AbdelRahman Abdou is an Associate Professor at the School of Computer Science, Carleton University. He is the co-director of Carleton Internet Security Lab (CISL). His research interests include all aspects related to Internet Systems Security and large-scale Internet measurements.
Interest in these fields arises from the continuous evolution of the Internet and its usage. Due to its ever increasing complexities, the Internet's behaviour can no longer be easily anticipated nor analyzed. This is exacerbated by the growing trends of softwarizing physical infrastructure. Such trends did not stop at virtual machines and cloud computing paradigms, they rather extended to the network in the form of software-defined networks (SDNs) and network function virtualizations (NFVs). This evolution is intriguing, as it shifts the Internet to become a holistic body that could be abstracted as a single homogeneous system. In the same time, we continue the habit of attaching more devices to the Internet's edge; our traditional view of the Internet as a network of networks is now changing to a network of things (cf. IoT).
Prof. Abdou's research group deals with how Security similarly morphs, tackling issues related to securing the Internet as it evolves. Areas include the security of next generation networks (e.g., SDN, 5G), Internet-connected embedded and smart systems security (e.g., IoT and autonomous system), the security of cloud computing and content-distribution networks (CDNs), secure delegation of services and operations over the Internet, Internet security architectures (TLS, DNS security), and web security topics.
Security requires deep understanding of how systems work. Internet Measurements is a discipline focusing on methodologies by which we can measure parameters and behaviours in a scientific and reproducible manner. The global spread of vulnerabilities, attack patterns, and content popularity are example phenomena of interest. The discipline became increasingly important as it paves the way for innovations and security improvements. Prof. Abdou's group is also researching actively in this area, developing novel techniques for conducting large-scale sound Internet measurements to understand and solve Internet security problems. For a collection of measurement tools and datasets available online, check out this page.