Sergio Pastrana

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Publications      Services      Teaching      Supervision     

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I'm Visiting Associate Professor at the Computer Security Lab from the University Carlos III of Madrid and an external collaborator in the Cambridge Cybercrime Centre from the University of Cambridge. My research interests are manyfold through the field of cybersecurity and cybercrime. Currently, I'm working on analysing patterns of criminal behaviour on the Internet, concretely in social media and web forums. I've been actively involved in the collation of CrimeBB , a dataset gathered from various underground forums. I'm also interested in various topics of security and privacy, such as malware detection and classification, memory exploitation or IoT security. Please feel free to contact me if you want to have a chat about these or other topics.

I received a PhD in Computer Science and Technology in 2014 by University of Carlos III de Madrid, my alma mater, where I have also taught courses in official studies offered at the University Carlos III about Security and Computer Programming as well as ocassional participation in Master courses, summer schools and workshops. Google profile

Download my full CV from here

Publications  Journals   Conferences  Chapters

PhD Thesis

• "Attacks Against Intrusion Detection Networks: Evasion, Reverse Engineering and Optimal Countermeasures". Supervised by Agustin Orfila and Juan E. Tapiador. June, 2014. [pdf] UC3M Outstanding Thesis Award 2013/2014

Journal papers

1. "Automatically identifying the function and intent of posts in underground forums". Andrew Caines, Sergio Pastrana , Alice Hutchings, Paula Buttery."Crime Science". Volume 7. November 2018. [Open access] [doi]
   
   
2. "PAgIoT: Privacy-preserving Aggregation protocol for Internet of Things". L. Gonzalez-Manzano, J.M. de Fuentes, S. Pastrana, P.Peris-Lopez, L. Hernandez."Journal of Network and Computer Applications". Volume 71. pp 59-71. August 2016. (JCR index: 2.331) [pdf] [doi]
   
   
3. "Probabilistic Yoking Proofs For Large Scale IoT Systems".J.M. de Fuentes, P. Peris-Lopez, J.E. Tapiador, S. Pastrana."Ad Hoc Networks". Volume 32. pp 43-53. September 2015. (JCR index: 1,660). [pdf] [doi]
   
   
4. "DEFIDNET: A framework for optimal allocation of cyberdefenses in Intrusion Detection Networks" S. Pastrana, A. Orfila, J.E. Tapiador, P. Peris-Lopez."Computer Networks". Volume 80. pp 66-84, April 2015. (JCR index: 1,446) [pdf] [doi] [prototype]
   
   
5. "Power-aware anomaly detection in smartphones: An analysis of on-platform versus externalized operation".G. Suarez-Tangil, J.E. Tapiador, P. Peris-Lopez, S. Pastrana."Pervasive and Mobile Computing". Elsevier. Volume 18. pp 137-151. April 2015. (JCR index: 1.719). [doi] [pdf]
   
   
6. "Randomized Anagram revisited". Sergio Pastrana, Agustin Orfila, Juan E. Tapiador, Pedro Peris-Lopez. "Journal of Network and Computer Applications". Volume 41. pp 182-196, May 2014.(JCR index: 2.229). [doi] [pdf]


7. "Evaluation of Classification Algorithms for Intrusion Detection in MANETs". Sergio Pastrana, Aikaterina Mitrokotsa, Agustin Orfila, Pedro Peris-Lopez. "Knowledge Based Systems". Volume 36. pp 217-225. December 2012. (JCR index: 4,104). [doi] [pdf]

Conference papers

1. "A tight scrape: methodological approaches to cybercrime research data collection in adversarial environments", Kieron Turk, Sergio Pastrana, Ben Collier. 2nd Workshop on Attackers and Cyber-Crime Operations (WACCO) , Digital Conference, September 7th, 2020. [doi][preprint]


2. "A first look at the crypto-mining malware ecosystem: A decade of unrestricted wealth", Sergio Pastrana, Guillermo Suarez-Tangil. ACM Internet Measurement Conference (IMC) , Amsterdam, Netherlands, October 2019. [doi][pdf extended version]


3. "Measuring eWhoring", Sergio Pastrana, Alice Hutchings, Daniel Thomas, Juan E. Tapiador. ACM Internet Measurement Conference (IMC) , Amsterdam, Netherlands, October 2019. [pdf][video]


