Sanket Goutam

Security & Privacy Researcher

I am a Computer Science Ph.D. candidate at Stony Brook University and work in the Ethos Lab. I am advised by Prof. Amir Rahmati.

My research focuses on addressing the critical challenges of systems and network security in emerging technologies – particularly in developing secure and privacy-centric solutions for mobile systems, including smartphones, wearables (such as AR/VR devices), and IoT or smart home ecosystems. As personal devices evolve with increasingly complex designs and continuous sensing capabilities, they introduce new security and privacy threats that can compromise user safety.

I investigate how developers create user-facing systems, analyzing potential security and privacy implications that may arise from obscure design practices and functional indirections. My goal is to develop practical designs that not only meet operational requirements for developers but also uphold robust security and privacy protections for end users.

During my PhD, I collaborated closely with Samsung Research America focusing on Samsung Knox for enterprise solutions. I also spent a short period at Netflix with the Security Protocol Engineering group working on the MSL Protocol. Prior to pursuing a Ph.D., I spent several years with the WLAN R&D – ArubaOS group at HPE Networking working on distributed shared memory infrastructures. My contributions were recognized with multiple awards for high-impact work across multiple projects.

I hold a Master of Science in Computer Science from North Carolina State University, where I was a graduate research student in the Wolfpack Security and Privacy Lab under the guidance of Professors William Enck and Brad Reaves. My MS thesis proposed a novel network-based access control model tailored for smart home ecosystem, which can be accessed here.

Research Funding : I am fortunate to have my research supported by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) grant on Robust Energy Infrastructure and Resiliency (N00014-22-1-2001), Meta Research Award, and Samsung Research grants.

Media Coverage

My research on security hardening of AR and IoT systems has been covered by the Future Force Magazine - Vol. 9, 2023.
My contributions towards designing a curriculum for Computer Science Teaching Assistants (TAs), as part of the Inclusive Computing Fellowship, was published in a news article by SBU News.

selected publications

USENIX Sec

Erebus: Access Control for Augmented Reality Systems

Sanket Goutam^*, Yoonsang Kim^*, Amir Rahmati, and Arie Kaufman

In 32nd USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 23), 2023

Bib PDF Supp Video Blog Code Poster Slides Website

@inproceedings{kim2023erebus,
  title = {Erebus: Access Control for Augmented Reality Systems},
  author = {Goutam*, Sanket and Kim*, Yoonsang and Rahmati, Amir and Kaufman, Arie},
  booktitle = {32nd USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 23)},
  pages = {929--946},
  year = {2023},
  bibtex_show = true,
}

ACM WiSec

Hestia: Simple Least Privilege Network Policies for Smart Homes

Sanket Goutam, William Enck, and Bradley Reaves

In Proceedings of the 12th Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks (ACM WiSec), 2019

Bib PDF Slides Website

@inproceedings{goutam2019hestia,
  title = {Hestia: Simple Least Privilege Network Policies for Smart Homes},
  author = {Goutam, Sanket and Enck, William and Reaves, Bradley},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the 12th Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks (ACM WiSec)},
  pages = {215--220},
  year = {2019},
  bibtex_show = true,
}