Ph.D. in Computer Information Technology (Emphasis on Cybersecurity and Networks and Cyber Forensics), Purdue University
M.S. in Computer Information Technology (Emphasis on Programming for Mobile Devices), Purdue University
B.S. in Computer and Information Technology - Network Engineering Technology (With Distinction), Purdue University
Ibrahim “Abe” Baggili is an internationally recognized expert in cyber security and digital forensics. He is the founder and co-director of the University of New Haven’s Cyber Forensics Research and Education Group.
The group, which includes student researchers, found liabilities in popular apps, including WhatsApp and Viber, that affected more than 1.5 billion users, garnering significant international media coverage. Its National Security Foundation-funded research showed that they could break into virtual reality systems – the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift – and alter what happened once they got in.
Dr. Baggili works regularly with law enforcement on digital forensics to help solve crimes, and he created the Artifact Genome Project, a digital information resource for law enforcement. His work has been supported by the National Security Agency and the MITRE Corporation, which funded a project entitled “Survey for Automation of Child Abuse Investigations.”
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.
Ricci, J., Baggili, I., & Breitinger, F. (2019). Blockchain-Based Distributed Cloud Storage Digital Forensics: Where's the Beef?. IEEE Security & Privacy, 17(1), 34-42.
Zhang, X., Grannis, J., Baggili, I., & Beebe, N. L. (2019). Frameup: An incriminatory attack on storj: A peer to peer blockchain enabled distributed storage system. Digital Investigation.
Casey, P., Baggili, I., & Yarramreddy, A. (2019). Immersive Virtual Reality Attacks and the Human Joystick. IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing.
Schmicker, R., Breitinger, F., & Baggili, I. (2018). AndroParse-An Android Feature Extraction Framework and Dataset. In International Conference on Digital Forensics and Cyber Crime (pp. 66-88). Springer, Cham.
Haigh, T., Breitinger, F., & Baggili, I. (2018). If I Had a Million Cryptos: Cryptowallet Application Analysis and a Trojan Proof-of-Concept. In International Conference on Digital Forensics and Cyber Crime (pp. 45-65). Springer, Cham.
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.
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.
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
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
Ibrahim (Abe) Baggili, associate professor and assistant dean of the Tagliatela College of Engineering, discusses security in virtual reality and the creation of Connecticut’s first CyberCorps® Scholarship for Service program.
Ibrahim (Abe) Baggili, associate professor and assistant dean of the Tagliatela College of Engineering, discusses the GenCyber Agent Academy hosted by the University of New Haven.
High school students attend the week-long camp at the GenCyber Agent Academy, led by Ibrahim (Abe) Baggili.
Ibrahim (Abe) Baggili, associate professor and assistant dean of the Tagliatela College of Engineering, discusses the GenCyber Agent Academy, a week-long cybersecurity camp for high school students at the University of New Haven.
Ibrahim (Abe) Baggili, associate professor and assistant dean of the Tagliatela College of Engineering, discusses the $4 million National Science Foundation grant that was recently given to the University of New Haven.
IIbrahim (Abe) Baggili, associate professor and assistant dean of the Tagliatela College of Engineering, was chosen to give the Last Lecture of Spring 2019.
Ibrahim (Abe) Baggili, associate professor and assistant dean of the Tagliatela College of Engineering, discusses the University of New Haven being named a Center of Academic Excellence by The National Security Agency.
Ibrahim (Abe) Baggili, associate professor and assistant dean of the Tagliatela College of Engineering, warns public to exercise caution while using online dating websites as the number of catfishing scams continues to grow.
Ibrahim (Abe) Baggili, associate professor and assistant dean of the Tagliatela College of Engineering, and a team of researchers from the University of New Haven were able to find multiple vulnerabilities within virtual reality software and underlying Unity APIs.
Ibrahim (Abe) Baggili, associate professor and assistant dean of the Tagliatela College of Engineering, and a team of researchers from the University of New Haven were able to find multiple vulnerabilities within virtual reality software and underlying Unity APIs.
After Ibrahim (Abe) Baggili, associate professor and assistant dean of the Tagliatela College of Engineering, and a team of University of New Haven researchers were able to uncover privacy vulnerabilities within Bigscreen’s virtual reality software, the company patches the issue.
Ibrahim (Abe) Baggili, associate professor and assistant dean of electrical & computer engineering and computer science, along with other University of New Haven researchers were able to uncover vulnerabilities within a popular vitual reality application.
