Hanif Rahbari Headshot

Hanif Rahbari

Assistant Professor

Department of Cybersecurity
Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences

Office Location
GCI-3739
Office Mailing Address
100 Lomb Memorial Drive Rochester, NY 14623

Hanif Rahbari

Assistant Professor

Department of Cybersecurity
Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences

Education

BS, Sharif University of Technology (Iran); MS, Amirkabir University (Iran); Ph.D., University of Arizona

Bio

Hanif Rahbari received the Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Arizona (UA) in 2016. His dissertation was a blend of theoretical and experimental (software radio-based) research on transmission fingerprints obfuscation in wireless communications. He joined RIT as an Assistant Professor of Computing Security in Spring 2018 after a short-term affiliation with UA as a Senior Research Specialist and a brief experience as a Postdoctoral Associate at Virginia Tech. His broad research area is wireless security and communications, with emphasis on jamming, privacy-preserving physical layer, connected vehicles security, Internet of Things (IoT), Wi-Fi security, and 5G/6G. He was the lead researcher in developing the first ever modulation obfuscation technique, and the swiftest but highly disruptive jamming attacks against Wi-Fi systems. He also teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on wireless security.

For a complete list of Dr. Rahbari's publications, please see http://rahbari.csec.rit.edu/publications


Areas of Expertise

Select Scholarship

Journal Paper
Twardokus, Geoff and Hanif Rahbari. "Toward Protecting 5G Sidelink Scheduling in C-V2X Against Intelligent DoS Attacks." IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications (TWC) 22. 11 (2023): 7273 - 7286. Web.
Zhang, Zhengguang, Hanif Rahbari, and Marwan Krunz. "Adaptive Preamble Embedding With MIMO to Support User-Defined Functionalities in WLANs." IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing 22. 2 (2023): 691–707. Web.
Siyari, Peyman, Hanif Rahbari, and Marwan Krunz. "Lightweight Machine Learning for Efficient Frequency-Offset-Aware Demodulation." IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications 37. 11 (2019): 2544-2558. Web.
Published Conference Proceedings
Hoque, Naureen and Hanif Rahbari. "Circumventing the Defense against Modulation Classification Attacks,." Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless & Mobile Networks (WiSec). Ed. N/A. New York, NY: ACM, 2023. Web.
Twardokus, Geoff and Hanif Rahbari. "Vehicle-to-Nothing? Securing C-V2X Against Protocol-Aware DoS Attacks." Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM). Ed. N/A. Red Hook, NY: IEEE, 2022. Web.
Zhang, Zhengguang, Hanif Rahbari, and Marwan Krunz. "Expanding the Role of Preambles to Support User-defined Functionality in MIMO-based WLANs." Proceedings of the 39th Annual IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM 2020), Virtual Conference, July 2020. Ed. N/A. Piscataway, NJ, United States: IEEE, 2020. Web.
Rahbari, Hanif, et al. "Adaptive Demodulation for Wireless Systems in the Presence of Frequency-Offset Estimation Errors." Proceedings of the IEEE INFOCOM, Honolulu, HI, USA, April 2018. Ed. N/A. Piscataway, NJ: IEEE, 2018. Print.
Full Patent
Krunz, Marwan M., et al. "Systems and Methods for Securing Wireless Communications." U.S. Patent 10,439,755. 8 Oct. 2019.
Krunz, Marwan M., et al. "Systems and Methods for Securing Wireless Communications." U.S. Patent US010069592B1. 4 Sep. 2018.

Currently Teaching

CMPE-570
3 Credits
This course gives an overview of the technologies, architectures, and protocols used to build various types of computer and communication networks. The course emphasizes various network design problems and solution approaches. Specific issues covered include framing and coding, error detection, multiple access control, addressing, routing, flow and congestion control, scheduling, and switching.
CMPE-670
3 Credits
This course gives an overview of the technologies, architectures, and protocols used to build various types of computer and communication networks. The course emphasizes various network design problems and solution approaches. Specific issues covered include framing and coding, error detection, multiple access control, addressing, routing, flow and congestion control, scheduling, and switching.
CSEC-490
3 Credits
This is a capstone course for students in the cybersecurity program. Students will review a series of short modules on topics such as teamwork, project management, report writing, and presentations, and will work in teams to apply their knowledge and skills to real-world projects in various areas of cybersecurity. Projects may require performing security analysis of systems, networks, software, policies, etc., devising and implementing security solutions in real-world applications. (4th-year status and departmental approval)
CSEC-569
3 Credits
The goal of this course is to provide the students with an understanding of wireless communication concepts and principles of wireless networks along with their vulnerabilities and security protocols. In addition, the students will gain practical experience via a series of wireless system administration and attack/defense lab activities, and a software-defined radio project to explore mechanisms for analyzing and/or securing modern wireless networks. The course begins with a primer on wireless security concepts from a physical-layer perspective. It then covers and discusses various generations of security protocols for IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi) systems, security of cellular networks, security of wireless protocols for Internet-of-Things (IoT), and other selected trending topics (e.g., connected vehicles security).
CSEC-599
1 - 6 Credits
Students will work with a supervising faculty member on a project of mutual interest. Project design and evaluation will be determined through discussion with the supervising faculty member and documented through completion of an independent study form to be filed with the department of computing security.
CSEC-669
3 Credits
The goal of this course is to provide the students with an understanding of wireless communication concepts and principles of wireless networks along with their vulnerabilities and security protocols. In addition, the students will gain practical experience via a series of wireless system administration and attack/defense lab activities, and a software-defined radio project to explore mechanisms for analyzing and/or securing modern wireless networks. The course begins with a primer on wireless security concepts from a physical-layer perspective. It then covers and discusses various generations of security protocols for IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi) systems, security of cellular networks, security of wireless protocols for Internet-of-Things (IoT), and other selected trending topics (e.g., connected vehicles security).
CSEC-799
1 - 3 Credits
The graduate independent study offers students the opportunity to investigate a topic not covered in an available course in the MS program in conjunction with a faculty sponsor. Working cooperatively, the faculty sponsor and the student draft a proposal of the work to be completed, the deliverables expected from the student, the number of credits assigned, and the means by which the student’s work will be evaluated. The proposal must be approved by the graduate program director before a student can be registered for independent study.

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