Back to
Dr Arash Shaghaghi

Dr Arash Shaghaghi

Senior Lecturer

Education:

  • PhD - Computer Science and Engineering, UNSW Sydney, Australia.
  • MSc - Information Security, University College London (UCL), UK.
  • BSc with Distinction -  Heriot-Watt University, UK.

 

Certifications:

  • Negotiation Strategies for Researchers, UNSW Sydney, 2023.
  • Graduate Certificate of Higher Education (Learning and Teaching), Deakin University, Australia, 2021.
  • Essentials of Supervision (for HDRs), UNSW Sydney, 2024.
  • Data: Law, Policy, and Regulation, London School of Economics (LSE), UK, 2021.
  • Oxford Blockchain Strategy Programme, The University of Oxford, UK, 2018.
  • Project Management for Researchers, RMIT University, 2022.
  • Introduction to Qualitative Research, Australian Consortium for Social and Political Research Incorporated (ACSPRI), Australia, 2022.
Engineering
Computer Science and Engineering

Arash Shaghaghi is a Senior Lecturer in Cyber Security at the School of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) of UNSW Sydney. Arash has previously been affiliated with RMIT University, Deakin University, Data61 CSIRO, The University of Melbourne, and The University of Texas at Dallas. He completed his PhD in Computer Science and Engineering at UNSW Sydney, MSc in Information Security at University College London (UCL), and BSc at Heriot-Watt University. 

Research Profile: Arash has received over 1.7 million AUD funding (Lead CI and CI combined) for his cyber security research from various sources, including industry, government, and universities. Most recently, he has been awarded $528K as the Lead Chief Investigator from CSCRC and Cisco for the "IoT Data Security and Assurance Framework for Intelligent Transport" project. He has received awards and appraisals for his research performance, including university recognitions and best paper awards. In 2024, he has been awarded the Early Career Academic Excellence Award (Research) from the Faculty of Engineering at UNSW Sydney. In 2023, Arash was among the top 200 young computer science and mathematics scientists selected by the Heidelberg Laureate Forum (HLF) in Germany. Arash has contributed to several articles on cyber security incidents or about his research work for various media outlets, including the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and The Guardian. Arash serves as the Associate Editor for the Journal of Ad Hoc Networks.

