I am an Associate Professor in the Security and Privacy Research Unit at TU Wien (Technische Universität Wien, formerly known as Vienna University of Technology) heading the Secure Systems Lab (SecLab) in Vienna, Austria. I am also a key researcher at SBA Research, the largest research center in Austria which exclusively addresses information security.
Before that, I was a Postdoc in the Computer Security Group (SecLab) at UC Santa Barbara, working with Christopher Kruegel and Giovanni Vigna. I received my doctorate in 2016 with honors of the Austrian president (Promotio Sub Auspiciis Praesidentis), as well as the ERCIM Cor Baayen Young Researcher Award in 2018. During my PhD, I was advised by Edgar Weippl and worked as a research assistant at the International Secure Systems Lab (iSecLab).
In addition to my PhD, I hold a Master's degree in Software Engineering and Internet Computing from TU Wien and a Bachelor's degree in Computer and Media Security from the University of Applied Sciences in Hagenberg.
My research focuses on systems security, in particular mobile security and privacy, and all things malware analysis.
2023 | |
Sep 1 | Happy to announce that I received tenure and am now an Associate Professor at TU Wien! |
2022 | |
Oct 1 | Welcome Magdalena Steinböck! She just defended her Master thesis and will continue working on iOS vs. Android security and privacy as part of a FWF-funded project. |
2021 | |
Oct 1 | Welcome Carlotta Tagliaro! She will be working on IoT security and privacy as part of a WWTF-funded project. |
Sep 24 | The final week of our workshop on Digital Competences for the Austrian Parlament ended with a session on privacy, and a great discussion on the challenges and opportunities of digit(al)ization. |
Jul 6 | It was my great pleasure to give an introduction on security as part of a workshop on Digital Competences for the Austrian Parlament |
Jul 1 | Welcome David Schmidt! He just defended his Masters thesis and will continue working on IoT security and privacy as part of a WWTF-funded project. |
Jun 1 | Welcome Aakanksha Saha! She just joined the SecInt doctoral college to work on machine learning for the detection of malicious and privacy-invasive behavior. |
Apr 22 | Happy Girls in ICT Day! To mark the occasion we organized a round of virtual Speedmentoring. Thanks to all the participants and role models! |
2020 | |
Oct 16 | TU Wien took part in the EU Code Week and organized a Week #4GoodAI, including a Hackathon and virtual Speedmentoring for school classes. |
Aug 27 | Jürgen Cito and me are looking for a student employee for a Master thesis at the intersection of software engineering and security. |
Jul 29 | I have 3 open positions for PhD students (2 related to mobile app analysis for IoT + 1 on machine learning for security). Ping me if you are interested! |
Jul 13 | Our Doctoral College for Secure and Intelligent Human-Centric Digital Technologies (SecInt) on the intersection of Security and Privacy, Machine Learning, and Formal Methods has been accepted! |
Jun 10 | Thanks Victoria Kirner for the nice interview (including stylish portraits!) and discussion about rubber boots for C/O Vienna Magazine. |
Apr 2 | I was featured in Die Zeit for their portrait series about Austrians! |
Mar 18 | Honored to receive the Early Career Award for Women in Cybersecurity Research at ACM CyberW. Special thanks to Daphne Yao: as last time at CCS 2017, it was a great workshop that hopefully continues! |
Jan 30 | Had the pleasure to talk to school girls as part of the Tagebuch der Informatikerin (Diary of a Computer Scientist) to clear up common misconceptions and stereotypes about careers in tech. |
Jan 11 | Recent press roundup: I was a guest on the Kleine Zeitung's Startgepräch Podcast, as well as got the chance to talk to Der Standard and Die Presse about my research and my career path. |
Program Committee Member
External Reviewer
Journal Reviewer (excerpt)
Guest Editor
@inproceedings{iotflow:ccs23, author = {Schmidt, David and Tagliaro, Carlotta and Borgolte, Kevin and Lindorfer, Martina}, title = {{IoTFlow: Inferring IoT Device Behavior at Scale through Static Mobile Companion App Analysis}}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS)}, year = {2023} }