Ibrahim (Abe) Baggili, associate professor and assistant dean of the Tagliatela College of Engineering, led a team of University of New Haven researchers that was able to uncover privacy vulnerabilities within a popular virtual reality software.
Ibrahim (Abe) Baggili, associate professor and assistant dean of electrical & computer engineering, details the dangers of virtual reality software hacking and what types of attacks there are.
With virtual reality headsets becoming more popular for gifts in recent times, it’s important to understand the risks. Ibrahim (Abe) Baggili, an associate professor and assistant dean of electrical & computer engineering and computer science, discusses the dangers of virtual reality software hacking.
Ibrahim (Abe) Baggili, an associate professor and assistant dean of electrical & computer engineering and computer science, discusses the dangers of virtual reality software hacking.
Ibrahim (Abe) Baggili, an associate professor and assistant dean of electrical & computer engineering and computer science, speaks of vulnerabilities within virtual reality software that could become new targets for hacking.
Ibrahim (Abe) Baggili, an associate professor and assistant dean of electrical & computer engineering and computer science, warns of the possible drawbacks of retrieving data belonging to the deceased.
Ibrahim (Abe) Baggili, an associate professor and dean of electrical & computer engineering and computer science, speaks of possible outcomes for the future after this cyber attack.
Abe Baggili, associate professor and head of the Cyber Forensics Research and Education Group, comments on methods to get girls interested in majoring in the male-dominated field of cyber security.
Abe Baggili, associate professor and head of the Cyber Forensics Research and Education Group, and his team established the Artifact Genome Project. This project allows open communication for all security experts around the world to keep up with evolving technology.
Abe Baggili, associate professor and head of the Cyber Forensics Research and Education Group, comments on the importance of rebooting your router to prevent potential hackers.
Abe Baggili, head of the Cyber Forensics Research and Education Group, discusses how he and his research team have discovered vulnerabilities in multiple virtual reality headsets that allow hackers to remotely alter what the wearer sees. This story was picked up by KCBS radio as well as dozens of web publications on technology.
Abe Baggili, head of the Cyber Forensics Research and Education Group, comments on how his group has advanced in the National Cyber Analyst Challenge with the highest team rating.
Abe Baggili, head of the Cyber Forensics Research and Education Group, has been chosen as one of Connecticut Magazine’s top 40 highest achievers.
Connecticut Magazine has chosen Ibrahim (Abe) Baggili, head of the Cyber Forensics Research and Education Group, as one of Connecticut’s highest-achievers under 40 years of age.
Abe Baggili, head of the Cyber Forensics Research and Education Group, Elder Family Chair professor of computer science, and the assistant dean of Tagliatela College of Engineering, discusses the expectations of consumers following Apple’s admission to purposefully slowing down their cell phones.
Abe Baggili, chaired professor and assistant dean of engineering and co-director and founder of the University of New Haven’s Cyber Forensics Research and Education Group, comments on the rising trend of scammers using malicious phishing tactics to obtain sensitive information from Facebook users.
Abe Baggili, associate professor and assistant dean engineering, comments on the formation of a new task force to fight cyber crime.
Abe Baggili, Elder Family Chair in engineering and assistant dean, and students in the Cyber Forensics Law, have developed a system where law enforcement can archive solutions to digital problems like looking into a phone or app to help fellow officers around the globe. The project is called the Artifact Genome Project and is like the Human Genome Project.
Abe Baggili, assistant dean, associate professor, co-director and founder of the Cyber Forensics Laboratory, comments on analyzing data in wearable technology, like FitBits, and how they are used in criminal investigations.
Abe Baggili, assistant dean, associate professor, co-director and founder of the Cyber Forensics Laboratory, comments on how the cyber forensics research group is using a “hotspot” library to detect threats located on Wi-Fi.
Abe Baggili, assistant dean and associate professor of computer science, comments on the cyber attack on the non-profit organization, Planned Parenthood.
Abe Baggili, co-director and founder of the Cyber Forensics Research and Education Group (UNHcFREG) and associate professor and assistant dean of the Tagliatela College of Engineering, comments on the potential misuse of drones.
Abe Baggili, founder of the Cyber Forensics Research Group and associate professor and assistant dean of electrical and computer engineering, comments on anonymity being a huge concern in the digital forensics process.