EDUCATION

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
2008 PhD Computer Science

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
2005 MS Computer Science

GIK Institute of Engineering Science and Technology Pakistan
2001 BS Computer Systems Engineering

CERTIFICATIONS

2008 Cyber Security for Process Control Systems, Summer School, Fontana, WI, USA

2008 Control Systems Cyber-Security Professional Certification, Iowa State University, USA

2005 Graduate Teaching Certificate (GTC), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA

ACADEMIC AND RESEARCH AFFILIATIONS

2015-16 Visiting Assistant Professor, Software and Information Systems, UNC Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, USA

2014-16 Senior Researcher CyberDNA Research Lab, UNC Charlotte, Charlotte, NC, USA

2014 SU Visiting Researcher LHC CERN –The European Organization for Nuclear Research Meyrin, Genève, Switzerland

2012 SU Visiting Researcher at the Young Scientist Program at China Association of Science and Technology, Beijing, China

2009-14 Assistant Professor, National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Pakistan

2008-09 Postdoc Fellow, ENCS, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada

2007-08 Graduate RA. Trustworthy Infrastructure for the PowerGrid (TCIPG), Information Trust Institute, Urbana, IL, USA

2006-07 Software Developer (Co/op), INTEL Software Solutions Group, JF-1, Hillsboro, OR, USA

2006 SU Software Developer (Intern) IBM T. J Watson Hawthorne, NY, USA

2005 SU Research Intern Motorola Labs, Schaumburg, IL, USA

2004-05 Graduate Research Assistant at the National Center for Super-Computing Applications (NCSA), Urbana, IL, USA

2003-04 Graduate Research Assistant, Digital Library Projects at the Engineering Library, Urbana, IL, USA

PUBLICATIONS

Umara Noor, Zahid Anwar, Tehmina Amjad, and Kim-Kwang Raymond Choo. “A Machine Learning-based FinTech Cyber Threat Attribution Framework using High-level Indicators of Compromise”. Future Generation Computer Systems, 96:227–242, 2019

Umara Noor, Zahid Anwar, Asad Waqar Malik, Sharifullah Khan, and Shahzad Saleem. “A Machine Learning Framework for investigating Data Breaches based on Semantic Analysis of Adversary’s Attack Patterns in Threat Intelligence Repositories”. Future Generation Computer Systems, 95:467–487, 2019

Raihan ur Rasool, Maleeha Najam, Hafiz Farooq Ahmad, Hua Wang, and Zahid Anwar. “A Novel JSON Based Regular Expression Language For Pattern Matching in the Internet of Things”. Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Humanized Computing, pages 1–19, 2018

Imran Khan, Habib ur Rehman, Mohammad Hussein Fayiz Al-khatib, Zahid Anwar, and Masoom Alam. “A Thin Client Friendly Trusted Execution Framework for Infrastructure-as a-Service Clouds”. Future Generation Computer Systems, 89:239 – 248, 2018

Asad W Malik, Raihan ur Rasool, Zahid Anwar, and Shahid Nawaz. “A Generic Framework for Application Streaming Services”. Computers & Electrical Engineering, 66:149–161, 2018

Mujahid Mohsin, Zahid Anwar, Farhat Zaman, and Ehab Al-Shaer. “IoTChecker: A Datadriven Framework for Security Analytics of Internet of Things Configurations”. Computers & Security, 70:199–223, 2017

Mujahid Mohsin, Muhammad Usama Sardar, Osman Hasan, and Zahid Anwar. “IoTRisk-Analyzer: A Probabilistic Model Checking Based Framework for Formal Risk Analytics of the Internet of Things”. IEEE Access, 5:5494–5505, 2017

Sara Qamar, Zahid Anwar, Mohammad Ashiqur Rahman, Ehab Al-Shaer, and Bei-Tseng Chu. “Data-driven Analytics for Cyber-threat Intelligence and Information Sharing”. Computers & Security, 67:35–58, 2017

