New paper at Nature. We call for pursuing ecological valid studies in fake news research. nature.com/articles/s4156…

SPIES lab will have a new post-doc starting soon. Stay tuned for the introduction! I might create another position if there is a befitting candidate. Pls contact me if interested. I love to hear from prospective students. Know that you are being heard and appreciated. Thanks.

spies.engr.tamu.edu/2024/11/30/pap…

A star that has risen high! Ahmed Tanvir Mahdad just presented his work at the UIOWA Rising Stars CS Colloquium. Just a kind reminder that he is on the academic job market currently. His profile is here: tanvirmahdad.github.io

Intro to our lab's Cognitive Security MURI project, with CU Boulder and USAFA. Can you identify what all parts of the video are real vs. AI-generated?

Welcome to Aftab Hussain! He recently joined us as a post-doctoral researcher. spies.engr.tamu.edu/2024/12/11/new…

spies.engr.tamu.edu/2024/12/18/jou…

We will have two major papers presented at WWW 2025. The first one showing some early evidence of the use of browser fingerprinting for online tracking. The second one showing the security/accessibility pitfalls of screen-reader assisted authentication. spies.engr.tamu.edu/2025/01/20/2-p…

spies.engr.tamu.edu/2025/02/06/dr-…

Truly honored! This one is for all my current and former students! spies.engr.tamu.edu/2025/02/14/dr-…

Dr. Saxena’s Primer on Secure Communications appears in News Media stltoday.com/news/nation-wo… nsaxena.engr.tamu.edu/2025/03/31/dr-… Video interview: cdn.field59.com/LEEDCC/ac82107…

Ahmed Tanvir Mahdad will be starting as a TT Assistant Professor at EECS, Ohio Universityin in F25. My 5th PhD student at TAMU who is taking up faculty position (7th graduating PhD since joining TAMU and 17th graduating PhD overall). This is more than a satisfying feeling!

TAMU wrote a story about our work on secure messaging (end-to-end encryption). Covers about a decade of our multi-dimensional research in this important area, which is seeing more and more light in current times. stories.tamu.edu/news/2025/05/0…

My video primer on end-to-end encryption by AP News has been featured/used in over 35 television news channels/programs nationwide. cdn.field59.com/LEEDCC/ac82107…

We’re excited to introduce the AI Spies News Channel, where the latest updates, insights, and breakthroughs from the SPIES research lab are transformed into engaging, media-style stories generated fully using AI (after necessary reviews/corrections). spies.engr.tamu.edu/2025/05/12/lau…

Our first "AI Spies News" story featuring our IEEE S&P paper (BPSniff) being presented at the conference this week. How attackers with just the access to motion sensors on VR headsets can accurately deduce the user's blood pressure readings. spies.engr.tamu.edu/2025/05/12/ai-…

Congratulations to Ahmed Tanvir Mahdad for successfully defending his PhD dissertation this past week. Next, he will be found tracking tenure at Ohio University :-) The SPIES lab's nth PhD student (n = 17). HUH!

Two upcoming papers at PST 2025. One on the encryption challenges with PGP and the other on an ML framework to assess lightweight block ciphers. nsaxena.engr.tamu.edu/2025/06/06/2-p…

A new upcoming paper at USENIX Security. A systematization of security and accessibility challenges associated with academic authentication schemes in the context of blind and visually impaired users. nsaxena.engr.tamu.edu/2025/06/06/pap…

TAMU wrote about our WWW 2025 paper where we demonstrate how browser fingeprinting is being used for tracking users online via the online advertising ecosystem. Prior to our work, there was no proof of this happening in the wild. W/ Johns Hopkins. engineering.tamu.edu/news/2025/06/w…