Khaled Serag

About Me

I am a Scientist at the Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI). My research focuses on the security of cyber-physical systems, particularly industrial control systems and in-vehicle networks. I study how vulnerabilities emerge from communication protocols and system interactions, and how they can be systematically identified, analyzed, and mitigated.

I received my Ph.D. in Computer Science from Purdue University in 2023, where my research focused on vulnerability identification and defense construction for the Controller Area Network (CAN). I also have industrial research experience at Boeing in avionics and network security.

Research Interests

• Cyber Physical Systems Security: ICS security, Automotive Systems, Autonomous Vehicles, Avionic Systems, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), IoT Devices
• Network and Protocol Security: In-Vehicle Networks, Industrial Networks, Ethernet, Serial Buses
• Security Analysis: Vulnerability Identification, Formal Analysis, Intrusion Detection and Attack Investigation

Publications

• SoK: Kicking CAN Down the Road: Systematizing CAN Security Knowledge
  Khaled Serag, Zhaozhou Tang, Sungwoo Kim, Vireshwar Kumar, Saman Zonouz, Raheem Beyah, Dongyan Xu, Z. Berkay Celik
  Network and Distributed System Security (NDSS) Symposium, 2027. [PDF]
  

• A Formal Security Analysis of CAN XL
  Distinguished Paper Award Runner-Up
  Zhaozhou Tang, Khaled Serag, Z. Berkay Celik, Vijay Ganesh, Saman Zonouz, Raheem Beyah
  35th USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security ‘26), 2026. [PDF]
  

• WIP: Intrusion Detection and Localization for CAN by Extracting Propagation Delay Features from Message Intervals
  Zhaozhou Tang, Khaled Serag, Saman Zonouz, Z. Berkay Celik, Dongyan Xu, Raheem Beyah
  3rd USENIX Symposium on Vehicle Security and Privacy, 2025. [PDF]
  

• ERACAN: Defending Against an Emerging CAN Threat Model
  Distinguished Paper Award
  Zhaozhou Tang, Khaled Serag, Saman Zonouz, Z. Berkay Celik, Dongyan Xu, Raheem Beyah
  ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS ‘24). [PDF]

• ZBCAN: A Zero‑Byte CAN Defense System
  Khaled Serag, Rohit Bhatia, Akram Faqih, Muslum Ozgur Ozmen, Vireshwar Kumar, Z. Berkay Celik, Dongyan Xu
  In Proceedings of the 32𝑛𝑑 USENIX Security Symposium, 2023 (USENIX 2023). [PDF]
  

• Attacks on CAN Error Handling Mechanism
  Khaled Serag, Vireshwar Kumar, Z. Berkay Celik, Rohit Bhatia, Mathias Payer, Dongyan Xu.
  In Proceedings of the NDSS’ Fourth International Workshop on Automotive and Autonomous Vehicle Security (AutoSec 2022). [PDF]

• Exposing New Vulnerabilities of Error Handling Mechanism in CAN
  Khaled Serag, Rohit Bhatia, Vireshwar Kumar, Z. Berkay Celik, Dongyan Xu
  In Proceedings of the 30𝑡ℎ USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX 2021). [PDF]

• Evading Voltage‑Based Intrusion Detection on Automotive CAN
  Rohit Bhatia, Vireshwar Kumar, Khaled Serag, Z. Berkay Celik, Mathias Payer, and Dongyan Xu
  In Proceedings of the Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS 2021). [PDF]

Patents

• Multiple Security Level Monitor for Monitoring a Plurality of MIL‑STD‑1553 Buses with Multiple Independent Levels of Security
  Josh D Eckhardt, Thomas E Donofrio, Khaled Serag
  United States Patent No.: US10685125B2, 2020. [PDF]

• Bus Data Monitor
  Josh D Eckhardt, Thomas E Donofrio, Khaled Serag
  United States Patent No.: US10691573B2, 2020. [PDF]

• System and Method of Monitoring Data Traffic on a MIL‑STD‑1553 Data Bus
  Josh D Eckhardt, Thomas E Donofrio, Khaled Serag
  United States Patent No.: US10467174B2, 2019. [PDF]

Research Experience

• Scientist
  Qatar Computing Research Institute, Doha, Qatar
  2024-Present

• Post Doctoral Research Associate
  Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S.A.
  2023-2024

• Research Assistant
  Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S.A.
  2017-2023

• Cyber Security Researcher (Summer Only)
  Boeing, Huntsville, Alabama, U.S.A.
  2017-2022

• Cyber Security Researcher (Full Time)
  Boeing, Huntsville, Alabama, U.S.A.
  2015-2017

• Graduate Student
  The State University of New York at Binghamton, Binghamton, New York, U.S.A.
  2014-2015

Curriculum Vitae

A copy of my C.V. could be obtained through this link

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