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 (https://gitlab.com/brown-ssl/). It has been a year of innovation, creativity, and growth—both for the lab and for me personally as its director. Witnessing the passion, dedication, and brilliance of our team—Neophytos Christou, Alexander Gaidis, Marius Momeu, @dijin, and Vaggelis Atlidakis—has been truly fulfilling and inspiring!

In 2024, we tackled complex challenges and made significant strides in advancing our research on software hardening and OS kernel protection. Here are some highlights from this remarkable year:

✳️ Marius Momeu presented #SafeSlab at @acm_ccs #CCS2024. Safeslab hardens the Linux SLUB allocator against exploits that abuse use-after-free (#UaF) vulnerabilities, using #Intel #MPK. (Joint work with Technical University of Munich and @mikepo.)
📄 https://cs.brown.edu/~vpk/papers/safeslab.ccs24.pdf
💾 https://github.com/tum-itsec/safeslab

✳️ Neophytos Christou presented #Eclipse at @acm_ccs #CCS2024. Eclipse is a compiler-assisted framework that propagates artificial data dependencies onto sensitive data, preventing the CPU from using attacker-controlled input during speculative execution.
📄 https://cs.brown.edu/~vpk/papers/eclipse.ccs24.pdf
💾 https://gitlab.com/brown-ssl/eclipse

✳️ Di Jin presented #BeeBox at the @usenixassociation Security Symposium 2024. BeeBox hardens #Linux BPF/eBPF against transient execution attacks. #usesec24
📄 https://cs.brown.edu/~vpk/papers/beebox.sec24.pdf
💾 https://gitlab.com/brown-ssl/beebox

✳️ Yaniv David presented #Quack at the NDSS Symposium 2024. Quack hardens PHP code against deserialization attacks using a novel (static) duck typing-based approach. (Joint work with Andreas D Kellas and Junfeng Yang.) #NDSSsymposium2024
📄 https://cs.brown.edu/~vpk/papers/quack.ndss24.pdf
💾 https://github.com/columbia/quack

✳️ Marius Momeu presented #ISLAB at @ACM #ASIACCS24. ISLAB hardens SLAB-based (kernel) allocators, against memory errors, via SMAP-assisted isolation. (Joint work with Technical University of Munich and @mikepo.) #asiaccs
📄 https://cs.brown.edu/~vpk/papers/islab.asiaccs24.pdf
💾 https://github.com/tum-itsec/islab

🏆 #EPF (presented by Di Jin at @usenixassociation #ATC 2023) was the runner-up for the "Bug of the Year" award ("Weirdest Machine" category) at IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy LangSec (Language-Theoretic Security) workshop 2024! #atc23 #LangSec
⌨️ https://langsec.org/spw24/bugs-of-the-year-awards.html
📄 https://cs.brown.edu/~vpk/papers/epf.atc23.pdf
💾 https://gitlab.com/brown-ssl/epf

🏅 I am honored and delighted to have received the "Distinguished Reviewer Award" at @acm_ccs #CCS2024!

🏅Alexander Gaidis has been awarded the "Distinguished Artifact Reviewer" award at the @usenixassociation Security Symposium 2024!
https://cs.brown.edu/news/2024/09/20/brown-cs-phd-student-alexander-j-gaidis-has-been-named-a-usenix-security-2024-distinguished-artifact-reviewer/
#usesec24 #proudadvisor

📢 I had the great pleasure of discussing some of these works recently at the Computer Systems Seminar at Boston University!
📽️ https://www.bu.edu/rhcollab/events/bu-systems-bu%E2%99%BAs-seminar/

#brownssl #browncs 🚀

Lukas Lamster presented his paper “Voodoo: Memory Tagging, Authenticated Encryption, and Error Correction through MAGIC”.
Find out more: https://www.usenix.org/system/files/usenixsecurity24-lamster.pdf
#usesec24 #USENIX2024