@inproceedings{headclouds:pets23, author = {Tobias Fiebig and Seda Gürses and Carlos H Gañán and Erna Kotkam and Fernando Kuipers and Martina Lindorfer and Menghua Prisse and Taritha Sari}, title = {{Heads in the Clouds? Measuring Universities' Migration to Public Clouds: Implications for Privacy \& Academic Freedom}}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS)}, year = {2023} }
@inproceedings{mobrowseres:pets23, author = {Amogh Pradeep and Álvaro Feal and Julien Gamba and Ashwin Rao and Martina Lindorfer and Narseo Vallina-Rodriguez and David Choffnes}, title = {{Not Your Average App: A Large-scale Privacy Analysis of Android Browsers}}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS)}, year = {2023} }
@inproceedings{oatmeal:eurosec:bleier23, author = {Jakob Bleier and Martina Lindorfer}, title = {{Of Ahead Time: Evaluating Disassembly of Android Apps Compiled to Binary OATs Through the ART}}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the European Workshop on Systems Security (EuroSec)}, year = {2023} }
@inproceedings{dotfiles:msr23, author = {Gerhard Jungwirth and Aakanksha Saha and Michael Schröder and Tobias Fiebig and Martina Lindorfer and Jürgen Cito}, title = {{Connecting the .dotfiles: Checked-In Secret Exposure with Extra (Lateral Movement) Steps}}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on Mining Software Repositories (MSR)}, year = {2023} }
@inproceedings{bttfwhois:pam23, author = {Florian Streibelt and Martina Lindorfer and Seda Gürses and Carlos H Gañán and Tobias Fiebig}, title = {{Back-to-the-Future Whois: An IP Address Attribution Service for Working with Historic Datasets}}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Passive and Active Measurement Conference (PAM)}, year = {2023} }
@inproceedings{hbbtv:ndss23, author = {Carlotta Tagliaro and Florian Hahn and Riccardo Sepe and Alessio Aceti and Martina Lindorfer}, title = {{I Still Know What You Watched Last Sunday: Security and Privacy of the HbbTV Protocol in the European Smart TV Landscape}}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS)}, year = {2023} }
@article{signals:tse23}, author = {Kaspar Hageman and Álvaro Feal and Julien Gamba and Aniketh Girish and Jakob Bleier and Martina Lindorfer and Juan Tapiador and Narseo Vallina-Rodriguez}, booktitle = {IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering}, month = {January}, title = {{Mixed Signals: Analyzing Software Attribution Challenges in the Android Ecosystem}}, volume={49}, number={4}, year = {2023} }
@article{headclouds:psj22}, author = {Tobias Fiebig and Seda Gürses and Martina Lindorfer}, journal = {Privacy Studies Journal}, month = {December}, title = {{Position Paper: Escaping Academic Cloudification to Preserve Academic Freedom}}, volume = {1}, number = {1}, year = {2022} }
@inproceedings{pinning:imc22}, author = {Amogh Pradeep and Muhammad Talha Paracha and Protick Bhowmick and Ali Davanian and Abbas Razaghpanah and Taejoong Chung and Martina Lindorfer and Narseo Vallina-Rodriguez and Dave Levin and David Choffnes}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the ACM Internet Measurement Conference (IMC)}, title = {{A Comparative Analysis of Certificate Pinning in Android \& iOS}}, year = {2022} }
@inproceedings{stalkerware:soups22}, author = {Matthias Fassl and Simon Anell and Sabine Houy and Martina Lindorfer and Katharina Krombholz}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the USENIX Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS)}, title = {{Comparing User Perceptions of Anti-Stalkerware Apps with the Technical Reality}}, year = {2022} }
@inproceedings{email:atc22}, author = {Florian Holzbauer and Johanna Ullrich and Martina Lindorfer and Tobias Fiebig}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the USENIX Annual Technical Conference (ATC)}, title = {{Not that Simple: Email Delivery in the 21st Century}}, year = {2022} }
@inproceedings{iotmw:asiaccs22}, author = {Arwa Al Alsadi and Kaichi Sameshima and Jakob Bleier and Katsunari Yoshioka and Martina Lindorfer and Michel van Eeten and Carlos H Gañán}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the ACM ASIA Conference on Computer and Communications Security (ASIACCS)}, title = {{No Spring Chicken: Quantifying the Lifespan of Exploits in IoT Malware Using Static \& Dynamic Analysis}}, year = {2022} }