Asad W Malik, Kashif Bilal, SU Malik, Zahid Anwar, Khurram Aziz, Dzmitry Kliazovich, Nasir Ghani, Samee U Khan, and Rajkumar Buyya. CloudNetSim++: “A GUI Based Framework for Modeling and Simulation of Data Centers in OMNeT++. IEEE Transactions on Services Computing”, 10(4):506–519, 2017

Imran Khan, Zahid Anwar, Behzad Bordbar, Eike Ritter, Habib-ur Rehman, “A Protocol for Preventing 
Insider Attacks in Untrusted Infrastructure-as-a-Service Clouds.”, IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing, 6:942-954, 2016

Usman Shaukat, Ejaz Ahmed, Zahid Anwar, and Feng Xia. “Cloudlet Deployment in Local Wireless Networks: Motivation, Architectures, Applications, and Open Challenges”. Journal of Network and Computer Applications (JNCA), 62:18-40, 2016

Hira Asghar, Zahid Anwar, and Khalid Latif. “A Deliberately Insecure RDF-based Semantic Web Application Framework for Teaching SPARQL/SPARUL Injection Attacks and Defense Mechanisms”. Computers and Security, 58:63-82, 2016

Usman Shaukat and Zahid Anwar. “A Fast and Scalable technique for Constructing Multicast Routing Trees with Optimized Quality of Service using a Firefly based Genetic Algorithm”. Multimedia Tools and Applications, 75:2275-2301, 2016

Zafar Iqbal and Zahid Anwar. “Ontology Generation of Advanced Persistent Threats and their Automated Analysis”. NUST Journal of Engineering Sciences (NJES), 9(2):68–75, 2016

Mujahid Mohsin, Zahid Anwar, and Farhat Zaman. “Towards a Generic Model for RiskAnalysis of the Internet of Things (IoT)”. NUST Journal of Engineering Sciences (NJES), 9(2):42–49, 2016

Saman Iftikhar, M Kamran, and Zahid Anwar. “RRW-A Robust and Reversible Watermarking Technique for Relational Data”., IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, 27(4):1132–1145, 2015

Naila Karim, Khalid Latif, Zahid Anwar, Sharifullah Khan, and Amir Hayat. “Storage schema and ontology-independent SPARQL to HiveQL translation”. The Journal of Supercomputing, 71(7):2694–2719, 2015

Zahid Anwar and Waqas Ahmad Khan. “Guess Who Is Listening In To the Board Meeting: On the Use of Mobile Device Applications as Roving Spy Bugs”. Security and Communication Networks, 8(16):2813–2825, 2015

Saman Iftikhar, M Kamran, and Zahid Anwar. “A Survey on Reversible Watermarking Techniques for Relational Databases”. Security and Communication Networks, 8:2580–2603, 2015

Saman Iftikhar, Sharifullah Khan, Zahid Anwar, and Muhammad Kamran. “GenInfoGuard-A Robust and Distortion-Free Watermarking Technique for Genetic Data”. PloS one, 10(2), 2015

Abdul Razzaq, Khalid Latif, H. Farooq Ahmad, Ali Hur, Zahid Anwar, and Peter Charles Bloodsworth. “Semantic Security against Web Application Attacks”. Information Sciences, 254:19 – 38, 2014

Abdul Razzaq, Zahid Anwar, H. Farooq Ahmad, Khalid Latif, and Faisal Munir. “Ontology for Attack Detection: An Intelligent Approach to Web Application Security”. Computers and Security, 45:124 – 146, 2014

Zahid Anwar and Asad Waqar Malik. “Can a DDoS Attack Meltdown My Data Center? A Simulation Study and Defense Strategies”. IEEE Communications Letters, 18(7):1175–1178, 2014

Saba Maqbool, Sana Maqbool, Zahid Anwar, and Asad. W . Malik. “In depth Analysis ofVolunteer Computing Frameworks: A Case Study”. International Journal of Business and Social Sciences, 2(3):42–56, 2014

Zahid Anwar, Mirko Montanari, Alejandro Gutierrez, and Roy H Campbell. “Budget Constrained Optimal Security Hardening of Control Networks for Critical Cyber- Infrastructures”. International Journal of Critical Infrastructure Protection, 2(1):13–25, 2009

