Sashank Narain
PhD Student
Education
- PhD in Information Assurance, Northeastern University
- MS in Information Assurance, Northeastern University
- BS in Information Technology, University of Mumbai - India
Biography
Sashank Narain is a postdoctoral researcher at Northeastern University working with Guevara Noubir. His research focuses on the security of smartphones, especially the effects of side channels on user's privacy, and he is also interested in building secure systems for mobile operating systems as well as the implications of IoT consumer devices on user privacy. He earned his MS and PhD in Information Assurance from Northeastern, and a bachelor's in Information Technology from the University of Mumbai in India.
About Sashank
- Hometown: Lucknow, India
- Field of Study: Information Assurance
- PhD Advisor: Guevara Noubir
What are the specifics of your graduate education (thus far)?
I completed my PhD in Information Assurance at Northeastern University this May, 2018. My area of focus is mobile security.
What are your research interests?
I focus on the security of smartphones. I have a keen interest in studying the implications of side channels such as smartphone sensors (gyroscope, accelerometers, magnetometer and microphones) on user’s privacy. I am also interested in building secure systems for mobile operating systems. I have recently also developed an interest in studying the implications of IoT consumer devices on user privacy.
What’s one problem you’d like to solve with your research/work?
Mitigate loss of personal information through covert side channels for millions of smartphone users worldwide.
What aspect of what you do is most interesting?
As part of my research, I work on designing and implementing novel attacks for smartphones, and I study their impact on users across the globe. I enjoy building these many applications for the Android platform for accessing the security of the OS.
What are your research or career goals, going forward?
My end goal is to develop systems to defend the attacks that I have explored during my research. Such systems should be both easy to install and use for the users, and also protect end-users on a wide range of devices.