@misc{cct:secweb22}, author = {Philipp Beer and Lorenzo Veronese and Marco Squarcina and Martina Lindorfer}, booktitle = {IEEE Workshop on Designing Security for the Web (SecWeb)}, title = {{The Bridge between Web Applications and Mobile Platforms is Still Broken}}, year = {2022} }
@inproceedings{tarnhelm:quarta2021, author = {Quarta, Davide and Ianni, Michele and Machiry, Aravind and Fratantonio, Yanick and Gustafson, Eric and Balzarotti, Davide and Lindorfer, Martina and Vigna, Giovanni and Kruegel, Christopher}, title = {{Tarnhelm: Isolated, Transparent & Confidential Execution of Arbitrary Code in ARM’s TrustZone}}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Workshop on Research on offensive and defensive techniques in the Context of Man At The End Attacks (CheckMATE)}, year = {2021} }
@inproceedings{txting:wtmc20, author = {van der Toorn, Olivier and van Rijswijk-Deij, Roland and Fiebig, Tobias and Lindorfer, Martina and Sperotto, Anna}, title = {{TXTing 101: Finding Security Issues in the Long Tail of DNS TXT Records}}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Workshop on Traffic Measurements for Cybersecurity (WTMC)}, year = {2020} }
@inproceedings{flowprint:ndss20, author = {van Ede, Thijs and Bortolameotti, Riccardo and Continella, Andrea and Ren, Jingjing and Dubois, Daniel J. and Lindorfer, Martina and Choffnes, David and van Steen, Marten and Peter, Andreas}, title = {{FlowPrint: Semi-Supervised Mobile-App Fingerprinting on Encrypted Network Traffic}}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS)}, year = {2020} }
@inproceedings{packware:ndss20, author = {Hojjat Aghakhani and Fabio Gritti and Francesco Mecca and Martina Lindorfer and Stefano Ortolani and Davide Balzarotti and Giovanni Vigna and Christopher Kruegel}, title = {{When Malware is Packin' Heat; Limits of Machine Learning Classifiers Based on Static Analysis Features}}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS)}, year = {2020} }
@inproceedings{minesweeper:ccs18, author = {Radhesh Krishnan Konoth and Emanuele Vineti and Veelasha Moonsamy and Martina Lindorfer and Christopher Kruegel and Herbert Bos and Giovanni Vigna}, title = {{MineSweeper: An In-depth Look into Drive-by Cryptocurrency Mining and Its Defense}}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS)}, year = {2018} }
@inproceedings{panoptispy:pets18, author = {Elleen Pan and Jingjing Ren and Martina Lindorfer and Christo Wilson and David Choffnes}, title = {{Panoptispy: Characterizing Audio and Video Exfiltration from Android Applications}}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS)}, year = {2018} }
@inproceedings{guardion:dimva18, author = {Victor van der Veen and Martina Lindorfer and Yanick Fratantonio and Harikrishnan Padmanabha Pillai and Giovanni Vigna and Christopher Kruegel and Herbert Bos and Kaveh Razavi}, title = {{GuardION: Practical Mitigation of DMA-based Rowhammer Attacks on ARM}}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Conference on Detection of Intrusions and Malware \& Vulnerability Assessment (DIMVA)}, year = {2018} }
@inproceedings{appversions:ndss18, author = {Jingjing Ren and Martina Lindorfer and Daniel Dubois and Ashwin Rao and David Choffnes and Narseo Vallina-Rodriguez}, title = {{Bug Fixes, Improvements, ... and Privacy Leaks -- A Longitudinal Study of PII Leaks Across Android App Versions}}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS)}, year = {2018} }
@inproceedings{agrigento:ndss17, author = {Andrea Continella and Yanick Fratantonio and Martina Lindorfer and Alessandro Puccetti and Ali Zand and Christopher Kruegel and Giovanni Vigna}, title = {{Obfuscation-Resilient Privacy Leak Detection for Mobile Apps Through Differential Analysis}}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS)}, year = {2017} }
