6 papers
Exploring the connection between coding habits and cognitive styles in malware developers
Vasilis Vouvoutsis, Constantinos Patsakis, Fran Casino
Malware research primarily studies the results, the methods, and the impact. Even from an offensive security perspective, what is examined is the method, not the development strate…
Evading and crashing anti-malware solutions via data collection overloading during analysis serialization
Evgenios Gkritsis, Constantinos Patsakis, George Stergiopoulos
Malware analysis systems, including dynamic-analysis sandboxes and digital forensics and incident response (DFIR) platforms, rely on telemetry pipelines comprising collection agent…
QRS: A Rule-Synthesizing Neuro-Symbolic Triad for Autonomous Vulnerability Discovery
George Tsigkourakos, Constantinos Patsakis
Static Application Security Testing (SAST) tools are integral to DevSecOps pipelines, yet tools like CodeQL, Semgrep, and SonarQube remain constrained: they require expert-crafted…
Analysing Multidisciplinary Approaches to Fight Large-Scale Digital Influence Operations
David Arroyo, Rafael Mata Milla, Marc Almeida Ros +4
Crime as a Service (CaaS) has evolved from isolated criminal incidents to a broad spectrum of illicit activities, including social media manipulation, foreign information manipulat…
Inside LockBit: Technical, Behavioral, and Financial Anatomy of a Ransomware Empire
Felipe Castaño, Constantinos Patsakis, Francesco Zola +1
LockBit has evolved from an obscure Ransomware-as-a-Service newcomer in 2019 to the most prolific ransomware franchise of 2024. Leveraging a recently leaked MySQL dump of the gang'…
Just in Plain Sight: Unveiling CSAM Distribution Campaigns on the Clear Web
Nikolaos Lykousas, Constantinos Patsakis
Child sexual abuse is among the most hideous crimes, yet, after the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a huge surge in the distribution of child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Traditionall…