4. "Understanding eWhoring", Alice Hutchings, Sergio Pastrana. 4th IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy , Stockholm, Sweden, June 2019 [pdf]


5. "Aggressive language in an online hacking forum", Andrew Caines, Sergio Pastrana , Alice Hutchings, Paula Buttery. Second Workshop on Abusive Language Online (ALW2) , Brussels, Belgium, October 2018 [pdf]


6. "Characterizing Eve: Analysing Cybercrime Actors in a Large Underground Forum", Sergio Pastrana , Alice Hutchings, Andrew Caines, Paula Buttery. Research in Attacks, Intrusions and Defences (RAID) , Heraklion, Crete, September 2018 [pdf]


7. "CrimeBB: Enabling Cybercrime Research on Underground Forums at Scale", Sergio Pastrana, Daniel R. Thomas, Alice Hutchings, and Richard Clayton. ACM The Web Conference 2018 (WWW) , Lyon, France, April 2018. [pdf]


8. "Ethical issues of research using datasets of illicit origin", Daniel R. Thomas, Sergio Pastrana, Alice Hutchings, Richard Clayton, and Alastair R. Beresford. ACM Internet Measurement Conference (IMC) , London, UK, November 2017. [pdf]


9. "Shall we collaborate? A model to analyse the benefits of information sharing", Roberto Garrido, Lorena Gonzalez and Sergio Pastrana. ACM CCS Worshop on Information Sharing and Collaborative Security (WISCS) , Vienna, Austria, October 2016. [pdf]


10. "AVRAND: A Software Based Defense Against Code Reuse Attacks in AVR Architectures", Sergio Pastrana, Juan E. Tapiador, Guillermo Suarez-Tangil, Pedro Peris-Lopez. "13th Conference on Detection of Intrusions and Malware & Vulnerability Assessment (DIMVA)", San Sebastian, Spain, July 2016. [pdf]


11. "ArduWorm: A Practical Malware Targeting Arduino Devices", Sergio Pastrana, Jorge Rodriguez-Canseco, Alejandro Calleja. "Jornadas Nacionales de Investigacion en Seguridad (JNIC)", Granada, Spain, June 2016. [pdf] Best paper award!


12. "Security Analysis and Exploitation of Arduino Devices in the Internet of Things", Carlos Alberca, Sergio Pastrana, Guillermo Suarez-Tangil, Paolo Palmieri. " Workshop on Malicious Software and Hardware in Internet of Things (Mal-IoT)", Como, Italy, May 2016 [doi] [pdf]


13. "Interactive activities: the key to learning programming with MOOCs.",Carlos Alario, Carlos Delgado, Iria Estevez, Carmen Fernandez, Jorge Blasco, Sergio Pastrana, Guillermo Suarez, and Julio Villena. "Proceedings of the European Stakeholder Summit on experiences and best practices in and around MOOCs (EMOOCS)", Graz (Austria), February 2016


14. "Anomalous Web Payload Detection: Evaluating the Resilience of 1-gram Based Classifiers", Sergio Pastrana, Carmen Torrano-Gimenez, Hai Than Nguyen, Agustin Orfila. "Proceedings of the VIII Conference on Intelligent Distributed Computing (IDC) ", pp 195-201, Madrid, Spain, September 2014 [pdf]


15. "A functional framework to evade Network IDS", Sergio Pastrana, Agustin Orfila and Arturo Ribagorda. "Proceedings of the 44th Hawaii International Conference on Systems Sciences (HICSS44)", Kauai, USA, January 2011 [doi] [pdf]


16. "Artificial Immunity-Based Correlation System (poster)", Guillermo Suarez-Tangil, Esther Palomar, Sergio Pastrana, Arturo Ribagorda. "SECRYPT – International Conference on Security and Cryptography", Sevilla, Spain, July 2011 [doi] [pdf]


17. "Modeling NIDS evasion using Genetic Programming", Sergio Pastrana, Agustin Orfila and Arturo Ribagorda. "Proceedings of the 2010 World Congress in Computer Science, Computer Engineering and Applied Computing, WORLDCOMP'10", Las Vegas, USA, July 2010 [pdf]


