Expertise

Topics:  Network Monitoring and Measurement, Cybersecurity, Information Networking, Security and Systems, Networking, Network Security, Distributed Systems, Computer Security, Content/Video Delivery Systems, Middleboxes, Energy Grid Security

Industries: Computer/Network Security, Education/Learning

Vyas Sekar and fellow CMU researchers Lujo Bauer and Larry Pileggi are calling on the research and policy communities to develop more comprehensive and accurate grid evaluation frameworks and datasets, and for updating threat models and grid resiliency requirements to match cyber attackers realistic capabilities.

Sekar received his Ph.D. from the computer science department at Carnegie Mellon University in 2010. He earned his bachelor's degree from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, where he was awarded the President of India Gold Medal. His work has been recognized with best paper awards at ACM SIGCOMM, ACM CoNext, and ACM Multimedia.

Media Experience

Power Shift: How CMU Is Leading America’s Energy Evolution  — CMU News
From reimagining AI data centers to modernizing and securing the electric grid, CMU researchers are working on practical solutions to pressing challenges in how the U.S. produces, moves and secures energy. Lujo Bauer, Larry Pileggi and Vyas Sekar are calling on the research and policy communities to develop more comprehensive and accurate grid evaluation frameworks and datasets, and for updating threat models and grid resiliency requirements to match cyber attackers realistic capabilities.

This is AI's brain on AI  — Axios
The bottom line: AI-generated data is "an amazingly useful technology, but if you use it indiscriminately, it's going to run into problems," Vyas Sekar, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, told Axios.

7 ways to protect your iPhone from being hacked  — Business Insider
Vyas Sekar, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, says staying safe is all about "good digital hygiene."

Q&A with Vyas Sekar on the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on cybersecurity  — Tech Xplore
Vyas Sekar, a professor in Carnegie Mellon's Electrical and Computer Engineering Department whose work focuses on network security, thinks that enterprises need to be thinking very critically about the security of their networks—maybe more now than ever.

Stop! Don’t Charge Your Phone This Way  — The New York Times
Like scammers who steal debit card numbers by putting illegal card-reading devices, or skimmers, on A.T.M.s, hackers can easily rip out USB ports and replace them with their own malicious hardware, said Vyas Sekar, a professor at CyLab, a security and privacy research institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

Are Your Facebook Messages Really Private? Here’s the Truth  — Time Magazine
Here, Facebook shares information on how some of its security works, while Vyas Sekar, a faculty member of CyLab at Carnegie Melon University and a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, breaks down how someone might still find ways around it.