Teaching Profile: Arash is an award-winning educator with multiple awards and recognitions for leading the design, development, and delivery of hands-on cybersecurity programs and courses. In 2023, he was awarded the Educational Excellence & Innovation award from the Faculty of Engineering at UNSW Sydney. Before joining UNSW, he led RMIT's Graduate Certificate of Cyber Security Governance and Risk Management. At Deakin University, Arash was the Deputy Academic Director (Teaching) at the School of IT and the Graduate Certificate in Information Technology Director. He was also a member of the team leading the Bachelor of Cybersecurity, which redeveloped the program with a technical and hands-on curriculum by integrating several industry-leading cybersecurity certifications as part of the degree. He has completed training in designing and teaching effective learning programs and holds the Graduate Certificate of Higher Education (Learning and Teaching) from Deakin University.
E-mail
a.shaghaghi@unsw.edu.au
Location
School of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE), Level 4, Building K17, UNSW SYDNEY 2052.
  • Book Chapters | 2025
    Reeves A; Shaghaghi A; Krebs S; Ashenden D, 2025, 'Data After Death: Australian User Preferences and Future Solutions to Protect Posthumous User Data', in IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, Springer Nature Switzerland, pp. 213 - 227, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-72563-0_15
    Book Chapters | 2019
    Shaghaghi A; Kaafar MA; Buyya R; Jha S, 2019, 'Software-Defined Network (SDN) data plane security: Issues, solutions, and future directions', in Handbook of Computer Networks and Cyber Security: Principles and Paradigms, pp. 341 - 387, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22277-2_14
    Book Chapters | 2018
    Desmedt Y; Shaghaghi A, 2018, 'Function-based access control (FBAC): Towards preventing insider threats in organizations', in Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics), pp. 143 - 165, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04834-1_8
  • Journal articles | 2022
    Gill SS; Xu M; Ottaviani C; Patros P; Bahsoon R; Shaghaghi A; Golec M; Stankovski V; Wu H; Abraham A; Singh M; Mehta H; Ghosh SK; Baker T; Parlikad AK; Lutfiyya H; Kanhere SS; Sakellariou R; Dustdar S; Rana O; Brandic I; Uhlig S, 2022, 'AI for next generation computing: Emerging trends and future directions', Internet of Things (Netherlands), 19, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.iot.2022.100514
    Journal articles | 2022
    Maroof U; Shaghaghi A; Michelin R; Jha S, 2022, 'iRECOVer: Patch your IoT on-the-fly', Future Generation Computer Systems, 132, pp. 178 - 193, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.future.2022.02.014
    Journal articles | 2022
    Syed NF; Shah SW; Shaghaghi A; Anwar A; Baig Z; Doss R, 2022, 'Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA): A Comprehensive Survey', IEEE Access, 10, pp. 57143 - 57179, http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2022.3174679
    Journal articles | 2021
    Shah SW; Syed NF; Shaghaghi A; Anwar A; Baig Z; Doss R, 2021, 'LCDA: Lightweight Continuous Device-to-Device Authentication for a Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA)', Computers and Security, 108, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cose.2021.102351
    Journal articles | 2021
    Stephens B; Shaghaghi A; Doss R; Kanhere SS, 2021, 'Detecting Internet of Things Bots: A Comparative Study', IEEE Access, 9, pp. 160391 - 160401, http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3130714
    Journal articles | 2020
    Ali Shah SW; Shaghaghi A; Kanhere SS; Zhang J; Anwar A; Doss R, 2020, 'Echo-id: Smart user identification leveraging inaudible sound signals', IEEE Access, 8, pp. 194508 - 194522, http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2020.3031899
    Journal articles | 2020
    Gill SS; Shaghaghi A, 2020, 'Security-aware autonomic allocation of cloud resources: A model, research trends, and future directions', Journal of Organizational and End User Computing, 32, pp. 15 - 22, http://dx.doi.org/10.4018/JOEUC.2020070102
  • Preprints | 2024
    A. CAR; Shaghaghi A; Batista G; Kanhere SS, 2024, Towards Weaknesses and Attack Patterns Prediction for IoT Devices, http://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2408.13172
    Conference Papers | 2024
    Deldari S; Goudarzi M; Joshi A; Shaghaghi A; Finn S; Salim FD; Jha S, 2024, 'AuditNet: A Conversational AI-based Security Assistant', in MobileHCI 2024 Adjunct Proceedings - Publication of the 26th International Conference on Mobile Human-Computer Interaction, http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3640471.3680444
