Avatar

Nikhilesh Singh

Ph.D. Student

IIT Madras

Biography

Hello, I am a Ph.D. student at the Department of CSE, IIT Madras. I work with Prof. Chester Rebeiro at the RISE Lab on multiple aspects of Systems Security. Currently we are looking to design efficient countermeasures and detection mechnaisms against malware and micro-architectural attacks.

When I am not handling some gross malware, I like to read books and scribble about my research interests at my blog. For collaborations and reassuring discussions on Security feel free to reach out to me!

Interests

  • Malware Defense
  • Micro-architectural Attacks
  • OS Security

Education

  • Ph.D. in Computer Science, 2019-Present

    IIT Madras

  • MS in Computer Science, 2017-2019

    IIT Madras

  • B.Tech. in Computer Science & Engineering, 2013-17

    BIT Sindri

Recent Publications

Sareena Karapoola, Nikhilesh Singh, Chester Rebeiro, Kamakoti V. (2022). JUGAAD: Comprehensive Malware Behavior-as-a-Service. In CSET'22.

PDF DOI

Sareena Karapoola, Nikhilesh Singh, Chester Rebeiro, Kamakoti V. (2022). RaDaR: A Real-World Dataset for AI Powered Run-time Detection of Cyber-Attacks. To appear in CIKM'22.

PDF

Sareena Karapoola, Nikhilesh Singh, Chester Rebeiro, Kamakoti V. (2022). System and Method for Malware Detection by Cross-Dimensional Behavioural Analysis. Filed Indian Patent Application, 2022.

Vinayak Honkote, Nikhilesh Singh, Rajesh Poornachandran (2022). Safety and Integrity Violation Detection System, Device and Method. Filed (Intel Labs) US Patent Application, 2022.

Nikhilesh Singh, Vinod Ganesan, Chester Rebeiro (2022). Secure Processor Architectures. In Handbook of Computer Architecture, Springer, 2022.

PDF Slides

Anirban Chakraborty*, Nikhilesh Singh*, Sarani Bhattacharya, Chester Rebeiro, Debdeep Mukhopadhyay (* equally contributing authors) (2022). Timed Speculative Attacks exploiting Store-to-Load Forwarding bypassing Cache-based Countermeasures. In DAC'22.

DOI

Nikhilesh Singh, Chester Rebeiro (2021). LEASH: Enhancing Micro-architectural Attack Detection with a Reactive Process Scheduler.

PDF DOI

Nikhilesh Singh, Chester Rebeiro (2020). Method and Electronic Device for Mitigating Micro-architectural Side-channel Attack by Dynamic Resource Allocation. Filed Indian Patent Application, 2020.

Experience

 
 
 
 
 

Graduate Intern Technical

Intel Labs

Oct 2021 – Jun 2022 Bangalore Design Lab
 
 
 
 
 

Visiting Research Scholar

ICE, RWTH Aachen University

Feb 2021 – Jul 2021 Aachen, Germany
 
 
 
 
 

Teaching Assistant

NPTEL

Jan 2019 – Mar 2019 Chennai, India
Teaching assistant for a MOOC Course with more than 4000 enrolments: Information Security-V by Prof. Chester Rebeiro, hosted by NPTEL.
 
 
 
 
 

Project Mentor

IIT Madras

Jan 2018 – Present Chennai, India

Collaborated with the following students for their Masters/UG Project

  • Kshitij Deogade | Feb 2021 - present Towards efficient ransomware countermeasures
  • Ajay Saju Jacob | Jul 2020 - Jun 2021 On the Feasibility of Efficient Program Representations for Behavioral Classification
  • Akshay Anand | Jan 2020 - Jun 2020 Hardening Android Kernel with HPC-based Security Features
  • Anuj Jain | July 2018 - May 2019 Contemporary Malware Analysis: A systems perspective
  • Balaji Naik Ajmeera | Nov 2018 - Apr 2019 DL Models for Malware Detection Using Hardware Features
  • Abhinab | Feb 2018 - Mar 2019 ML-based Malware Detection for Windows OS

Mentored the following Summer Interns at RISE Lab IIT Madras

  • Ritwik Badola | Apr 2019 - May 2019 An automated framework for Program Profiling using Hardware Features for Malware Detection
  • Priyam Sahoo | Apr 2019 - May 2019 An analysis of Light-Weight Ciphers for CAN-bus architecture in Automobiles
 
 
 
 
 

Teaching Assistant

IIT Madras

Jul 2017 – Present Chennai, India

Teaching assistant for follwing systems courses.

  • Operating Systems | Aug-Nov 2021 Instructor : Prof. Chester Rebeiro
  • Operating Systems | Jun-Nov 2020 Instructor : Prof. Chester Rebeiro
  • Secure Processor Design | Jan-May 2020 Instructor : Prof. Madhu Mutyam
  • Operating Systems | June-Nov 2019 Instructor : Prof. Pratyush Kumar
  • Network Security | Jan-May 2019 Instructor : Prof. Chester Rebeiro
  • Secure Systems Engineering | Jun-Nov 2018 Instructor : Prof. Chester Rebeiro
  • Introduction to Programming | Jan-May 2018 Instructor : Prof. Jayalal Sarma
  • Introduction to Programming | Jun-Nov 2017 Instructor : Prof. N. S. Narayanaswamy
 
 
 
 
 

Project Intern

HCL

Jul 2016 – Sep 2016 Jamshedpur, India

Accomplish­ments

Advanced Research Opportunities Program (AROP) Fellowship

RWTH Aachen University Feb 2021 – Jul 2021

Semifinalists: Swadeshi Microprocessor Challenge 2020

MeiTy, Government of India Aug 2020 – Aug 2021
Teamed up with Ritwik Badola, Lakshmy AV and Chester Rebeiro to design a secure and versatile framework for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), deploying ROS on Shakti processors, featuring in Top 100 Semi-finalists from a pool of over 6000 teams.

Winners : Enbedded Security Challenge

CSAW 2019 India Sep 2019
Teamed up with Sareena Karapoola, Gokulan R and Milind Srivastava

ISEA Fellowship

MeiTy Jul 2017 – Aug 2019
Information Security Education and Awareness, MeiTy, Govt. of India

Scribbles

The final step towards secure OS : Timing Protection

Academic is designed to give technical content creators a seamless experience. You can focus on the content and Academic handles the …
Jul 12, 2019 4 min read

Contact