.
  • Shukla and Vir V. Phoha, “Stealing Passwords by Observing Hands Movement,” in IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, vol. 14, no. 12, pp. 3086-3101, Dec. 2019, doi: 10.1109/TIFS.2019.2911171.