    Preprints | 2024
    Deldari S; Goudarzi M; Joshi A; Shaghaghi A; Finn S; Salim FD; Jha S, 2024, AuditNet: A Conversational AI-based Security Assistant [DEMO], http://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2407.14116
    Conference Papers | 2024
    Maroof U; Batista G; Shaghaghi A; Jha S, 2024, 'Towards Detecting IoT Event Spoofing Attacks Using Time-Series Classification', in 2024 IEEE 49th Conference on Local Computer Networks (LCN), IEEE, pp. 1 - 7, presented at 2024 IEEE 49th Conference on Local Computer Networks (LCN), 08 October 2024 - 10 October 2024, http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/lcn60385.2024.10639633
    Preprints | 2024
    Maroof U; Batista G; Shaghaghi A; Jha S, 2024, Towards Detecting IoT Event Spoofing Attacks Using Time-Series Classification, http://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2407.19662
    Preprints | 2024
    Reeves A; Shaghaghi A; Krebs S; Ashenden D, 2024, Data After Death: Australian User Preferences and Future Solutions to Protect Posthumous User Data, http://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2407.01282
    Preprints | 2022
    Gill SS; Xu M; Ottaviani C; Patros P; Bahsoon R; Shaghaghi A; Golec M; Stankovski V; Wu H; Abraham A; Singh M; Mehta H; Ghosh SK; Baker T; Parlikad AK; Lutfiyya H; Kanhere SS; Sakellariou R; Dustdar S; Rana O; Brandic I; Uhlig S, 2022, AI for Next Generation Computing: Emerging Trends and Future Directions, http://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2203.04159
    Conference Papers | 2022
    Rivera A CA; Shaghaghi A; Nguyen DD; Kanhere SS, 2022, 'Is This IoT Device Likely to Be Secure? Risk Score Prediction for IoT Devices Using Gradient Boosting Machines', in Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social-Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, LNICST, pp. 115 - 127, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94822-1_7
    Conference Papers | 2021
    Abaid Z; Shaghaghi A; Gunawardena R; Seneviratne S; Seneviratne A; Jha S, 2021, 'Health access broker: Secure, patient-controlled management of personal health records in the cloud', in Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, Springer Nature, pp. 111 - 121, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57805-3_11
    Preprints | 2021
    Alvarez CAR; Shaghaghi A; Nguyen DD; Kanhere SS, 2021, Is this IoT Device Likely to be Secure? Risk Score Prediction for IoT Devices Using Gradient Boosting Machines, , http://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2111.11874
    Conference Papers | 2021
    Kamenski D; Shaghaghi A; Warren M; Kanhere SS, 2021, 'Attacking with bitcoin: Using bitcoin to build resilient botnet armies', in Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, pp. 3 - 12, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57805-3_1
    Preprints | 2020
    Abaid Z; Shaghaghi A; Gunawardena R; Seneviratne S; Seneviratne A; Jha S, 2020, Health Access Broker: Secure, Patient-Controlled Management of Personal Health Records in the Cloud, http://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2005.07987
    Conference Papers | 2020
    Jha S; Zhou J; Michelin R; Ahmed N; Shaghaghi A, 2020, 'Massage from the chairs', in Proceedings - 2020 Workshop on Emerging Technologies for Security in IoT, ETSecIoT 2020, pp. VI, http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/ETSecIoT50046.2020.00011
    Preprints | 2020
    Kamenski D; Shaghaghi A; Warren M; Kanhere SS, 2020, Attacking with bitcoin: Using Bitcoin to Build Resilient Botnet Armies, , http://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2004.01855
    Conference Papers | 2020
    Puggioni E; Shaghaghi A; Doss R; Kanhere SS, 2020, 'Towards Decentralized IoT Updates Delivery Leveraging Blockchain and Zero-Knowledge Proofs', in 2020 IEEE 19th International Symposium on Network Computing and Applications, NCA 2020, http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/NCA51143.2020.9306689
    Preprints | 2020
    Puggioni E; Shaghaghi A; Doss R; Kanhere SS, 2020, Towards Decentralized IoT Updates Delivery Leveraging Blockchain and Zero-Knowledge Proofs, , http://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2010.12134
    Conference Papers | 2020
    Rivera A CA; Shaghaghi A; Kanhere SS, 2020, 'Towards a Distributed Defence Mechanism against IoT-based Bots', in Proceedings - Conference on Local Computer Networks, LCN, pp. 449 - 452, http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/LCN48667.2020.9314830
    Conference Papers | 2020
