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Nitesh Saxena - Professor, Computer Science; Associate Director, Global Cyber Research Institute; Dean's Research Fellow 2022-23

Texas A&M University College of Engineering

News

Paper accepted to WiSec 2025

Posted on January 13, 2026 by nsaxena

TrackAR: AR/VR Device Fingerprinting and User-Device Pairing Detection via Shared Motion Sensor Data
Tanvir Ahmed Mahdad, Md Shahidur Rahman and Nitesh Saxena
In the 19th ACM Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks (WiSec), June-July 2026.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Paper accepted to EACL 2026

Posted on January 5, 2026 by Jimmy Dani

  • BitBypass: A New Direction in Jailbreaking Aligned Large Language Models with Bitstream Camouflage
    Kalyan Nakka, Nitesh Saxena
    In the Conference of the European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (EACL) Findings, January 2026

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Paper accepted to USENIX Security 2026

Posted on December 17, 2025 by nsaxena

  • SoK: PHILTER: Uncovering Security and Functional Gaps in AI-based Phishing Website Detection Literature via an LLM-based Reasoning Framework
    Mahbub Alam, Muhammad Lutfor Rahman, Sonjoy Kumar Paul, Amy W. Hays, Aftab Hussain, Md Imanul Huq, and Nitesh Saxena
    In the 35th USENIX Security Symposium, August 2026.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

SPIES Lab Research Cited in News Coverage on AI Security Breach

Posted on December 14, 2025 by Jimmy Dani

SPIES Research Lab’s study, led by Kalyan Nakka, Jimmy Dani and Nitesh Saxena, has been cited in a major South Korean news coverage, featuring a significant AI security incident of LG Uplus’s popular AI calling app “ixi-O”. Our study on the trust and ethics gap in Small Language Models (SLMs) applied to on-device AI, has revealed that SLMs have “much lower reliability than server-based SLMs” and pose “greater risk of leaking personal information”. These findings proved prescient, when “ixi-O” app, promoted as strong on security due to on-device AI, has experienced a data breach affecting dozens of users in South Korea, emphasizing our study’s privacy concerns in on-device AI systems and their real-world impact.

 

Link: https://biz.chosun.com/en/en-it/2025/12/09/LYNFHR3PKJAVDHXP4LWOBIHHXQ/

Read More: arXiv

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized

SPIES Lab Research Featured in TAMU College of Engineering Spotlight

Posted on December 5, 2025 by Jimmy Dani

The Texas A&M University College of Engineering highlighted SPIES Lab’s browser fingerprinting research, emphasizing how websites are stealthily using browser fingerprinting to track users online. The study shows that clearing cookies provides a false sense of security, as websites link unique device signatures to advertising behavior in real time to track users invisibly. To combat this, we developed the FPTrace framework that exposes fingerprint-based tracking practices even under current privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA.

Links:
1. YouTube
2. TAMU College of Engineering (LinkedIn Post)


YouTube video preview

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Paper accepted to IJCNLP-AACL

Posted on October 25, 2025 by nsaxena

  • LiteLMGuard: Seamless and Lightweight On-Device Guardrails for Small Language Models against Quantization Vulnerabilities
    Kalyan Nakka, Jimmy Dani, Ausmit Mondal, Nitesh Saxena
    In the International Joint Conference on Natural Language Processing & Asia-Pacific Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (IJCNLP-AACL) Findings, December 2025
    [pdf]

Filed Under: Uncategorized

TAMU SPIES Lab Wins CCS 2025 Distinguished Paper Award!

Posted on October 20, 2025 by nsaxena

We are delighted to share that our paper, “Harnessing Vital Sign Vibration Harmonics for Effortless and Inbuilt XR User Authentication,” has received the Distinguished Paper Award at the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS) 2025.

This recognition highlights the impact and innovation of our collaborative work, which introduces a novel authentication mechanism leveraging vibration harmonics derived from users’ vital signs within extended reality (XR) systems to enable continuous, effortless, and built-in user verification.

The acceptance rate for CCS 2025 was 13.9% (316 accepted out of 2,278 submissions), and only about 1% of all submitted papers received a Distinguished Paper Award.

Congratulations to the entire team for this outstanding achievement!

#ACMCCS2025 #CyberSecurity #XR #Authentication

Filed Under: Uncategorized

6 out of 7 PhD graduates in past 4 years are in faculty positions

Posted on October 4, 2025 by nsaxena

6 out of 7 of our PhD graduates from the past 4 years have been recruited as faculty members, making the positive difference to the world of academia. Not to say that the 7th one is not a special one too — he is holding the cybersecurity fort at the US government. Truly exceptional pool of students I have been fortunate to work with. 

