Ibrahim (Abe) Baggili, Ph.D.

He received his Ph.D., master’s, and bachelor’s degrees in computer information technology from Purdue University, where he was a researcher at its Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS) and its Cyber Forensics Laboratory. Before arriving at the University of New Haven in 2013, he was an assistant professor at Zayed University, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, and director of the Advanced Cyber Forensics Research Laboratory, the first cyber forensics lab in the Arab region. In 2019, he was named a fellow of the European Alliance for Innovation.

The former editor-in-chief for the Journal of Digital Forensics, Security, and Law, Dr. Baggili investigated and co-authored "A Method and a Case Study for the Selection of the Best Available Tools for Mobile Device Forensics Using Decision Analysis," which was published in Digital Investigation. He won the best paper award for "File Detection on Network Traffic Using Approximate Matching" at the International Conference on Digital Forensics and Cyber Crime.

Named to Connecticut Magazine’s "40 under 40" Class of 2018, a list of high-achievers under the age of 40 who stand out in their fields, Dr. Baggili mentors undergraduate and graduate researchers and the University’s hacking team. The team was a finalist in the Collegiate Penetration Testing Competition and placed second at the CyberSeed competition at UConn.

He’s also the principal investigator on the GenCyber Agent Academy – funded by the NSA and NSF – a summer academy for middle and high school students to encourage interest in the STEM fields.

Courses Taught

• Memory Forensics
• Information Security, Policy, Ethics and Law
• Computer Networking
• Intro to Cyber Forensic Science
• Research Topics in Cybersecurity and Forensics
• Advanced Topics in Cyber Forensics
• Small-Scale Digital Device Forensics
• Penetration Testing and Advanced Hacking Techniques
• Cyber Criminal Behavior
• Ethical Hacking and Countermeasures
• Introduction to Programming
• Information Security Basics
• Information Security Technologies

Dorai, G., Houshmand, S., & Baggili, I. (2018). I Know What You Did Last Summer: Your Smart Home Internet of Things and Your iPhone Forensically Ratting You Out. In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security (p. 49). ACM.

Luciano, L., Baggili, I., Topor, M., Casey, P., & Breitinger, F. (2018). Digital Forensics in the Next Five Years. In Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security (p. 46). ACM.

Yarramreddy, A., Gromkowski, P., & Baggili, I. (2018). Forensic Analysis of Immersive Virtual Reality Social Applications: A Primary Account. In 2018 IEEE Security and Privacy Workshops (SPW) (pp. 186-196). IEEE.

Grajeda, C., Sanchez, L., Baggili, I., Clark, D., & Breitinger, F. (2018). Experience constructing the Artifact Genome Project (AGP): Managing the domain's knowledge one artifact at a time. Digital Investigation, 26, S47-S58.

Ricci, J., Breitinger, F., & Baggili, I. (2018). Survey results on adults and cybersecurity education. Education and Information Technologies, 1-19.

Ricci, J., Baggili, I., & Breitinger, F. (2018). Watch What You Wear: Smartwatches and Sluggish Security. In Wearable Technologies: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications (pp. 1458-1478). IGI Global.

Knieriem, B., Zhang, X., Levine, P., Breitinger, F., & Baggili, I. (2017). An Overview of the Usage of Default Passwords. In International Conference on Digital Forensics and Cyber Crime (pp. 195-203). Springer.

Saleem, S., Popov, O., & Baggili, I. (2017). Comments on "A method and a case study for the selection of the best available tool for mobile device forensics using decision analysis"[Digit Investig 16S, S55–S64]. Digital Investigation, 21, 88.

Meffert, C., Clark, D., Baggili, I., & Breitinger, F. (2017). Forensic State Acquisition from Internet of Things (FSAIoT): A general framework and practical approach for IoT forensics through IoT device state acquisition. In Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security (p. 56). ACM.

Zhang, X., Baggili, I., & Breitinger, F.. Breaking into the vault: privacy, security and forensic analysis of android vault applications. Computers & Security (2017), Issn: 0167-4048.

Moore, J., Baggili, I., & Breitinger, F. (2017). Find Me If You Can: Mobile GPS Mapping Applications Forensic Analysis & SNAVP the Open Source, Modular, Extensible Parser. Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law, 12(1), 7.

Grajeda, C., Breitinger, F., & Baggili, I. Availability of datasets for digital forensics – And what is missing. Digital Investigation 22, Supplement (2017), S94 –S105. issn: 1742- 2876.

Denton, G., Karpisek, F., Breitinger, F., & Baggili, I. Leveraging the SRTP protocol for over-the-network memory acquisition of a GE Fanuc Series 90-30. Digital Investigation 22, Supplement (2017), S26 – S38. issn: 1742-2876.

Clark, D., Meffert, C., Baggili, I., & Breitinger, F. DROP (DRone Open source Parser) your drone: Forensic analysis of the DJI Phantom III. Digital Investigation 22, Supplement (2017), S3 –S14. issn: 1742-2876.

Al-khateeb, S., Conlan, K. J., Agarwal, N., Baggili, I., & Breitinger, F. (2016). Exploring Deviant Hacker Networks (DHN) On Social Media Platforms. Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law, 11(2), 7-20.

Harichandran, V. S., Breitinger, F., & Baggili, I. (2016). Bytewise Approximate Matching: The Good, The Bad, and The Unknown. Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law, 11(2), 59-78.

Ricci, J., Baggili, I., & Breitinger, F. (2017). Watch What You Wear: Smartwatches and Sluggish Security. In A. Marrington, D. Kerr, & J. Gammack (Eds.) Managing Security Issues and the Hidden Dangers of Wearable Technologies (pp. 47-73). Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference. doi:10.4018/978-1-5225-1016-1.ch003

Meffert, C. S., Baggili, I., & Breitinger, F. (2016). Deleting collected digital evidence by exploiting a widely adopted hardware write blocker. Digital Investigation , 18 , S87-S96.

