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Evgenios Kornaropoulos, an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science whose research investigates computer security and applied cryptography, presented a conference paper at the flagship conference of Computer Security, the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy in May 2024. The paper introduced Breach Extraction Attacks that target a Compromised Credential Checking service by Cloudflare Research.
The paper was nominated and chosen as a finalist for the Pwnie (rhymes with Tony) Award 2024 in the category "Best Cryptographic Attack." The awards took place this year at the DEFCON Hacking conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Pwnie Awards, established in 2007 and run by non-academics (industry professionals and, roughly speaking, the hacking community), are known by some as the “Oscars of Cybersecurity.”
“Academic papers recognized in this competition must be both exceptional and innovative from a technical point of view, as well as relevant and practical to impress the hacking community,” said Kornaropoulos. “Becoming a Pwnie finalist signals that our work is being recognized for its academic rigor and practical applications even beyond academia.”
Other contributors to the work included co-authors Giuseppe Ateniese, a professor in the Departments of Computer Science and Cyber Security Engineering, Danilo Francati, a post-doctoral researcher, and Dario Pasquini, another George Mason University researcher.
See additional award finalists.