    Shah SW; Syed NF; Shaghaghi A; Anwar A; Baig Z; Doss R, 2020, 'Towards a lightweight continuous authentication protocol for device-to-device communication', in Proceedings - 2020 IEEE 19th International Conference on Trust, Security and Privacy in Computing and Communications, TrustCom 2020, pp. 1119 - 1126, http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TrustCom50675.2020.00148
    Preprints | 2020
    Shah SW; Syed NF; Shaghaghi A; Anwar A; Baig Z; Doss R, 2020, Towards a Lightweight Continuous Authentication Protocol for Device-to-Device Communication, , http://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2010.05144
    Conference Papers | 2019
    Maroof U; Shaghaghi A; Jha S, 2019, 'PLAR: Towards a Pluggable Software Architecture for Securing IoT Devices', in IoT S and P 2019 - Proceedings of the 2nd International ACM Workshop on Security and Privacy for the Internet-of-Things, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), ENGLAND, London, pp. 50 - 56, presented at Proceedings of the 2nd International ACM Workshop on Security and Privacy for the Internet-of-Things, ENGLAND, London, 15 November 2019, http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3338507.3358619
    Preprints | 2018
    Shaghaghi A; Kaafar MA; Buyya R; Jha S, 2018, Software-Defined Network (SDN) Data Plane Security: Issues, Solutions and Future Directions, http://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1804.00262
    Conference Papers | 2018
    Shaghaghi A; Kanhere SS; Kaafar MA; Bertino E; Jha S, 2018, 'Gargoyle: A Network-based Insider Attack Resilient Framework for Organizations', in Proceedings - Conference on Local Computer Networks, LCN, pp. 553 - 561, http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/LCN.2018.8638245
    Preprints | 2018
    Shaghaghi A; Kanhere SS; Kaafar MA; Bertino E; Jha S, 2018, Gargoyle: A Network-based Insider Attack Resilient Framework for Organizations, , http://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1807.02593
    Conference Papers | 2018
    Shaghaghi A; Kanhere SS; Kaafar MA; Jha S, 2018, 'Gwardar: Towards protecting a software-defined network from malicious network operating systems', in NCA 2018 - 2018 IEEE 17th International Symposium on Network Computing and Applications, IEEE, Cambridge, MA, USA, presented at The 17th IEEE International Symposium on Network Computing and Applications (NCA 2018), Cambridge, MA, USA, 01 November 2018 - 03 November 2018, http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/NCA.2018.8548074
    Preprints | 2018
    Shaghaghi A; Kanhere SS; Kaafar MA; Jha S, 2018, Gwardar: Towards Protecting a Software-Defined Network from Malicious Network Operating Systems, , http://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1809.06988
    Conference Papers | 2017
    Shaghaghi A; Kaafar MA; Jha S, 2017, 'WedgeTail: An intrusion prevention system for the data plane of software defined networks', in ASIA CCS 2017 - Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Asia Conference on Computer and Communications Security, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, pp. 849 - 861, presented at 2017 ACM on Asia Conference on Computer and Communications Security, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, 02 April 2017 - 06 April 2017, http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3052973.3053039
    Preprints | 2017
    Shaghaghi A; Kaafar MA; Jha S, 2017, WedgeTail: An Intrusion Prevention System for the Data Plane of Software Defined Networks, , http://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1708.05477
    Conference Papers | 2017
    Shaghaghi A; Kaafar MA; Scott-Hayward S; Kanhere SS; Jha S, 2017, 'Towards Policy Enforcement Point as a Service (PEPS)', in 2016 IEEE Conference on Network Function Virtualization and Software Defined Networks, NFV-SDN 2016, pp. 50 - 55, http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/NFV-SDN.2016.7919475
    Conference Papers | 2016
    Desmedt Y; Shaghaghi A, 2016, 'Function-based access control (FBAC): From access control Matrix to access control tensor', in MIST 2016 - Proceedings of the International Workshop on Managing Insider Security Threats, co-located with CCS 2016, pp. 89 - 92, http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2995959.2995974
    Preprints | 2016
    Shaghaghi A; Ali M; Kaafar ; Scott-Hayward S; Kanhere SS; Jha S, 2016, Towards Policy Enforcement Point as a Service (PEPS), , http://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1610.02526
    Conference Abstracts | 2014
    Shaghaghi A; Hong J; Jha S, 2014, 'An SDN-based framework for detection of illegal rebroadcasting of channels in P2PTV', in VideoNEXT 2014 - Proceedings of the 2014 Workshop on Design, Quality and Deployment of Adaptive Video Streaming, pp. 47 - 49, http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2676652.2683465

