Vasileios P. Kemerlis
Email: echo @cs.brown.edu | sed 's/^/vpk/'
Voice: +1 (401) 863-5787
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Department of Computer Science
Brown University

CIT 505
115 Waterman Street, Box 1910
Providence, RI 02912, USA
Segmentation fault (core dumped)
I am an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Brown University. I'm interested in software, hardware, and systems security, with a focus on OS kernel protection, software hardening, fuzz testing, and information flow tracking. I'm also the director of the Secure Systems Lab (SSL) and recipient of the NSF CAREER Award.

[Curriculum Vitae]

Teaching


Publications

Conference Papers

  1. N. Christou, A. J. Gaidis, V. Atlidakis, and V. P. Kemerlis. "Eclipse: Preventing Speculative Memory-error Abuse with Artificial Data Dependencies". 31st ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS). Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, October 2024 (to appear). [Software]
  2. M. Momeu, S. Schnuckel, K. Angnis, M. Polychronakis, and V. P. Kemerlis. "Safeslab: Mitigating Use-After-Free Vulnerabilities via Memory Protection Keys". 31st ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS). Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, October 2024 (to appear). [Software]
  3. D. Jin, A. J. Gaidis, and V. P. Kemerlis. "BeeBox: Hardening BPF against Transient Execution Attacks". 33rd USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Sec). Philadelphia, PA, USA, August 2024. [Software]
  4. M. Momeu, F. Kilger, C. Roemheld, S. Schnuckel, S. Proskurin, M. Polychronakis, and V. P. Kemerlis. "ISLAB: Immutable Memory Management Metadata for Commodity Operating System Kernels". 19th ACM Asia Conference on Computer and Communications Security (ASIA CCS). Singapore, July 2024. [Software]
  5. Y. David, N. Christou, A. D. Kellas, V. P. Kemerlis, and J. Yang. "QUACK: Hindering Deserialization Attacks via Static Duck Typing". 31st Network and Distributed System Security (NDSS) Symposium. San Diego, CA, USA, February 2024. [Software]
  6. A. J. Gaidis, V. Atlidakis, and V. P. Kemerlis. "SysXCHG: Refining Privilege with Adaptive System Call Filters". 30th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS). Copenhagen, Denmark, November 2023. [Software]
  7. A. J. Gaidis, J. Moreira, K. Sun, A. Milburn, V. Atlidakis, and V. P. Kemerlis. "FineIBT: Fine-grain Control-flow Enforcement with Indirect Branch Tracking". 26th International Symposium on Research in Attacks, Intrusions and Defenses (RAID). Hong Kong, HK, October 2023. [Software]
  8. N. Christou, D. Jin, V. Atlidakis, B. Ray, and V. P. Kemerlis. "IvySyn: Automated Vulnerability Discovery for Deep Learning Frameworks". 32nd USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Sec). Anaheim, CA, USA, August 2023. [Software]
  9. D. Jin, V. Atlidakis, and V. P. Kemerlis. "EPF: Evil Packet Filter". 29th USENIX Annual Technical Conference (USENIX ATC). Boston, MA, USA, July 2023. [Software]
  10. G. Christou, G. Ntousakis, E. Lahtinen, S. Ioannidis, V. P. Kemerlis, and N. Vasilakis. "BinWrap: Hybrid Protection against Native Node.js Add-ons". 18th ACM Asia Conference on Computer and Communications Security (ASIA CCS). Melbourne, Australia, July 2023 (Distinguished Paper Award). [Software]
  11. N. Roessler, L. Atayde, I. Palmer, D. McKee, J. Pandey, V. P. Kemerlis, M. Payer, A. Bates, A. DeHon, J. M. Smith, and N. Dautenhahn. "µSCOPE: A Methodology for Analyzing Least-Privilege Compartmentalization in Large Software Artifacts". 24th International Symposium on Research in Attacks, Intrusions and Defenses (RAID). San Sebastian, Spain, October 2021. [Software]
  12. M. T. I. Ziad, M. Arroyo, E. Manzhosov, V. P. Kemerlis, and S. Sethumadhavan. "EPI: Efficient Pointer Integrity for Securing Embedded Systems". 1st IEEE International Symposium on Secure and Private Execution Environment Design (SEED). Worldwide Virtual Event, September 2021.
  13. N. DeMarinis, K. Williams-King, D. Jin, R. Fonseca, and V. P. Kemerlis. "sysfilter: Automated System Call Filtering for Commodity Software". 23rd International Symposium on Research in Attacks, Intrusions and Defenses (RAID). San Sebastian, Spain, October 2020. [Software]