@inproceedings{drammer:ccs16, author = {Victor {van der Veen} and Yanick Fratantonio and Martina Lindorfer and Daniel Gruss and Cl{\'e}mentine Maurice and Giovanni Vigna and Herbert Bos and Kaveh Razavi and Cristiano Giuffrida}, title = {{Drammer: Deterministic Rowhammer Attacks on Mobile Platforms}}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS)}, year = {2016} }
@inproceedings{recon:mobisys16, author = {Jingjing Ren and Ashwin Rao and Martina Lindorfer and Arnaud Legout and David Choffnes}, title = {{ReCon: Revealing and Controlling PII Leaks in Mobile Network Traffic}}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications and Services (MobiSys)}, year = {2016} }
@inproceedings{curiousdroid:fc16, author = {Carter, Patrick and Mulliner, Collin and Lindorfer, Martina and Robertson, William and Kirda, Engin}, title = {{CuriousDroid: Automated User Interface Interaction for Android Application Analysis Sandboxes}}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on Financial Cryptography and Data Security (FC)}, year = {2016} }
@inproceedings{marvin:compsac2015, author = {Lindorfer, Martina and Neugschwandtner, Matthias and Platzer, Christian}, title = {{Marvin: Efficient and Comprehensive Mobile App Classification Through Static and Dynamic Analysis}}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Annual International Computers, Software \& Applications Conference (COMPSAC)}, year = {2015} }
@inproceedings{andrubis:badgers14, author = {Martina Lindorfer and Matthias Neugschwandtner and Lukas Weichselbaum and Yanick Fratantonio and Victor {van der Veen} and Christian Platzer}, title = {{Andrubis - 1,000,000 Apps Later: A View on Current Android Malware Behaviors}}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the the International Workshop on Building Analysis Datasets and Gathering Experience Returns for Security (BADGERS)}, year = {2014} }
@inproceedings{andradar:dimva14, author = {Lindorfer, Martina and Volanis, Stamatis and Sisto, Alessandro and Neugschwandtner, Matthias and Athanasopoulos, Elias and Maggi, Federico and Platzer, Christian and Zanero, Stefano and Ioannidis, Sotiris}, title = {{AndRadar: Fast Discovery of Android Applications in Alternative Markets}}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Conference on Detection of Intrusions and Malware \& Vulnerability Assessment (DIMVA)}, year = {2014} }
@inproceedings{platzer2014:skinsheriff, author = {Platzer, Christian and Stuetz, Martin and Lindorfer, Martina}, title = {{Skin Sheriff: A Machine Learning Solution for Detecting Explicit Images}}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Workshop on Security and Forensics in Communication Systems (ASIACCS-SFCS)}, year = {2014} }
@inproceedings{sandboxcomparison:most14, author = {Sebastian Neuner and Victor {van der Veen} and Martina Lindorfer and Markus Huber and Georg Merzdovnik and Martin Mulazzani and Edgar Weippl}, title = {{Enter Sandbox: Android Sandbox Comparison}}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the IEEE Mobile Security Technologies Workshop (MoST)}, year = {2014} }
@inproceedings{lindorfer2013:macmal, author = {Lindorfer, Martina and Miller, Bernhard and Neugschwandtner, Matthias and Platzer, Christian}, title = {{Take a Bite - Finding the Worm in the Apple}}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on Information, Communications and Signal Processing (ICICS)}, year = {2013} }
@inproceedings{webview:neugschwandtner2013, author = {Neugschwandtner, Matthias and Lindorfer, Martina and Platzer, Christian}, title = {{A View To A Kill: WebView Exploitation}}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the USENIX Workshop on Large-Scale Exploits and Emergent Threats (LEET)}, year = {2013} }
@inproceedings{lindorfer2012:beagle, author = {Lindorfer, Martina and Di Federico, Alessandro and Maggi, Federico and Milani Comparetti, Paolo and Zanero, Stefano}, title = {{Lines of Malicious Code: Insights Into the Malicious Software Industry}}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC)}, year = {2012} }
@inproceedings{lindorfer2011:disarm, author = {Lindorfer, Martina and Kolbitsch, Clemens and Milani Comparetti, Paolo}, title = {{Detecting Environment-Sensitive Malware}}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Symposium on Recent Advances in Intrusion Detection (RAID)}, year = {2011} }