Book Chapters

Zahid Anwar and Roy Campbell. “Automated Assessment of Critical Infrastructures for Compliance to CIP Best Practices”, volume 290 of IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, chapter 11, pages 173–187. Springer, 2008

 Peer-Reviewed Conference Proceedings

Yumna Ghazi, Zahid Anwar, Rafia Mumtaz, Shahzad Saleem, and Ali Tahir. “A Supervised Machine Learning Based Approach for Automatically Extracting High-Level Threat Intelligence from Unstructured Sources”. In Frontiers of Information Technology, pages 1–8, 2018

Zafar Iqbal, Zahid Anwar, and Rafia Mumtaz. “STIXGEN – A novel framework for Au-tomatic Generation of Structured Cyber Threat Information”. In Frontiers of Information Technology, pages 1–8, 2018

Umara Noor, Zahid Anwar, and Zahid Rashid. “An Association Rule Mining Based Frame-work for Profiling Regularities in Tactics, Techniques and Procedures of Cyber Threat Actors”. In IEEE International Conference on Smart Computing and Electronic Enterprise, pages 1–8, 2018

Amna Shahzadi and Zahid Anwar. “Cyber Security Legislature: Challenges and Remedies”. In International Symposium on Advances in Computer Information Sciences (ISACIS), pages 1–8. Pakistan Institute of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 2017

Mujahid Mohsin and Zahid Anwar. “Where to Kill the Cyber Kill-Chain: An Ontology-Driven Framework for IoT Security Analytics”. In International Conference on Frontiers of Information Technology (FIT), 2016, pages 23–28. IEEE, 2016

Rana Khattak and Zahid Anwar. “D3TAC: Utilizing Distributed Computing For DDoS Attack traffic Analysis On The Cloud”. In the 19th International Multi-Topic Conference (INMIC), 2016, pages 1–6. IEEE, 2016

Mujahid Mohsin, Zahid Anwar, Ghaith Husari, Mohammad Ashiqur Rahman, and Ehab Al-Shaer, IoTSAT: A Formal Framework for Security Analysis of the Internet of Things”, IEEE Conference on 
Communications and Network Security (CNS), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, October 2016.

David Samuel Bhatti, Nazar Abbas Saqib, and Zahid Anwar. “SCEAMS: Secure Corporate Environment Adhered to Mobile Smartphones”. In Sixth International Conference on Innovative Computing Technology (INTECH), pages 561–566, Aug 2016

Saman Iftikhar, Zahid Anwar, and Muhammad Kamran. “A Novel and Robust Fingerprinting Technique for Digital Data based on Genetic Algorithm”. In High-capacity Optical Networks and Emerging/Enabling Technologies (HONET), 2014 11th Annual, pages 173–177. IEEE, 2014

Ubaid Ur Rehman, Amir Ali, and Zahid Anwar. “secCloudSim: Secure Cloud Simulator”. In Frontiers of Information Technology (FIT), 2014 12th International Conference on, pages 208–213. IEEE, 2014

Mahmood Ahmad, Zahid Anwar, and Sungyoung Lee. “Privacy Preserving e-Health Data Sharing in the Cloud-Extended Utilization of Anonymization with Random Effect”. Korea Information Science Society 40th Annual General Meeting and Fall Conference, pages 823–825, 2013

Mudassir Masood, Zahid Anwar, S Ali Raza, and Ali Hur. “EDoS Armor: A Cost Effective Economic Denial of Sustainability Attack Mitigation Framework for E-Commerce Applications in Cloud Environments”. In Multi Topic Conference (INMIC), 2013 16th International, pages 37–42. IEEE, 2013

Zahid Anwar, Marya Sharf, Essam Khan, and Muhammad Mustafa. “VG-MIPS: A Dynamic Binary Instrumentation Framework for Multi-Core MIPS Processors”. In Multi Topic Conference (INMIC), 2013 16th International, pages 166–171. IEEE, 2013