18. "EVADIR: una metodologia para la evasion de IDS de red", Sergio Pastrana, Agustin Orfila and Arturo Ribagorda. "Actas de la XI Reunion Espanola sobre Criptologia y Seguridad de la Informacion, RECSI'10", Tarragona, Spain, September 2010 [pdf]

Book chapters

1. "Displacing big data: How criminals cheat the system", in "The Human Factor of Cybercrime". Alice Hutchings, Sergio Pastrana, Richard Clayton. Taylor & Francis; ISBN 978-0-42946-059-3 (2019)[draft version]
2. "Evading IDS and Firewalls as Fundamental Sources of Information in SIEMS", in "Advances in Security Information Management: perceptions and outcomes". Sergio Pastrana, José Montero, Agustin Orfila; NOVA Publishers; ISBN 978-1-62417-221-2 (2013)

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Services

Reviewer of the following journals

• Information Fusion
• Computers&Security
• Knowledge Based Systems
• Future Generation Computer Systems
• Information Sciences
• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems
• AdHoc Networks

PC Member or conference sub-reviewer

• 9th International Conference on Emerging Ubiquitous Systems and Pervasive Networks 2018
• International Conference on Networks & Communications 2016
• 12th International Conference on Security and Cryptography (SECRYPT) 2015
• IEEE International Conference on Trust, Security and Privacy 2015
• International Conference on Information Security Practice and Experience 2015
• 13th International Conference on Security and Cryptography (SECRYPT) 2016

Others

• Project reviewer at Spanish Association for Standardisation and Certification (AENOR)
• Project reviewer at Israeli Ministry of Science, Technology and Space

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Teaching experience

MSc courses

• Cyberdefense Systems (Master in Cybersecurity)
• Malware Analysis and Engineering (Master in Cybersecurity)
• Persisten Threat and Information Leakage (Master in Cybersecurity)
• Computer Systems Fundamentals, Master en Administracion y Gestion de Sistemas Informaticos

BSc and other courses

• Vulnerabilities, threats and computer security protocols (BSc in Security Engineering, 1st Course)
• Security in Information Technology (BSc in Computer Engineering, 2nd course)
• Security Engineering (BSc in Computer Engineering, 3th Course)
• Programming (BSc in Mechanical Engineering, 1st course)
• Security in Distributed Systems (Computer Engineering, 4th course)
• Information Security and Protection (Computer Technical Engineering, 3th course)
• Workshop on Security in networks and Internet, Campus Cientificos de Verano
• Workshop on Security in networks and Internet, Instituto Nacional de Administracion Publica (INAP)

Online Open Courses

• EdX MOOC: Introduction to Programming in Java. Part I , 2015
• OpenCourseWare: Security in Distributed Systems (spanish) , 2009

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Supervision

Current PhD Students

1. José Cabrero Holgueras

In the past, I've supervised several BSc projects and MSc Thesis (see list below).

Master Thesis

1. José Cabrero Holgueras, 2019. Topic: Cybercrime
2. José María Alonso, 2016. Topic: Security in SCADA
3. Jaime Morales, 2016. Topic: Information Sharing
4. Luis Nuñez, 2016. Topic: Malware analysis
5. Fernando Vañó, 2016. Topic: IoT Honeypot
6. Roberto Garrido, 2016. Topic: Cooperative Cyberdefense
7. Victor Sánchez, 2015. Topic: SIEM systems
8. Eric Mendillo, 2015. Topic: Cybersecurity simulator
9. José Ramón Rapallo, 2015. Topic: Military Cyber-ranges
10. Carlos Alberca, 2015. Topic: Security in IoT
11. Christian López, 2015, Topic: SIEM systems

BSc Projects

1. Guillermo Izquierdo 2016. Topic: Android security
2. Luis Buendía 2016. Topic: Malware engineering
3. Antonio Requena, 2016. Topic: Android Security
4. Carlos Alberca, 2014. Topic: Security in RFID
5. Marta Canes, 2014. Topic: Intrusion Detection Networks
6. Ricardo Ramirez, 2014, Topic: Security Legislation
7. Javier Alvarez, 2014, Topic: Bio-engineering
8. Antonio Parra, 2013, Topic: Malware analysis
9. Joel Barra, 2012, Topic: Linux security