Aron Laszka

Aron Laszka

Assistant Professor

University of Houston

Biography

Aron Laszka is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Houston. Previously, he was a Research Assistant Professor at Vanderbilt University, a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Visiting Scholar at Pennsylvania State University.

His research interests broadly revolve around the security and resilience of cyber-physical systems and Internet of Things, the economics of cyber-security, and game theory and artificial intelligence for security.

His research is funded in part by the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, the Department of Homeland Security, and Siemens.

Research Areas

Cybersecurity

Mitigation, Management, Blockchains

Cyber-Physical Systems

IoT, Power Systems, Transportation

Artificial Intelligence

Machine Learning, Game Theory

Recent Publications

Yoko Shibuya, Go Yamamoto, Fuhito Kojima, Elaine Shi, Shin'ichiro Matsuo, Aron Laszka (2021). Selfish Mining Attacks Exacerbated by Elastic Hash Supply. FC 2021. Acceptance rate: 25%

PDF Project

Amutheezan Sivagnanam, Afiya Ayman, Michael Wilbur, Philip Pugliese, Abhishek Dubey, Aron Laszka (2021). Minimizing Energy Use of Mixed-Fleet Public Transit for Fixed-Route Service. AAAI 2021. Acceptance rate: 21%

PDF Project

Md Whaiduzzaman, Md Razon Hossain, Ahmedur Rahman Shovon, Shanto Roy, Aron Laszka, Rajkumar Buyya, Alistair Barros (2021). A Privacy-preserving Mobile and Fog Computing Framework to Trace and Prevent COVID-19 Community Transmission. IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics. Impact Factor: 5.22

Antonia Nisioti, George Loukas, Aron Laszka, Emmanouil Panaousis (2021). Data-Driven Decision Support for Optimizing Cyber Forensic Investigations. IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics & Security. Impact Factor: 6.01

PDF

Afiya Ayman, Amutheezan Sivagnanam, Michael Wilbur, Philip Pugliese, Abhishek Dubey, Aron Laszka (2021). Data-Driven Prediction and Optimization of Energy Use for Transit Fleets of Electric and ICE Vehicles. ACM Transactions on Internet Technology.

PDF Project

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Resilient Networks and Systems Lab

Faculty

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Aron Laszka

Assistant Professor

Students

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Afiya Ayman

Ph.D. student

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Amutheezan Sivagnanam

Ph.D. student

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Shanto Roy

Ph.D. student

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Taha Eghtesad

Ph.D. student

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Salah Uddin

Ph.D. student

Projects


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All Artificial Intelligence Blockchains Cybersecurity Cyber-Physical Systems

Microtransit Solutions for Underserved Communities

Public transportation infrastructure is an essential component in cultivating equitable communities. However, public transit agencies have historically struggled to achieve this since they are often severely stressed in terms of resources as they have to make the trade-off between concentrating service into routes that serve large numbers of people and spreading service out to ensure that people everywhere have access to at least some service.

Addressing Transit Accessibility Challenges due to COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has not only disrupted the lives of millions but also created exigent operational and scheduling challenges for public transit agencies. Agencies are struggling to maintain transit accessibility with reduced resources, changing ridership patterns, vehicle capacity constraints due to social distancing, and reduced services due to driver unavailability.

Blockchain Security and Applications

This project studies the following research topics: Security of blockchain-based consensus protocols Secure smart contracts Applications of blockchains

Bug-Bounty Programs

Many organizations and companies have recently chosen to use so-called bug-bounty programs (also known as vulnerability reward programs), which allow outside security experts to evaluate the security of an organization’s products and services and to report security vulnerabilities in exchange for rewards.

Data-Driven Energy Optimization for Multi-Modal Transit

The goal of this project is to develop a high-resolution system-level data capture and analysis framework to revolutionize the operational planning of a regional transportation authority, specifically the Chattanooga Area Regional Transportation Authority (CARTA).

Blockchains for Transactive Energy

Due to rapid growth in renewable energy resources and improvements in battery technology, power grids are undergoing major changes, which create significant management and control challenges. To tackle these challenges, decentralized solutions are needed, which can support the evolution of electrical power distribution systems.

Correct-by-Design Blockchain-based Smart Contracts

The adoption of blockchain based distributed ledgers is growing fast due to their ability to provide reliability, integrity, and auditability without trusted entities. One of the key capabilities of these emerging platforms is the ability to create self-enforcing smart contracts.