Umara Noor, Zahid Anwar, Yasir Mehmood, and Waseem Aslam. “TrustBook: Web of Trust Based Relationship Establishment in Online Social Networks”. In Frontiers of Information Technology (FIT), 2013 11th International Conference on, pages 223–228. IEEE, 2013

Mohsin Ikram, Qurrat-Ul-Ain Babar, Zahid Anwar, and Asad Waqar Malik. “GSAN: Green Cloud-Simulation for Storage Area Networks”. In Frontiers of Information Technology (FIT), 2013 11th International Conference on, pages 265–270. IEEE, 2013

Sidra Shahbaz, Asiah Mahmood, and Zahid Anwar. “SOAD: Securing Oncology EMR by Anonymizing DICOM Images”. In Frontiers of Information Technology (FIT), 2013 11th International Conference on, pages 125–130. IEEE, 2013

Hirra Anwar, Sarah Masood, and Zahid Anwar. “PISA: Improving the Pseudo-Randomness of Pen-and-Paper ciphers based on the Solitaire algorithm”. In Multitopic Conference (INMIC), 2012 15th International, pages 239–244. IEEE, 2012

Ali Ahmad, Zahid Anwar, Ali Hur, and Hafiz Farooq Ahmad. “Formal reasoning of Web Application Firewall Rules through Ontological Modeling”. In Multitopic Conference (INMIC), 2012 15th International, pages 230–237, Dec 2012

Usman Shaukat Qurashi and Zahid Anwar. “AJAX based attacks: Exploiting Web 2.0”. In Emerging Technologies (ICET), 2012 International Conference on, pages 1–6. IEEE, 2012

Saif Ur Rehman, Raihan Ur Rasool, M Sohaib Ayub, Saeed Ullah, Aatif Kamal, Qasim M Rajpoot, and Zahid Anwar. “Reliable Identification of Counterfeit Medicine using Camera Equipped Mobile Phones”. In High Capacity Optical Networks and Enabling Technologies (HONET), 2011, pages 273–279. IEEE, 2011

Imran Khan, Habib-ur Rehman, and Zahid Anwar. “Design and Deployment of a Trusted Eucalyptus Cloud”. In Cloud Computing (CLOUD), 2011 IEEE International Conference on, pages 380–387. IEEE, 2011

Zafarullah, Faiza Anwar, and Zahid Anwar. “Digital Forensics for Eucalyptus”. In Frontiers of Information Technology (FIT), 2011, pages 110–116. IEEE, 2011

Rana Khattak, Shehar Bano, Shujaat Hussain, and Zahid Anwar. “DOFUR: DDoS Forensics Using MapReduce”. In Frontiers of Information Technology (FIT), 2011, pages 117–120. IEEE, 2011

Rahat Masood, Ume Ghaiza, and Zahid Anwar. “SWAM: Stuxnet Worm Analysis in Metasploit”. In Frontiers of Information Technology (FIT), 2011, pages 142–147. IEEE, 2011

Mohammad Ali, Humayun Ali, and Zahid Anwar. “Enhancing Stealthiness & Efficiency of Android Trojans and Defense Possibilities (EnSEAD)-Android’s Malware Attack, Stealthiness and Defense: An Improvement”. In Frontiers of Information Technology (FIT), 2011, pages 148–153. IEEE, 2011

Muhammad Afzal, Maqbool Hussain, Mahmood Ahmad, and Zahid Anwar. “Trusted framework for Health Information Exchange”. In Frontiers of Information Technology (FIT), 2011, pages 308–313. IEEE, 2011

Khalid Hafeez, Muddassar Masood, Owais Malik, and Zahid Anwar. “LASSP: A Logic Analyzer for Tweaking Snort Security and Performance”. In Emerging Technologies (ICET), 2010 6th International Conference on, pages 240–245. IEEE, 2010

Shujaat Hussain, Mohsin Abbass, Owais Malik, and Zahid Anwar. “SLOGS: Security through predicate LOGic in SSH”. In Emerging Technologies (ICET), 2010 6th International Conference on, pages 256–260. IEEE, 2010

