AI for security. Security for AI.

Campuses

McGill University School of Information Studies, Montreal Librarianship training began in the Redpath Library in 1897, and the School of Information Studies at McGill University has offered programs since that date. The school is one of the oldest information studies schools in Canada.

Queen's University School of Computing, Kingston Queen's University received its Royal Charter in 1841. The School of Computing began as the Department of Computing and Information Science in 1969, and the school subsequently adopted its current name in 2001. Photos: Prof. Yuanzhu Chen, Queen's University

Research

Binary code representation

Learning representations that connect the compiled forms of a function to what it does, so analysts can find known code across processors, compilers and optimization settings.

Explainable vulnerability analysis

Moving vulnerability assessment from a score to code-level evidence an analyst can inspect, through learned detection, rule generation and patch screening.

Malware beyond known families

Comparing unfamiliar malware with the available evidence instead of forcing it into a known class, using open-set recognition, functional decomposition and authorship analysis.

Firmware and supply-chain security

Recovering the software components and capabilities of a firmware image from the image itself, without relying on the supplier.

Avionics intrusion detection

Resource-aware, adaptive and unsupervised detection for aircraft data buses such as MIL-STD-1553, built on attack analysis and controlled simulation.

Some of our lab members

• 
  Steven H. H. Ding

  I am an Assistant Professor in the School of Information Studies at McGill University and an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the School of Computing at Queen's University. My research applies machine learning to security problems, including binary code analysis, vulnerability analysis, malware and firmware security. I received my PhD from McGill University in 2019.

• 
  Mitchell Petingola

  I am a Master of Science student in Computing at Queen’s University. My research explores AI-driven binary code analysis and GPU security, with a focus on making these systems more interpretable and transparent.

• 
  Christina Hu

  I am a PhD student at McGill University’s School of Information Studies. My research focuses on trustworthy natural language processing and explores its intersections with data mining, cybersecurity, and law.

• 
  Hanbo Yu

  I am a PhD candidate in Cybersecurity at the School of Information Studies, McGill University, advised by Prof. Steven H. H. Ding. I received my Bachelor’s degree from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, and previously worked as a Software Engineer at IBM Canada. My research focuses on intrusion detection and firmware security for avionics, automotive, and other embedded platforms, as well as software supply chain security.