Academic Experience

 
 
 
 
 

Assistant Professor

University of Houston

2017 – Present
 
 
 
 
 

Research Assistant Professor

Vanderbilt University

2016 – 2017
 
 
 
 
 

Postdoctoral Scholar

UC Berkeley

2015 – 2016
 
 
 
 
 

Postdoctoral Research Scholar

Vanderbilt University

2014 – 2016
 
 
 
 
 

Visiting Research Scholar

Pennsylvania State University

2013 – 2013

Academic Service

Program Chair

  • TREC4CPS 2018 (1st International Workshop on Trustworthy and Real-time Edge Computing for Cyber-Physical Systems)

General Chair / Organizing Committee Member

  • InSyS 2021 (Intelligent Systems for Smart Cities Workshop at CPS-IoT Week 2021)

  • BlockNet 2020 (ACM MobiHoc Workshop on Blockchain for Network Resource Sharing)

Program Committee Member

  • FC21 (25th International Conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security)
  • AAAI-21 (34th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence)
  • GameSec 2020 (11th Conference on Decision and Game Theory for Security)
  • ICBC 2020 (2nd IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency)
  • AAMAS 2020 (19th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems)
  • FC20 (24th International Conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security)
  • AAAI-20 (34th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence)
  • GameSec 2019 (10th Conference on Decision and Game Theory for Security)
  • WEIS 2019 (18th Annual Workshop on the Economics of Information Security)
  • AAMAS 2019 (18th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems)
  • HotSoS 2019 (6th Annual Hot Topics in the Science of Security Symposium)
  • FC19 (23rd International Conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security)
  • AAAI-19 (33rd AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence)
  • GameSec 2018 (9th Conference on Decision and Game Theory for Security)
  • AAMAS 2018 (17th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems)
  • WEIS 2018 (17th Annual Workshop on the Economics of Information Security)
  • AAAI-18 (32nd AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence)
  • GameSec 2017 (8th Conference on Decision and Game Theory for Security)
  • WEIS 2017 (16th Annual Workshop on the Economics of Information Security)
  • AAAI-17 (31st AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence)
  • GameSec 2016 (7th Conference on Decision and Game Theory for Security)
  • IJCAI-16 (25th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence)
  • SecMAS 2016 (AAMAS-16 Workshop on Security and Multi-Agent Systems)
  • FC16 (20th International Conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security)
  • GameSec 2015 (6th Conference on Decision and Game Theory for Security)
  • WEIS 2015 (14th Annual Workshop on the Economics of Information Security)
  • WEIS 2014 (13th Annual Workshop on the Economics of Information Security)

Publicity Chair

  • GameSec 2015 (6th Conference on Decision and Game Theory for Security)

Reviewer for Journal

  • ACM Transactions on Cyber-Physical Systems
  • ACM Transactions on Internet Technology
  • ACM Transactions on Privacy and Security
  • IEEE Access
  • IEEE Communications Letters
  • IEEE Computer
  • IEEE Internet of Things Journal
  • IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications
  • IEEE Power Engineering Letters
  • IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems
  • IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing
  • IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics
  • IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security
  • IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid
  • IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics
  • IEEE Software
  • Artificial Intelligence Review
  • Autonomous Robots
  • Computers & Security
  • Cyber-Physical Systems
  • European Journal of Operational Research
  • International Journal on Software & Systems Modeling
  • Journal of Cleaner Production
  • Journal of Cybersecurity
  • Pervasive and Mobile Computing
  • Royal Society Open Science

Education

 
 
 
 
 

CrySyS Lab, Budapest University of Technology and Economics

Ph.D. in Computer Science, Summa cum Laude

2011 – 2014
 
 
 
 
 

Budapest University of Technology and Economics

M. Sc. with Honors in Computer Engineering

2009 – 2011
 
 
 
 
 

Budapest University of Technology and Economics

B. Sc. with Honors in Computer Engineering

2005 – 2009

Talks

Blockchain-based Smart Contracts: Security Challenges and Correct-by-Design Development

Joint Workshop of NTT Labs and NTT Research Dec 2019

Economics of Crowdsourced Cybersecurity: Market Mechanisms in Bug Bounty Programs and Platforms

Workshop on Competitive Economics of Cybersecurity at Sandia National Laboratories Nov 2018

Resilient and Trustworthy Transactive Platform for Smart and Connected Communities

18th Annual High Confidence Software and Systems Conference (HCSS 2018) May 2018

Games of Timing for Security

Session on Game Theory in Security and Privacy at the 2017 INFORMS Conference Jan 2017

Vulnerability of Transportation Networks

Smart Cities Workshop at the 54th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control Dec 2015

Teaching

Foundations of Security(COSC 6347)

University of Houston 2020 Fall

Cybersecurity(COSC 3371)

University of Houston 2019 Fall – 2020 Spring

Web Security(COSC 4371)

University of Houston 2018 Spring – 2019 Spring

Computer Organization(CS 2231)

Vanderbilt University 2017 Spring

Network Security(CS 4285, CS 5285)

Vanderbilt University 2016 Fall

Security of Cyber-Physical Systems(CS 396-02)

Vanderbilt University 2015 Spring

Contact