Zahid Rashid, Abdul Basit, and Zahid Anwar. “TRDBAC: Temporal Reflective Database Access Control”. In Emerging Technologies (ICET), 2010 6th International Conference on, pages 337–342. IEEE, 2010

Zahid Anwar, Zhiguo Wang, Chun Wang, Dan Ni, Yaofeng Xu, and Yuhong Yan. “An Integer Programming Model and Heuristic Algorithm for Automatic Scheduling in Synchrotron Facilities”. In Systems, Man and Cybernetics, 2009. SMC 2009. IEEE International Conference on, pages 4048–4053. IEEE, 2009

Zahid Anwar, Ravinder Shankesi, and Roy H Campbell. “Automatic Security Assessment of Critical Cyber-infrastructures”. In Dependable Systems and Networks With FTCS and DCC, 2008. DSN 2008. IEEE International Conference on, pages 366–375. IEEE, 2008

Zahid Anwar and Roy H Campbell. “Secure Reincarnation of Compromised Servers Using Xen Based Time-Forking Virtual Machines”. In Pervasive Computing and Communications Workshops, 2007. PerCom Workshops’ 07. Fifth Annual IEEE International Conference on, pages 477–482. IEEE, 2007

Zhenyu Yang, Yi Cui, Zahid Anwar, Robert Bocchino, Nadir Kiyanclar, Klara Nahrstedt, Roy H Campbell, and William Yurcik. “Real-Time 3D Video Compression for Tele-Immersive Environments”. In Electronic Imaging 2006, pages 607102–607102. International Society for Optics and Photonics, 2006

Zahid Anwar, Jun Wang, William Yurcik, and Roy H Campbell. “SPEEDS – Small-world Privacy-Enhanced Engine for Distributed Search: Toward Enhancing Privacy Protection in P2P Social Network Communities”. In International Conference on Telecommunication Systems -Modeling & Analysis (ICTSM), pages 332–335. Penn State Berks Campus, 2006

William Yurcik, Charis Ermopoulos, Yifan Li, Chao Liu, Xin Meng, and Zahid Anwar. “Masquerade Detection for HPC Cluster Security: Explanatory Analysis”. In Cluster-Sec, 6th IEEE Inter Symposium on Cluster Computing & the Grid, pages 332–335. IEEE/ACM, 2006

Zahid Anwar, William Yurcik, Ralph E Johnson, Munawar Hafiz, and Roy H Campbell. “Multiple Design Patterns for Voice over IP (VoIP) Security”. In Performance, Computing, and Communications Conference, 2006. IPCCC 2006. 25th IEEE International, pages 8–pp. IEEE, 2006

Zahid Anwar, Jalal Al-Muhtadi, William Yurcik, and Roy H Campbell. “Plethora: A Framework for Converting Generic Applications to run in a Ubiquitous Environment”. In Mobile and Ubiquitous Systems: Networking and Services, 2005. MobiQuitous 2005. The Second Annual International Conference on, pages 192–201. IEEE, 2005

Zahid Anwar, William Yurcik, Salman Baset, Henning Schulzrinne, and Roy H Campbell. “A First Step towards Call Survivability in Cellular Networks”. In Local Computer Networks, 2005. 30th Anniversary. The IEEE Conference on, pages 2–pp. IEEE, 2005

Zahid Anwar, William Yurcik, and Roy H Campbell. “A Survey and Comparison of Peer-to- Peer Group Communication Systems Suitable for Network-Centric Warfare”. In Defense and Security Symposium, pages 33–44. International Society for Optics and Photonics, 2005

Ragib Hasan, Zahid Anwar, William Yurcik, Larry Brumbaugh, and Roy Campbell. “A Survey of Peer-to-Peer Storage Techniques for Distributed File Systems”. In Information Technology: Coding and Computing, 2005. ITCC 2005. International Conference on, volume 2, pages 205–213. IEEE, 2005

Zahid Anwar. “Linking PSTN to IP Networks-The Softswitch Signaling Gateway”. In Multi Topic Conference, 2002. INMIC 2002. International, pages 57–57. IEEE, 2002