Recent grants at UNSW:

Title Source Year Role
A scalable workflow for the audio monitoring of biodiversity across urban and remote Australia Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (Australia) 2024-2027

Chief Investigator.

Lead Chief Investigator: A/Prof Will Cornwell. 
Quantum-Safe Security Measures for IoT-based Intelligent Transport Systems CSIRO 2024-2026

Lead Chief Investigator.

Other Chief Investigators: Prof Sanjay Jha, Dr Nazatul Sultan, Dr Raymond Zhao. 
IoT Data Security and Assurance Framework for Intelligent Transport Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre and Cisco 2022-2024

Lead Chief Investigator. 

Other Chief Investigators: Prof Sanjay Jha, Dr Aditya Joshi, Dr Jesse Laeuchli, A/Prof Gustavo Batista, Prof Flora Salim.

 

International Seed Funding

 Faculty of Engineering, UNSW Sydney 2023

Lead Chief Investigator. 

Other Chief Investigators: Dr Siqi Ma, Dr Mohammad Goudarzi, Prof Salil Kanhere, Prof Sanjay Jha
International International Lectureship Travel Funding Faculty of Engineering, UNSW Sydney 2023 Lead Chief Investigator. 
Advanced IDE for software security support Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre 2022-2024

Chief Investigator.

Lead Chief Investigator: Dr Helen Paik. Other Chief Investigators: Prof Sanjay Jha, Dr Siqi Ma.
ACRA Visiting Fellowship to visit the School of Computing and Information Systems at the University of Melbourne School of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) 2022 Lead Chief Investigator. 
Taste of Research (ToR) student recruitment scholarship School of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) 2023 Lead Chief Investigator. 

Other grants (selected):

 
  • "Zero Trust Architectures for Australia's Critical Infrastructure Security", Australian Government, 2020. [Role: Co-Investigator, Principal Investigator: Prof Robin Doss]
  • "Fingerprinting Compromised IoT Devices Based on Power Consumption", Source: Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre (CSCRC), 2019. [Honours Project, Role: Primary Supervisor]
  • "Data after Death (DaD): Understanding the Risks to Australians", Source: Centre for Cyber Security Research and Innovation (CSRI), Deakin University. [Role: Primary Investigator]
  • "Detecting Internet of Thing (IoT) Bots" | Summer Research Project, Source: Centre for Cyber Security Research and Innovation (CSRI), Deakin University. [Role: Primary Supervisor]
  • "Bitcoin Meta-data and Malware C&C Servers" | Summer Research Project, Source: School of IT, Deakin University. [Role: Primary Supervisor]

2018 - now:

  • UNSW Sydney, UNSW Faculty of Engineering, Early Career Academic Network (ECAN), Early Career Academic Excellence Award (Research), 2024.
  • UNSW Sydney, UNSW Faculty of Engineering, Educational Excellence & Innovation, Excellence Awards, 2023.
  • Selected as one of the top 200 young computer science and mathematics scientists for the 10th Heidelberg Laureate Forum (HLF), Germany, 2023.
  • Deakin University, School of Information Technology Award - Excellence in Early Career Research Performance, 2020.
  • Best Demo Award, The 45th IEEE Conference on Local Computer Networks (LCN) [Core A-ranked], 2020.
  • Deakin University, School of Information Technology Award - Excellence in Teaching & Unit Development, 2020.
  • Deakin University, School of Information Technology Award - Successfully Embedding Industry Certifications within Cyber Security Units, 2020.
  • Deakin University, School of Information Technology Award - Excellence in International Student Engagement, 2020.
  • Deakin University, School of Information Technology - Teaching & Learning Award: Outstanding Industry Capstone Supervisor, 2019.
  • The University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney), UNSW ARC Research Student Award, 2018

Media Engagements:

My Research Supervision

Research Team:

  • PostDoc - Current: Dr Mohammad Goudarzi [Main, CSCRC Project] | Dr Shohreh Deldari [Main, CSCRC Project]
  • Software Developer: Nimesha Wickramasinghe [Main, CSCRC Project], Xinzhang Chen [Main, CSCRC Project], Chengbin Feng [Main, CSCRC Project], Harshmeetsingh Ramindersingh Chandhok [Main, CSCRC Project]
  • Research Assistant: Hassan Ali [Main, CSCRC Project]
  • PhD Students - Current: 3 

 

  • PostDoc - Former: 3 (Co-supervisor)
  • PhD Students - Graduated: 2 (UNSW)
  • Masters with Major Thesis: 3 (Completed)
  • Funded Summer Projects: 2 (Completed)
  • Masters with Minor Thesis: 10 (Completed)

My Teaching

  • Operating System Fundamentals for Security (ZZEN9217), Master of Cyber Security, UNSW Online. || Role: Course Developer (H5 2022), Course Convenor (H5 2022).

  • Foundations of Cyber Security (ZZEN9201), Master of Cyber Security, UNSW Online. || Role: Course Convenor (H2 2023).