Christian is interested in computer security, in particular the so-called Man-At-The-End Attack.
The Man-At-The-End Attack occurs in settings where an adversary has physical access to a device and compromises it by tampering with its hardware or software. My current research focuses on remote man-at-the-end attacks which occur in distributed systems where untrusted clients are in frequent communication with trusted servers over a network, and a malicious user can get an advantage by compromising an untrusted device.
Current Research
- September 2011—August 2013, Man-at-the-End Attacks: Defenses and Evaluation, National Science Foundation Grant CNF-1145913, $269,649, PI: Christian Collberg, co-PIs: Saumya Debray, Loukas Lazos.
- October 2009—September 2013, Theoretical and Practical Approaches to Remote White-Box Security, United States–Israel Binational Science Foundation grant BSF-2008362, $90,684, PI: Amir Hertzberg (Bar Ilan University, Israel), co-PIs: Christian Collberg, Shafi Goldwasser (MIT and Weizmann Institute).
- February 2011—September 2011, Putting Network Security on the Map: Visualizing Network Security with a Unified Map Metaphor Office of Naval Research, $399,958, PI: Stephen Kobourov, co-PIs: Christian Collberg, Srini Ramasubramanian, Loukas Lazos.
- October 2009, gift of $10,476.00 from IRDETO/Cloakware, PI: Christian Collberg.