Harichandran, V. S., Walnycky, D., Baggili, I., & Breitinger+, F. (2016). CuFA: A more formal definition for digital forensic artifacts. Digital Investigation , 18 , S125-S137.

Conlan, K., Baggili, I., & Breitinger, F. (2016). Anti-forensics: Furthering digital forensic science through a new extended, granular taxonomy. Digital Investigation , 18 , S66-S75.

Click here for a complete list of publications.

Funding, Gifts & Startup Funds

2019: Source: NSF & NSA, Title: University of New Haven's GenCyber Agent Academy, PI: Ibrahim Baggili, Co-PIs: Liberty Page and Frank Breitinger, Amount requested $78,258.95 - Funded.

2019: Source: NSF, Title: University of New Haven CyberCorps Scholarship for Service (SFS): Super Cyber Operatives (SCOs), PI: Ibrahim Baggili, Co-PIs: Ronald Harichandran, Liberty Page, Amount requested: $1,960,712 - Submitted.

2018: Source: NSF, Title: Expanding Digital Forensics Education with Artifact Curation and Scalable, Accessible Artifact Exercises, PI: Ibrahim Baggili, Amount requested $426,945 - Submitted.

2018: Source: MITRE Corp., Title: Survey for Automation of Child Abuse Investigations, PI: Ibrahim Baggili, Amount requested: $32,827.61 - Funded.

2017: Source: NSF, Title: Exploring cybersecurity and forensics of Virtual Reality systems and their impact on cybersecurity education, PI: Ibrahim Baggili, Co-PI: Frank Breitinger, Amount requested $179,409 - Funded.

2017: Source: NSF sub-award Title: Renewal of the Scholarship for Service Program: The University of Texas at San Antonio, PI: Ibrahim Baggili, Amount requested $14,648 - Funded.

2017: Source: Davis Educational Foundation, Title: Development of the ‘CyberWorld’ Common Course at the University of New Haven, PI: Frank Breitinger, Co-PIs: Kristen Przyborski, Ronald Harichandran, Ibrahim Baggili, Guy-Serge Emmanuel, Glenn McGee, Christy Smith, Matthew Schmidt, Amount $167,418 – Funded.

2017: Source: NSF & NSA, Title: University of New Haven's GenCyber Agent Academy, PI: Ibrahim Baggili, Co-PIs: Liberty Page and Frank Breitinger, Amount requested $64,099 - Funded.

2016: Source: NSF & NSA, Title: University of New Haven's GenCyber Agent Academy, PI: Ibrahim Baggili, Co-PIs: Liberty Page and Frank Breitinger, Amount requested $53,029 - Funded.

2016: $7,876 Frank Breitinger & Ibrahim Baggili: Gift in kind to our lab from the Vera Institute of Justice to support our activities - Funded Gift in Kind.

Honors & Awards

2019: Awarded European Alliance for Innovation Fellow

2018: Our Student Trevor Haigh Won Best Paper Award , ICDF2C 2018 for the paper titled "If I Had a Million Cryptos: Cryptowallet Application Analysis and A Trojan Proof-of-Concept."

2017: Our mentored student hacking team received Second place at CyberSEED, University of Connecticut.

2017: Our mentored student hacking team received third place in the northeast qualifiers of the Collegiate Penetration Testing Competition (CPTC) at the University of Pennsylvania.

2017: Received letter of appreciation for activities and training performed for the United Nations in Jordan and Egypt.

2016: Received letter of appreciation from the CT Center for Digital Investigation. Our lab was able to create a forensic tool to recover data hidden by a Vault application on Android. Recovered files included 18 additional videos that were prosecutable.

2016: Three of my students received Google sponsored scholarships to attend DFRWS 2016 and present their work.

2016: Third place in national Black-t-shirt digital forensics competition.The team was composed of Chris Meffert (Graduate student), Joseph Ricci (Undergraduate student) and myself. We competed against 184 university teams worldwide.

2016: Finalist in Cybersecurity Excellence Awards for cyber security educator of the year award in the USA - nominated by my students.

2015: Inducted into Upsilon Pi Epsilon - The International Honor Society for the Computing and Information Disciplines.

2014: University Research Scholar, University of New Haven, 2014-2017

Presentations, Talks & Workshops

2019: Presented at University of Colorado, Colorado Springs "Virtual Reality Insanity: Cybersecurity and Forensics of Immersive Virtual Reality", Colorado Springs, CO

2018: Invited Talk by University of Louisville "Virtual Reality Insanity: Cybersecurity and Forensics of Immersive Virtual Reality", Louisville, KY

2018: Invited Talk by Rutgers University "Virtual Reality Insanity: Cybersecurity and Forensics of Immersive Virtual Reality", Newark, NJ

2018: Invited Talk by ISACA to the 6th North East Annual Cybersecurity Summit (NEACS) "Virtual Reality Insanity: Cybersecurity and Forensics of Immersive Virtual Reality", Trumbull CT

2018: Presented "Digital Forensics In the Next Five Years", WSDF, ARES 2018, Hamburg, Germany

2018: Attended professional development PI meeting for NSA's GenCyber program, Phoenix, AZ

2018: Presented "Digital Forensics In the Next Five Years", ICDF2C 2018, New Orleans

2018: Presented "Digital Forensics In the Next Five Years", SADFE 2018, S&P Workshop, San Francisco, CA

2018: Invited Presentation by United States Military Academy "UNHcFREG Research Projects and Hacking Team", West Point, NY