Faculty and Staff

Nasir Ghani, PhD

Professor

Office: ENB 374

Phone: 813-974-4772 

Email

Ghani Nasir

Research Interests

Dr. Ghani's research focus areas include a range of topics in cybersecurity, including ransomware analysis, denial-of-service attack mitigation, Internet of Things (IoT) security, and cyber skills development and workforce training.  In addition, he is also involved in cyberinfrastructure design, cloud computing, and disaster recovery.

Biography

Prof. Ghani is the Program Director of the MS in Cybersecurity program and the USF Point-of-Contact for the NSA National Centers for Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity (NCAE-C) program.  He is also an Academic Director at Cyber Florida, a state center focusing on cybersecurity research and education. Earlier, he was Associate Chair of the ECE Department at the University of New Mexico. He has also worked at several large corporations (including Nokia, IBM, and Motorola). He received a B.Sc. from the University of Waterloo, a M.S. from McMaster University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Waterloo.

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Teaching

  • EEL 4782 / 6787: Data Networks, Systems, and Security (online)
  • EEL 3420: Engineering Analysis
  • EEL 6947: Cybersecurity Practicum
  • EEL 6908: Directed Individual Study

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Publications

  1. A. Vehabovic, H. Zanddizari, G. Javidi, N. Ghani, M. Safaei Pour, E. Bou-Harb, S. Uluagac, M. Rahouti, “Ransomware Detection in Federated Learning Environments with Imbalanced Datasets”, IEEE HONET 2023, Boca Raton, FL, December 2023.
  2.  A. Vehabovic, H. Zanddizari, F. Shaikh, N. Ghani, M. Safaei Pour, E. Bou-Harb, J. Crichigno, “Federated Learning Approach for Distributed Ransomware Detection”, ACNS 2023 5th Workshop on Security in Machine Learning and Its Applications (SiMLA 2023), Kyoto, Japan, June 2023.
  3. N. Siasi, M. Jasim, N. Ghani, “Hierarchy Descending SFC Provisioning Scheme with Load Balancing for Fog Computing”, IEEE Communications Letters, Vol. 26, No. 9, September 2022, pp. 2096-2100.
  4. N. Siasi, M. Jasim, A. Yayimli, N. Ghani, “Service Function Chain Survivability Provisioning in Fog Networks”, IEEE Transactions on Service Network Management, Vol. 19, No. 2, June 2022, pp. 1117-1128.
  5. F. Shaikh, E. Bou-Harb, A. Vehabovic, J. Crichigno, A. Yayimli, N. Ghani, “IoT Threat Detection Testbed using Generative Adversarial Networks”, IEEE Black Sea Communications Conference 2022, Sofia, Bulgaria, June 2022 (best paper award).
  6. P. Das, R. Shuvro, M. Rahnamay-Naeini, K. Povinelli, N. Ghani, M. Hayat, “Theory for Optimizing Insecure Inter-Network Connections”, IEEE Systems, Vol. 14, No. 4, Dec. 2020, pp. 4842-4853.
  7. M. Safaei Pour, A. Mangino, K. Friday, M. Rathburn, E. Bou-Harb, F. Iqbal, S. Samtani, J. Crichigno, N. Ghani, “On Data-driven Curation, Learning, and Analysis for Inferring Evolving Internet-of-Things (IoT) Botnets in the Wild Computers & Security”, Computers & Security, Vol. 91, April 2022, pp.1-20.
  8. N. Hudson, M. Hossain, M. Hosseinzadeh, H. Khamfroush, M. Rahnamay-Naeini, N. Ghani, “A Framework for Edge Intelligent Smart Distribution Grids via Federated Learning”, IEEE ICCCN 2021, July 2021 (invited paper).
  9. N. Neshenko, E. Bou-Harb, J. Crichigno, G. Kaddoum, N. Ghani, “Demystifying IoT Security: An Exhaustive Survey on IoT Vulnerabilities and a First Empirical Look on Internet-Scale IoT Exploitations”, IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, Vol. 21, No. 3, 3rd Quarter 2019, pp. 2702-2733.
  10. F. Shaikh, M. Rahouti, N. Ghani, K. Xiong, E. Bou-Harb, J. Haque, “An Overview of Recent Advances and Security Challenges in Emerging E-Enabled Aircraft Systems”, Vol. 7, IEEE Access, May 2019, pp. 63164-63180.

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