Wil Robertson

Associate Professor,  Khoury College of Computer Sciences
Associate Professor,  Electrical and Computer Engineering

Contact

  • wkr@ccs.neu.edu
  • 260 West Village H
    360 Huntington Avenue
    Boston, Massachusetts 02115

Office

  • 617.373.2136

Research Focus

Trustworthy computing architectures, web security, statistical machine learning for anomaly detection, malware analysis using adversarial program analysis, reverse engineering, intrusion detection

About

Professor Robertson is an interdisciplinary faculty member affiliated with the Khoury College of Computer Sciences and the College of Engineering at Northeastern. Interested in protecting systems from attacks, he has focused his research on Web security, anomaly detection, program analysis, and electronic voting security. Professor Robertson is part of the International Secure Systems Lab, a European and U.S. computer security research effort co-directed by his Northeastern faculty colleague Engin Kirda.

Prior to joining the Northeastern faculty, Professor Robertson was a postdoctoral researcher in the computer security research group at UC Berkeley and a research assistant with the UC Santa Barbara SecLab.

He also co-founded and served as chief technology officer for WebWise Security, Inc., where he was involved in developing weblock, a high-speed anomaly-based Web application firewall.

Education

  • PhD, University of California, Santa Barbara

Research Overview

Trustworthy computing architectures, web security, statistical machine learning for anomaly detection, malware analysis using adversarial program analysis, reverse engineering, intrusion detection

Selected Research Projects

  • Securing the Future: Scholarship for Service at Northeastern University
    • – Principal Investigator, National Science Foundation
  • Automated Inference of High-Level Program Structure
    • – Principal Investigator, Office of Naval Research
  • Continuum: Finding Space and Time Vulnerabilities in Java Programs
    • – Principal Investigator, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
  • DarkDroid: Exposing the Dark Side of Android Marketplaces
    • – Co-Principal Investigator, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
  • Firmalice: Modeling and Identifying Malice in Firmware
    • – Co-Principal Investigator, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
  • Multi-Disciplinary Preparation of Next Generation Information Assurance Practitioners
    • – Co-Principal Investigator, National Science Foundation

Research Centers and Institutes

Department Research Areas

Selected Publications

  • A. Ozcan, C. Mulliner, W. Robertson, E. Kirda, et al. “BabelCrypt: The Universal Encryption Layer for Mobile Messaging Applications”, Proceedings of the International Conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security (FC), Isla Verde, PR, 2015, 1-15
  • M. Weissbacher, W. Robertson, E. Kirda, C. Kruegel, G. Vigna “ZigZag: Automatically Hardening Web Applications Against Client-side Validation Vulnerabilities”, Proceedings of the USENIX Security Symposium, Washington DC, 2015, 737-752
  • C. Mulliner, W. Robertson, E. Kirda “Hidden GEMs: Automated Discovery of Access Control Vulnerabilities in Graphical User Interfaces”, Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (Oakland), San Jose, CA, 2014, 1-14
  • M. Weissbacher, T. Lauinger, W. Robertson “Why is CSP Failing? Trends and Challenges in CSP Adoption”, Proceedings of the International Symposium on Research in Attacks, Intrusions, and Defenses (RAID), Gothenburg, 2014, 1-22
  • K. Onarlioglu, C. Mulliner, W. Robertson, E. Kirda “PrivExec: Private Execution as an Operating System Service”, Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (Oakland), San Francisco, CA, 2013, 1-16

Faculty

Aug 09, 2024

Exploring the Adverse Effects of Ticketmaster’s Monopoly

Khoury/ECE Associate Professor Wil Robertson explains how the cyberattack by bots that Ticketmaster suffered from during the sale of tickets for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour reflects the company’s monopolistic position within the concert industry.

Faculty

Jul 09, 2024

$4.8M NSF Renewal CyberCorps® Scholarship for Service Grant

Khoury/ECE Associate Professor Wil Robertson, ECE Distinguished Professor David Kaeli, and Affiliated Faculty Guevara Noubir were awarded a $4.8 million NSF renewal CyberCorps® Scholarship for Service (SFS) program grant for “Securing the Future: Scholarship for Service at Northeastern University.”

Sep 08, 2014

Protecting Data in the Cloud

ECE & CCIS Assistant Professor William Robertson discusses recent celebrity hacks and how users should protect their privacy and online data against hackers.

Aug 08, 2014

Detecting Vulnerabilities

ECE & CCIS Associate Professor Engin Kirda & Assistant Professor Wil Robertson won a $500K NSF grant to build an analysis tool which automates, engineers, & summarizes closed source binary software

Jan 30, 2014

Wil Robertson outthinks the cybercriminals

William Robertson, assistant professor of computer and information science and electrical and computer engineering Among researchers focused on cleaning up the world’s black market of Internet insecurity, Robertson is a leader—in large part because he has learned to think like a cybercriminal. This highly sophisticated set of hackers, members of a global Internet mafia, sit […]

May 20, 2013

Stopping Cyber Criminals

To stop cybercrime, you need to think like a criminal. That's what Northeastern is teaching information assurance students to do. – See more at: http://www.northeastern.edu/magazine/know-thine-enemy/#sthash.KID73xMR.dpuf

Mar 05, 2013

3Qs: The rules of cyber-​​engagement

The Obama admin­is­tra­tion is close to approving the nation’s first set of rules for how the mil­i­tary can defend or retal­iate against a major cyber­at­tack, according to a report last month in The New York Times. One such new rule would report­edly give the pres­i­dent power to order a pre-​​emptive strike if the U.S. detects […]

Aug 28, 2012

Cybersecurity Training

Professors & Associate Deans David Kaeli (ECE) & Agnes Chan (CCS) and Assistant Professor Will Robertson (ECE & CCS) were awarded a $4.5M NSF grant to train the next generation in cybersecurity. Source: News @ Northeastern

Faculty

Aug 28, 2012

Northeastern receives $4.5M award to train future cybersecurity workforce

Professors & Associate Deans David Kaeli (ECE) & Agnes Chan (CCS) and Assistant Professor Will Robertson (ECE & CCS) were awarded a $4.5M NSF grant to train the next generation in cybersecurity.

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