  14. S. Proskurin, M. Momeu, S. Ghavamnia, V. P. Kemerlis, and M. Polychronakis. "xMP: Selective Memory Protection for Kernel and User Space". 41st IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (S&P). San Fransisco, CA, USA, May 2020. [Software]
  15. D. Williams-King, H. Kobayashi, K. Williams-King, G. Patterson, F. Spano, Y. J. Wu, J. Yang, and V. P. Kemerlis. "Egalito: Layout-Agnostic Binary Recompilation". 25th International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems (ASPLOS). Lausanne, Switzerland, March 2020. [Software]
  16. I. Agadakos, D. Jin, D. Williams-King, V. P. Kemerlis, and G. Portokalidis. "Nibbler: Debloating Binary Shared Libraries". 35th Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC). San Juan, Puerto Rico, December 2019. [Software]
  17. N. DeMarinis, S. Tellex, V. P. Kemerlis, G. Konidaris, and R. Fonseca. "Scanning the Internet for ROS: A View of Security in Robotics Research". 36th IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). Montreal, Canada, May 2019.
  18. H. Koo, Y. Chen, L. Lu, V. P. Kemerlis, and M. Polychronakis. "Compiler-assisted Code Randomization". 39th IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (S&P). San Fransisco, CA, USA, May 2018. [Software]
  19. K. Sinha, V. P. Kemerlis, and S. Sethumadhavan. "Reviving Instruction Set Randomization". 9th IEEE International Symposium on Hardware Oriented Security and Trust (HOST). McLean, VA, USA, May 2017.
  20. M. Pomonis, T. Petsios, A. D. Keromytis, M. Polychronakis, and V. P. Kemerlis. "kR^X: Comprehensive Kernel Protection against Just-In-Time Code Reuse". 12th European Conference on Computer Systems (EuroSys). Belgrade, Serbia, April 2017. [Software]
  21. P. Sarbinowski, C. Giuffrida, V. P. Kemerlis, and E. Athanasopoulos. "VTPin: Practical VTable Hijacking Protection for Binaries". 32nd Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC). Los Angeles, LA, USA, December 2016. [Software]
  22. D. Williams-King, G. Gobieski, J. P. Blake, X. Yuan, P. Colp, K. Williams-King, M. Zheng, V. P. Kemerlis, J. Yang, and W. Aiello. "Shuffler: Fast and Deployable Continuous Code Re-Randomization". 12th USENIX Symposium on Operating Systems Design and Implementation (OSDI). Savannah, GA, USA, November 2016.
  23. E. Athanasopoulos, V. P. Kemerlis, G. Portokalidis, and A. D. Keromytis. "NaClDroid: Native Code Isolation for Android Applications". 21st European Symposium on Research in Computer Security (ESORICS). Heraklion, Greece, September 2016.
  24. W. Cui, M. Peinado, S. K. Cha, Y. Fratantonio, and V. P Kemerlis. "RETracer: Triaging Crashes by Reverse Execution from Partial Memory Dumps". 38th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE). Austin, TX, USA, May 2016.
  25. T. Petsios, V. P. Kemerlis, M. Polychronakis, and A. D. Keromytis. "DynaGuard: Armoring Canary-based Protections against Brute-force Attacks". 31st Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC). Los Angeles, LA, USA, December 2015. [Software]
  26. Y. Oren, V. P. Kemerlis, S. Sethumadhavan, and A. D. Keromytis. "The Spy in the Sandbox: Practical Cache Attacks in JavaScript and their Implications". 22nd ACM Computer and Communications Security Conference (CCS). Denver, CO, USA, October 2015.
  27. K. Lu, Z. Li, V. P. Kemerlis, Z. Wu, L. Lu, C. Zheng, Z. Qian, W. Lee, and G. Jiang. "Checking More and Alerting Less: Detecting Privacy Leakages via Enhanced Data-flow Analysis and Peer Voting". 22nd Network and Distributed System Security (NDSS) Symposium. San Diego, CA, USA, February 2015.
  28. V. P. Kemerlis, M. Polychronakis, and A. D. Keromytis. "ret2dir: Rethinking Kernel Isolation". 23rd USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Sec). San Diego, CA, USA, August 2014. [Software]
  29. K. Jee, V. P. Kemerlis, A. D. Keromytis, and G. Portokalidis. "ShadowReplica: Efficient Parallelization of Dynamic Data Flow Tracking". 20th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS). Berlin, Germany, October 2013.
  30. V. Pappas, V. P. Kemerlis, A. Zavou, M. Polychronakis, and A. D. Keromytis. "CloudFence: Data Flow Tracking as a Cloud Service". 16th International Symposium on Research in Attacks, Intrusions and Defenses (RAID). Saint Lucia, October 2013.
