I received my Ph.D. in Computer Science from Virginia Tech, where I was advised by Dr. Bo Ji and Dr. Peng Gao. My research interests broadly fall within the areas of system security and privacy, specifically on emerging computing platforms and complex systems, including recently proposed programmable switches and SmartNICs. Building upon this, I am particularly driven to develop secure, scalable, and intelligent primitives embedded within the network infrastructure, enhancing its security and robustness.

Education

• Ph.D. in Computer Science, Virginia Tech, 2025
• M.Sc. in Computer Science, The George Washington University, 2020
• B.Sc. in Information Technology, King Abdulaziz University, 2017

Experience

• Graduate Research Assistant, Virginia Tech, Aug 2021 - Dec 2025
• PhD Software Engineer Intern, Meta, May 2025 - Aug 2025
• Instructor, King Abdulaziz University, Apr 2018 - Aug 2021
• Graduate Engineer, Honeywell, Sep 2017 - Apr 2018

Publications

NetCap: Data-Plane Capability-Based Defense Against Token Theft in Network Access
Osama Bajaber, Bo Ji, Peng Gao
Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), 2026
Acceptance rate: 17.9%

CTINexus: Automatic Cyber Threat Intelligence Knowledge Graph Construction Using Large Language Models
Yutong Cheng, Osama Bajaber, Saimon Amanuel Tsegai, Dawn Song, Peng Gao
IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy (EuroS&P), 2025
Acceptance rate: 20%

P4Control: Line-Rate Cross-Host Attack Prevention via In-Network Information Flow Control Enabled by Programmable Switches and eBPF
Osama Bajaber, Bo Ji, Peng Gao
IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (S&P / Oakland), 2024
Acceptance rate: 14.9%
Translated into a U.S. patent filing

Awards

• Davenport Leadership Fellowship, Virginia Tech, Sep 2024
• IEEE S&P Travel Grant, Apr 2024
• CCI SWVA Cyber Innovation Scholarship, Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI), 2023-2025
• Bitshares Fellowship, Virginia Tech, Aug 2023
• IEEE ICNP Travel Grant, Oct 2022

Professional Services

Organizing Committee
    • 2025 DMV Security Workshop
    • 2024 DMV Security Workshop

Program Committee
    • PRISM 2026, co-located with NDSS 2026
    • ACM AsiaCCS 2026
    • ICICS 2024

Journal Reviewer
    • IEEE Transactions on Networking (ToN)
    • IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing (TDSC)
    •IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security (T-IFS)

Artifact Evaluation Committee
    • NDSS 2024

Poster Program Committee
    • IEEE S&P 2023-2024

External Reviewer
    • IEEE S&P 2025-2026
    • USENIX Security 2026
    • ACM CCS 2023-2025
    • NDSS 2025
    • ACSAC 2025
    • IEEE EuroS&P 2024
    • SIGMETRICS 2023