Hammad Mazhar

PhD, University of Iowa, 2023
Area of Study: Computer Science

BSc, Lahore Institution of Management Sciences, 2016
Area of Study: Computer Science

Assistant Professor, University of Northern Colorado
Mathematical Sciences (2024–Present)

Co-Instructor, University of Iowa
Department of Computer Science (2023)

Graduate Research Assistant, The University of Iowa
Department of Computer Science (2016–2023)

Security Research Intern, Minim Inc.
(2019)

Graduate Teaching Assistant, The University of Iowa
Department of Computer Science (2022-2023, 2019, 2017)

Research Assistant, Lahore University of Management Sciences
Department of Computer Science (2014–2016)

Teaching Assistant, Lahore University of Management Sciences
Department of Computer Science (2014–2016)

Usable Policy Enforcement in IoT

I’m interested in understanding how policy enforcement in IoT systems can be improved from a usable security standpoint. This involves understanding the frictions experienced by users in defining effective policies for use in their IoT systems.

Areas of Interest

IoT Systems, Security, Privacy, Formal Verification

My current research focuses on resolving security and privacy issues in programmable IoT systems such as smart homes. My thesis proposed the safety problem in programmable IoT systems with a formal definition and proposes a tractable solution using a platform-agnostic policy-enforcement system (WiSec 2023). My prior research encompasses a wide range of work such as studying insecure Wi-Fi configurations (CCS 2021), a study on smart home IoT traffic in the wild (IoTDI 2020), video QoE monitoring for encrypted video streaming (INFOCOM 2018).

• WiSec Maverick: An App-independent and Platform-agnostic Approach to Enforce Policies in IoT Systems at Runtime. M. Hammad Mazhar, Li Li, Endadul Hoque, Omar Chowdhury ACM Conference on Security and Privacy of Wireless Networks (WiSec), Surrey, United Kingdom, 2023
• CCS All your credentials are belong to us: On Insecure WPA2-Enterprise Configurations Man Hong Hue, Joyanta Debnath, Kin Man Leung, Li Li, Mohsen Minaei, M. Hammad Mazhar, Kailiang Xian, Endadul Hoque, Omar Chowdhury, Sze Yiu Chau ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), Virtual, 2021
• IoTDI Characterizing Smart Home IoT Traffic in the Wild M. Hammad Mazhar, Zubair Shafiq ACM/IEEE Internet of Things Design and Implementation (IoTDI), Sydney, Australia, 2020
• INFOCOM Real Time Video Quality of Experience Monitoring for HTTPS and QUIC M. Hammad Mazhar, Zubair Shafiq IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM) , Honolulu, 2018