  31. M. V. Barbera, V. P. Kemerlis, V. Pappas, and A. D. Keromytis. "CellFlood: Attacking Tor Onion Routers on the Cheap". 18th European Symposium on Research in Computer Security (ESORICS). Egham, UK, September 2013.
  32. A. Zavou, V. Pappas, V. P. Kemerlis, M. Polychronakis, G. Portokalidis, and A. D. Keromytis. "Cloudopsy: an Autopsy of Data Flows in the Cloud". 15th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). Las Vegas, NV, USA, July 2013.
  33. D. Geneiatakis, G. Portokalidis, V. P. Kemerlis, and A. D. Keromytis. "Adaptive Defenses for Commodity Software through Virtual Application Partitioning". 19th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS). Raleigh, NC, USA, October 2012.
  34. V. P. Kemerlis, G. Portokalidis, and A. D. Keromytis. "kGuard: Lightweight Kernel Protection against Return-to-user Attacks". 21st USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Sec). Bellevue, WA, USA, August 2012. [Software]
  35. E. Athanasopoulos, V. P. Kemerlis, M. Polychronakis, and E. P. Markatos. "ARC: Protecting against HTTP Parameter Pollution Attacks Using Application Request Caches". 10th International Conference on Applied Cryptography and Network Security (ACNS). Singapore, June 2012.
  36. V. P. Kemerlis, G. Portokalidis, K. Jee, and A. D. Keromytis. "libdft: Practical Dynamic Data Flow Tracking for Commodity Systems". 8th ACM SIGPLAN/SIGOPS International Conference on Virtual Execution Environments (VEE). London, UK, March 2012. [Software]
  37. K. Jee, G. Portokalidis, V. P. Kemerlis, S. Ghosh, D. I. August, and A. D. Keromytis. "A General Approach for Efficiently Accelerating Software-based Dynamic Data Flow Tracking on Commodity Hardware". 19th Network and Distributed System Security (NDSS) Symposium. San Diego, CA, USA, February 2012.
  38. V. P. Kemerlis, V. Pappas, G. Portokalidis, and A. D. Keromytis. "iLeak: A Lightweight System for Detecting Inadvertent Information Leaks". 6th European Conference on Computer Network Defense (EC2ND). Berlin, Germany, October 2010.
  39. B. M. Bowen, P. Prabhu, V. P. Kemerlis, S. Sidiroglou, A. D. Keromytis, and S. J. Stolfo. "BotSwindler: Tamper Resistant Injection of Believable Decoys in VM-Based Hosts for Crimeware Detection". 13th International Symposium on Recent Advances in Intrusion Detection (RAID). Ottawa, Canada, September 2010.
  40. B. M. Bowen, V. P. Kemerlis, P. Prabhu, A. D. Keromytis, and S. J. Stolfo. "Automating the Injection of Believable Decoys to Detect Snooping". 3rd ACM Conference on Wireless Network Security (WiSec). Hoboken, NJ, USA, March 2010 (short paper).
  41. K. Katsaros, V. P. Kemerlis, C. Stais, and G. Xylomenos. "A BitTorrent Module for the OMNeT++ Simulator". 17th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Modelling, Analysis and Simulation of Computer and Telecommunication Systems (MASCOTS). London, UK, September 2009.
  42. A. Kosmopoulos, I. Karamichali, V. P. Kemerlis, and G. C. Polyzos. "Fueling Game Development in Mobile P2P Environments". 18th IEEE International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC). Athens, Greece, September 2007.
  43. P. A. Frangoudis, V. P. Kemerlis, D. C. Paraskevaidis, E. C. Efstathiou, and G. C. Polyzos. "Experimental Evaluation of Community-Based WLAN Voice and Data Services". 3rd ICST International Mobile Multimedia Communications Conference (MobiMedia). Nafpaktos, Greece, August 2007.
  44. E. G. Giannopoulou, V. P. Kemerlis, M. Polemis, J. Papaparaskevas, A. C. Vatopoulos, and M. Vazirgiannis. "A Large Scale Data Mining Approach to Antibiotic Resistance Surveillance". 20th IEEE International Symposium on Computer-Based Medical Systems (CBMS). Maribor, Slovenia, June 2007.
  45. E. C. Efstathiou, F. A. Elianos, P. A. Frangoudis, V. P. Kemerlis, D. C. Paraskevaidis, E. C. Stefanis, and G. C. Polyzos. "Public Infrastructures for Internet Access in Metropolitan Areas". 1st ICST International Conference on Access Networks (AccessNets). Athens, Greece, September 2006. [Software]
  46. V. P. Kemerlis, E. C. Stefanis, G. Xylomenos, and G. C. Polyzos. "Throughput Unfairness in TCP over WiFi". 3rd IFIP Conference on Wireless On Demand Network Systems and Services (WONS). Les Ménuires, France, January 2006.

