Florida Institute for Cybersecurity Research

FICS is pleased to host a technical team from STR tomorrow, October 7, for an informal Meet & Greet with students interested in pursuing internships, co-ops, and full-time engineering and research opportunities in advanced national security technologies. 📅 October 7 🕛 12:00 PM 📍 MALA 4200A STR works at the intersection of advanced engineering, computing, and national security, with technical areas. The Meet & Greet provides an opportunity for FICS students to engage directly with STR technical professionals, learn about real-world research and engineering challenges, and discuss how their academic background and technical expertise can contribute to mission-focused technology development. Students working in areas such as computer engineering, electrical engineering, computer science, cybersecurity, AI/ML, robotics, embedded systems, sensing, controls, and systems engineering are particularly encouraged to attend. Bring your resume and be prepared to discuss your technical interests, research experience, projects, and areas of expertise. Learn more about STR and its internship opportunities: Internships & Co-ops: https://lnkd.in/e_gHhkn7 This is a valuable opportunity to connect academic research and engineering education with real-world challenges in national security technology development and mission systems. Farimah Farahmandi

FICS was pleased to welcome STR to our laboratories for a technical exchange focused on emerging technologies and research directions relevant to national security. The visit provided an opportunity to demonstrate ongoing capabilities within our laboratories and engage in in-depth technical discussions on advanced technological approaches, research methodologies, and emerging challenges in the national security domain. These exchanges foster interdisciplinary dialogue and help identify opportunities to translate fundamental and applied research into resilient, mission-relevant capabilities. We greatly appreciate the STR team for their engagement and thoughtful discussions. We look forward to continuing these technical exchanges and exploring opportunities for collaborative research and innovation at the intersection of advanced technology, cybersecurity, and national security. Pictured here are FICS Director Dr. Farimah Farahmandi. Dr. BAIBHAB CHATTERJEE, Dr. Christophe Bobda, Dr. Vincent Bindschaedler and Constantine Metropulos of STR.

Simple visual patterns can trick AI-powered vehicles and robots—and create real-world safety risks. Research led by FICS faculty member Sara R., and her tea, including PhD student Nicholas Costagliola and recent graduate Dr. Hrushikesh Varma,shows how a simple pattern of black-and-white stripes could cause an autonomous vehicle or robot to misjudge the distance to an obstacle, potentially triggering an unexpected maneuver or even a collision. “These things can also happen naturally, so it’s not a matter of imagining a sophisticated attacker. It becomes a safety problem,” said Dr. Rampazzi. The research focuses on autonomous systems that use stereo cameras—two cameras positioned close together—to estimate depth. These systems rely on specialized algorithms or artificial intelligence to make the same calculation from the images captured by the two cameras. The findings highlight an important challenge as autonomous systems become increasingly integrated into our everyday environments: even simple visual patterns can have unexpected consequences for how machines perceive the world around them. https://lnkd.in/eyhah7ND

We are pleased to congratulate Farimah Farahmandi, Ph.D., on her appointment as the new director of FICS. Farahmandi, the Walden C. Rhines Endowed Professor for Hardware Security, has served as associate director of FICS since 2022. Her leadership and scholarship have contributed significantly to advancing research in hardware security, as well as initiatives in technology commercialization and workforce development. She succeeds Kevin Butler, Ph.D., who served as director of FICS for four years and was recently appointed chair of CISE. We congratulate Dr. Farahmandi on this appointment and look forward to her continued leadership in advancing FICS’s research and educational mission.

We are honored to celebrate Dr.YU WANG's achievement, on receiving a National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award—one of NSF’s most prestigious honors for early-career faculty. The award will support Dr. Wang’s research on developing new methods that enable cyber-physical systems—including, service robots, and autonomous drones—to adapt to individual human preferences through simple forms of feedback. This achievement reflects Dr. Wang’s dedication to research and education while showcasing the growing impact and relevance of his scholarship.

Please join us on May 26 at noon in Malachowsky Hall for a guest lecture by Jan Pennekamp. His talk, “Researchers Beware: Your arXiv Submissions May Expose Sensitive Information,” will explore potential security and privacy risks associated with academic paper submissions. We hope to see you there!

Please join us on May 26 at noon in Malachowsky Hall for a guest lecture by Jan Pennekamp. His talk, “Researchers Beware: Your arXiv Submissions May Expose Sensitive Information,” will explore potential security and privacy risks associated with academic paper submissions. We hope to see you there!

Join us for a Distinguished Guest Lecture tomorrow from 11:00 AM-12:00 pm in Malachowsky Hall, Nvidia Auditorium, Room 1000 Title: Towards a Cross-Plane Methodology for Cyber-Physical Security Speaker: Dongyan Xu, PhD. The Samuel D. Conte Professor at Purdue University This talk will explore the evolving landscape of cybersecurity over the past decade, with a focus on emerging challenges and innovations in cyber-physical systems. Free and Open to the Public.

Congratulations to FICS Associate Director Farimah Farahmandi on being honored with the 40 Under 40 Award!

If you are attending the Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), Ph.D. student Hrushikesh Varma will be presenting in Session 13B. His work examines how thermal cameras used in drones, robots, and cars are susceptible to several signal-processing weaknesses. We look forward to the discussion and feedback from the NDSS community. https://lnkd.in/dSZeipfd