Those six:

  1. Ahmed Tanvir Mahdad (@TAMU, Fall 2019 to Summer 2025; thesis title “New Frontiers in Authentication and Side Channels in Emerging Platforms: 2FA Attacks, Sensor Exploits and AR/VR Security”; now an Assistant Professor of EECS at Ohio University)
  2. Mashari Alatawi (@TAMU, Spring 2019 to Spring 2024; thesis title “On the Security of End-to-End Encrypted Messaging and Calling Applications”; now an Assistant Professor of Computer Science in the College of Computer and Information Sciences at King Saud University, Saudi Arabia).
  3. Zengrui Liu (@TAMU, Fall 2018 – Fall 2023; thesis title “An Exposition of User Privacy on the Web: Fingerprinting and Tracking”, now an Assistant Professor at College of Information Engineering at the Nanjing University of Finance and Economics, China)
  4. Cagri Arisoy (since Fall 2018 – Fall 2023; thesis title “A Neurophysiological Exploration Of Human Behavior In User-Centered Cybersecurity”, now an Assistant Professor at College Engineering Computer Engineering department at the Yozgat Bozok University. Turkey).
  5. Shalini Saini (@TAMU;  Fall 2019 – Summer 2023; thesis title “Privacy and Security of Emerging Technologies in Changing Healthcare Paradigms”; now an Assistant Professor of the Computer Science and Engineering Technology department at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore)
  6. Anuradha Mandal (@UAB; Fall 2019 – Summer 2022; thesis title “On the Privacy Leakage via Neural Devices”; now a Visiting Assistant Professor to tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Computer Science department at the University at Albany, State University of New York (SUNY)

That one (outlier?):

  1. Payton Walker (@TAMU; Fall 2019 – Summer 2022; thesis title “An Exposition of Speech-based Threats in the Face of Emerging Technology”; now a Researcher and Project Leaer at the MITRE, recruited as part of the National Security Accelerator Program (NSAP))

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Dr. Saxena joins the Editorial Board of ACM AILET

Posted on September 29, 2025 by nsaxena

Journal cover image

acm

ACM AI Letters (AILET) is envisioned to become the premier rapid-publication venue for impactful, concise, and timely communications in AI. Bridging a crucial gap between traditional conferences and journals, ACM AI Letters will feature short peer-reviewed contributions that accelerate knowledge dissemination across academia and industry. This unique publication prioritizes theoretical breakthroughs, algorithmic innovation, practical real-world applications, and critical societal implications, including ethics, policy, and responsible AI. It also introduces a distinctive space for rigorously reviewed opinion pieces and policy briefs, promoting swift engagement with contemporary issues shaping the AI landscape.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Paper accepted to eCrime 2025

Posted on September 9, 2025 by nsaxena

  • Infrastructure Patterns in Toll Scam Domains: A Comprehensive Analysis of Cybercriminal Registration and Hosting Strategies
    Morium Akter Munny, Mahbub Alam, Sonjoy Kumar Paul, Daniel Timko, Muhammad Lutfor Rahman and Nitesh Saxena
    In APWG’s Symposium on Electronic Crime Research (eCrime), November 2025.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

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Recent News

  • Paper accepted to WiSec 2025 January 13, 2026
  • Paper accepted to EACL 2026 January 5, 2026
  • Paper accepted to USENIX Security 2026 December 17, 2025
  • SPIES Lab Research Cited in News Coverage on AI Security Breach December 14, 2025
  • SPIES Lab Research Featured in TAMU College of Engineering Spotlight December 5, 2025
  • Paper accepted to IJCNLP-AACL October 25, 2025
  • TAMU SPIES Lab Wins CCS 2025 Distinguished Paper Award! October 20, 2025
  • 6 out of 7 PhD graduates in past 4 years are in faculty positions October 4, 2025
  • Dr. Saxena joins the Editorial Board of ACM AILET September 29, 2025
  • Paper accepted to eCrime 2025 September 9, 2025
  • Paper accepted to IEEE S&P (Magazine) August 24, 2025
  • Another recent SPIES graduate to take up faculty position August 21, 2025
  • Paper accepted to CSCML 2025 August 13, 2025
  • SPIES graduate to start as Assistant Professor July 22, 2025
  • Paper accepted to ACM CCS 2025 July 2, 2025
  • Paper accepted to ICME 2025 June 24, 2025
  • SPIES Lab’s Browser Fingerprinting Work in the News June 23, 2025
  • Journal paper accepted to IEEE TIFS June 19, 2025
  • SPIES Lab’s Browser Fingerprinting Work Features in News June 18, 2025
  • Paper Accepted to USENIX Security 2025 June 6, 2025

Contact Info

Nitesh Saxena

PETR 238

435 Nagle Street

College Station, Tx 77843-3112
email: nsaxena[at]tamu.edu (best way to reach me)

RSS SPIES Lab, Computer Science and Engineering

  • Paper accepted to WiSec 2026
  • Paper accepted to EACL 2026
  • Paper accepted to USENIX Security 2026
  • SPIES Lab Research Cited in News Coverage on AI Security Breach
  • SPIES Lab Research Featured in TAMU College of Engineering Spotlight
  • Paper accepted to IJCNLP-AACL 2025
  • TAMU SPIES Lab Wins CCS 2025 Distinguished Paper Award!
  • Paper accepted to eCrime 2025
  • Paper accepted to IEEE S&P (Magazine)
  • Another recent SPIES graduate to take up faculty position

© 2016–2026 Nitesh Saxena - Professor, Computer Science; Associate Director, Global Cyber Research Institute; Dean's Research Fellow 2022-23 Log in

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