Workshop Papers

  1. G. Xylomenos, K. Katsaros, and V. P. Kemerlis. "Peer Assisted Content Distribution over Router Assisted Overlay Multicast". 1st Euro-NF Workshop on Future Internet Architecture (FIA). Paris, France, November 2008.

Journal and Magazine Articles

  1. I. Agadakos, N. DeMarinis, D. Jin, K. Williams-King, J. Alfajardo, B. Shteinfeld, D. Williams-King, V. P. Kemerlis, and G. Portokalidis. "Large-scale Debloating of Binary Shared Libraries". ACM Digital Threats: Research and Practice (DTRAP), 1(4), December 2020. [Software]
  2. M. Pomonis, T. Petsios, A. D. Keromytis, M. Polychronakis, and V. P. Kemerlis. "Kernel Protection against Just-In-Time Code Reuse". ACM Transactions on Privacy and Security (TOPS), 22(1), January 2019. [Software]
  3. V. P. Kemerlis, G. Portokalidis, E. Athanasopoulos, and A. D. Keromytis. "kGuard: Lightweight Kernel Protection". USENIX ;login: Magazine, 37(6), December 2012. [Software]
  4. B. M. Bowen, V. P. Kemerlis, P. Prabhu, A. D. Keromytis, and S. J. Stolfo. "A System for Generating and Injecting Indistinguishable Network Decoys". Journal of Computer Security (JCS), 20(2-3), January 2012.
  5. P. A. Frangoudis, G. C. Polyzos, and V. P. Kemerlis. "Wireless Community Networks: An Alternative Approach for Broadband Nomadic Network Access". IEEE Communications Magazine, 49(5), May 2011.

Non-academic Papers

  1. V. P. Kemerlis. "libdft: Dynamic Data Flow Tracking for the Masses". 38th Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC). Austin, TX, USA, December 2022. [Software]
  2. M. Pomonis, T. Petsios, A. D. Keromytis, M. Polychronakis, and V. P. Kemerlis. "kR^X: Comprehensive Kernel Protection against Just-In-Time Code Reuse". Black Hat USA (BHUSA). Las Vegas, NV, USA, July 2017. [Software]
  3. J. Moreira, S. Rigo, M. Polychronakis, and V. P. Kemerlis. "Drop the ROP: Fine-Grained Control-Flow Integrity for the Linux Kernel". Black Hat Asia (BHASIA). Singapore, March 2017.
  4. V. P. Kemerlis, M. Polychronakis, and A. D. Keromytis. "ret2dir: Rethinking Kernel Isolation". Black Hat Europe (BHEU). Amsterdam, Netherlands, October 2014. [Software]

Demos

  1. E. C. Efstathiou, F. A. Elianos, P. A. Frangoudis, V. P. Kemerlis, D. C. Paraskevaidis, G. C. Polyzos, and E. C. Stefanis. "Practical Incentive Techniques for Wireless Community Networks". 4th ACM/USENIX International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications, and Services (MobiSys). Uppsala, Sweden, June 2006.
  2. E. C. Efstathiou, F. A. Elianos, P. A. Frangoudis, V. P. Kemerlis, D. C. Paraskevaidis, G. C. Polyzos, and E. C. Stefanis. "The Peer-to-Peer Wireless Network Confederation Scheme". 25th IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM). Barcelona, Spain, April 2006.
  3. E. C. Efstathiou, F. A. Elianos, P. A. Frangoudis, V. P. Kemerlis, D. C. Paraskevaidis, G. C. Polyzos, and E. C. Stefanis. "The Peer-to-Peer Wireless Network Confederation Scheme: Protocols, Algorithms, and Services". 2nd ICST International Conference on Testbeds and Research Infrastructures for the Development of Networks and Communities (TridentCom). Barcelona, Spain, March 2006.