Project Manager Assistant

Todd M. Jackson

Curriculum Vitae

Contact **** ***** ******

Irvine, California 92617

Phone: 949-***-****

E-mail: ********@***.***

http://ssllab.org/~tmjackso/

Research Interests

Computer, systems, and software security. Intrusion detection, active and passive de-

fenses. Security assessment, testing, and evaluation. Secure and covert communication

and detection.

Education Ph.D. candidate, Computer Science, expected graduation Spring Quarter 2012

University of California, Irvine

Irvine, California, USA

Advisor: Prof. Michael Franz

GPA: 3.944 / 4

M.A.Sc., Software Engineering, graduated May 2007

Royal Military College of Canada

Kingston, Ontario, Canada

Thesis: Anomaly-based HTTP Covert Tunnel Detection Using Hidden Markov Models

Advisor: Prof. Scott Knight

GPA: 85 / 100

B.Sc., Computer Engineering with Professional Internship, graduated May 2005

Queen s University at Kingston

Kingston, Ontario, Canada

Final Project: Use of Smart Cards and Image Encryption for Biometric Secure IDs

Advisor: Dr. Subramanian Sudharsanan

Average: 80.0 / 100

Employment

5/20077/2007Lead Software DeveloperInternational Cyber Defense Workshop

Royal Military College of Canada

Kingston, Ontario, Canada

9/200612/2006Research AssistantDepartment of National Defense

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

5/20039/2004Software Developer [Professional Internship]

DB2 UDB L3 Application Development

IBM Canada

Markham, Ontario, Canada

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5/20029/2002 WebCT Support Student

Queen s University Information Technology Services

Kingston, Ontario, Canada

8/20014/2003 First Level Support

Queen s University Information Technology Services

Kingston, Ontario, Canada

Research Projects

9/2010Present Automated Software Diversity for Security

The Automated Software Diversity project is predicated on the idea that the software

monoculture aids attackers by making the cost of attacking low. The project aims to

investigate compiler-based transforms of software to create software that is diversified

for security. This includes work on the LLVM compiler architecture, porting and working

on legacy and new vulnerabilities and exploits, development of objective metrics for

security, and implementation of a basic infrastructure for software developers.

9/2007PresentMulti-variant Execution

Orchestra is a system designed to detect at run-time when software vulnerabilities are

exploited. The core idea is to generate several slightly different variants of the same

software, and then run these variants simultaneously and in lock-step on different cores

of a multiprocessor. The project includes a modified C compiler, C library, a monitoring

program, and several testing tools. Future work with Orchestra includes the repair of

damaged processes, extending capabilities for fuzzing and honeypots, and performance

improvements. I presented the design and implementation of Orchestra at EuroSys

09 and am working on extensions to the system for new variation techniques and

synchronization levels.

5/20057/2007 Using Hidden Markov Models to Detect Covert HTTP Tunnels

Hidden Markov Models HMMsfl have the capability to accurately model corporate net-

works because traffic generators follow state machines. By creating a HMM that rep-

resents normal traffic and comparing all other traffic against it, tunnels will appear as

anomalous. This project included a custom HMM library, an analysis tool, several data

conversion and database tools, as well as a custom covert HTTP tunnel written as an

Internet Explorer browser helper object, all written in C and C++.

9/20044/2005 Use of Smart Cards and Image Encryption for Biometric Secure IDs

Biometrics promise the ability to identify people more accurately, however privacy ad-

vocates are wary of governments and organizations controlling the collection and use

of this type of information. Smart cards give the ability to secretly carry and share

their

biometric data in a portable and easily accessible manner, bridging the privacy gap. This

project included a smart card program, development of a protocol for creating, sharing,

and reading biometric data, as well as a database backend and a GUI utility, all written

in C. It was ranked third in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering for

the academic year and I presented it the algorithm, design, and implementation to the

Proctor and Gamble Engineering Competition.

Teaching Experience

1/20103/2010ICS 142B Advanced Compilers and InterpretersTeaching Assistant

Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences

University of California, Irvine

2

9/200912/2009ICS 142A Compilers and InterpretersTeaching Assistant

Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences

University of California, Irvine

4/20086/2008ICS 142A Compilers and InterpretersTeaching Assistant

Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences

University of California, Irvine

1/20083/2008ICS 142B Advanced Compilers and InterpretersTeaching Assistant

Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences

University of California, Irvine

9/20045/2005APSC 100 Practical Engineering Modules

Project Manager, Module 1

Faculty of Applied Science

Queen s University at Kingston

1/20024/2002APSC 142 Computer Programming for EngineersTeaching Assistant

Faculty of Applied Science

Queen s University at Kingston

Publications

Journal Papers

Babak Salamat, Todd Jackson, Gregor Wagner, Christian Wimmer, and Michael Franz. Run-time

de-

fense against code injection attacks using replicated execution. IEEE Transactions on

Dependable

and Secure Computing, 2011, To appear.

Conference and Workshop Papers

Todd Jackson, Babak Salamat, Gregor Wagner, Christian Wimmer, and Michael Franz. On the

ef-

fectiveness of multi-variant program execution for vulnerability detection and

prevention. In

Proceedings of the 6th International Workshop on Security Measurements and Metrics,

MetriSec

10, pages 7:1 7:8, New York, NY, USA, 2010. ACM.

Todd Jackson, Christian Wimmer, and Michael Franz. Multi-variant program execution for

vulnera-

bility detection and analysis. In Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Workshop on Cyber

Security and

Information Intelligence Research, CSIIRW 10, pages 38:1 38:4, New York, NY, USA, 2010.

ACM.

Babak Salamat, Todd Jackson, Andreas Gal, and Michael Franz. Orchestra: Intrusion

Detection Using

Parallel Execution and Monitoring of Program Variants in User-space. In EuroSys 09:

Proceedings

of the fourth ACM European Conference on Computer Systems, pages 33 46, New York, NY,

USA,

2009. ACM.

Babak Salamat, Andreas Gal, Todd Jackson, Karthik Manivannan, Gregor Wagner, and Michael

Franz. Multi-variant program execution: Using multi-core systems to defuse buffer-

overflow vul-

nerabilities. In CISIS 08: Proceedings of the first International Conference on Complex,

Intelligent

and Software Intensive Systems, pages 843 848, March 2008.

Terry Shepard, Diane Kelly, Ron Smith, Ron Chisholm, Todd Jackson, and Paul Mondoux.

Inspecting

designs in the context of model-driven development. In CASCON 06: Proceedings of the

2006

conference of the Center for Advanced Studies on Collaborative research, page 27, New

York, NY,

USA, 2006. ACM.

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Technical Reports

Babak Salamat, Andreas Gal, Todd Jackson, and Michael Franz. Orchestra: A user space

multi-

variant execution environment. Technical Report 08-06, Donald Bren School of Information

and

Computer Sciences, University of California, Irvine, May 2008.

Babak Salamat, Andreas Gal, Todd Jackson, Karthik Manivannan, Gregor Wagner, and Michael

Franz. Stopping buffer overflow attacks at run-time: Simultaneous multi-variant program

ex-

ecution on a multicore processor. Technical Report 07-13, Donald Bren School of

Information

and Computer Sciences, University of California, Irvine, December 2007.

References

Prof. Michael Franz

*****@***.***

Dr. Christian Wimmer

*******@***.***

January 27, 2011

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