Earlier this month @notbobbytables and @lavados travelled through North America giving talks at Blackhat, Intel and lately USENIX, where they were joined by fellow researchers Lukas Maar and Lukas Lamster!
#BHUSA #usesec24 #USENIX2024

Random toot mentioning USENIX Security 2024, because nobody else seems to drop anything about it?
#usesec24

(And I thought the output during #soups2024 was low... )

My student, Fangfei Yang will be presenting our work on the Endokernel, secure in process-monitor at @USENIXSecurity '24 today (Aug. 14, 11:15pm Track 3)! #usesec24

Work with: Anjo, Bumjin Im, Weijie Huang, Kelly Kaoudis, Chia-Che Tsai

https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity24/presentation/yang-fangfei

https://github.com/endokernel/endokernel-paper-ver

📢 @dijin will be presenting our work on hardening #Linux (e)BPF against transient execution attacks at @usenixsecurity '24 tomorrow (Aug. 14, 1:45pm Track 2 -- "Side Channel I: Transient Execution")! Joint work with Alexander J. Gaidis. Paper: https://cs.brown.edu/~vpk/papers/beebox.sec24.pdf | Artifact: https://gitlab.com/brown-ssl/beebox | #brownssl #beebox #ebpf #bpf #usesec24

Also, don't miss out our awesome talks on an extensive and collaboratively growing survey of intrusion detection datasets at #cset on Tuesday (https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.02521) and how to evade and detect evasions of SIEM rules at #usesec24 on Friday (https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.10197).
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Arrived in wonderful Philly to attend #usesec24 and #cset. If you are around come by and discuss any cool topics related to security of industrial networks / cyber-physical systems / IoT and/or intrusion detection (or simply to say hi to Spicy, our group mascot).
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USENIX Security (https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity23):

Today is the day! Papers for the USENIX Security '24 Summer deadline are due today, Tuesday, June 6. View the CFP and send in your submission now: https://t.co/oNrC6sA8Ql #usesec24 https://t.co/y0OwYVybra

USENIX Security (https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity23):

Tomorrow--Tuesday, June 6--is the Summer deadline for papers for USENIX Security '24! View the CFP and send in your submission now: https://t.co/oNrC6sA8Ql #usesec24 https://t.co/ZqSo6N275f

USENIX Security (https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity23):

Three days until the USENIX Security '24 Call for Papers Summer deadline on Tuesday, June 6. Submit your work to USENIX Security '24 today: https://t.co/oNrC6sA8Ql #usesec24 https://t.co/PGQsHfonnu

USENIX Security (https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity23):

The Summer deadline for the USENIX Security '24 Call for Papers is one week away! Submit your papers by Tuesday, June 6. View the CFP for more info: https://t.co/oNrC6sA8Ql #usesec24 https://t.co/gJ3ZBBHqSC

USENIX Security (https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity23):

The Summer deadline for the USENIX Security '24 Call for Papers is coming up on Tuesday, June 6. View the Call for Papers and make plans to submit your work: https://t.co/oNrC6sA8Ql #usesec24 https://t.co/D8XFr7m5Fm

USENIX Security (https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity23):

You have two weeks left to prepare your papers for the Summer submission deadline for USENIX Security '24 on Tuesday, June 6. View the Call for Papers: https://t.co/oNrC6sA8Ql #usesec24 https://t.co/PETn4m1SfY

USENIX Security (https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity23):

Consider submitting your work to USENIX Security '24! The Call for Papers Summer deadline is coming up on Tuesday, June 6. View the CFP and make plans to submit your work: https://t.co/oNrC6sA8Ql #usesec24 https://t.co/GtBIZKD7qu

USENIX Security (https://www.usenix.org/conference/usenixsecurity23):

Just three weeks remain until the Call for Papers Summer deadline for USENIX Security '24! Make plans to submit your papers by Tuesday, June 6. https://t.co/oNrC6sA8Ql #usesec24 https://t.co/3nTLogooSe