Mohammad Shamim Ahsan
PhD Candidate, Penn State Cybersecurity Researcher
There is no one who goes out of his house to seek knowledge, but the angels lower their wings in approval of his action.
- My Prophet ﷺ
Welcome to My Webpage!
I'm a PhD candidate in the College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST) at Pennsylvania State University, currently working in the Penn State Cyber Security Lab under Professor Peng Liu. I obtained my bachelor's degree from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) in 2023. After graduation, I served as a full-time Lecturer at United International University (UIU), Bangladesh.
Research Interest:
My research focuses on advancing cybersecurity and trustworthy AI for cyber-physical systems, with an emphasis on detecting, reasoning about, and mitigating malicious behavior in complex systems.
Cyber-Physical System Security
Integrated cyber-physical analysis: Developed a semi-automatic framework (a.k.a., PVOTA) that combines novel taint analysis with domain-specific patterns to bridge cyber logs and physical measurements, enabling fault and cyberattack differentiation in DER (distributed energy resources) systems (TSG).
LLM-based multi-agent systems: Developed AgentBN, an LLM-driven multi-agent framework for Bayesian network refinement featuring agent orchestration, structured prompting, deterministic evaluation pipelines, iterative self-correction, and output validation for trustworthy AI. Leveraged probabilistic inference and deterministic validation to evaluate Bayesian network refinements through confidence analysis and candidate selection. (GitHub).
Bayesian reasoning for DER security: Developed Bayesian-network reasoning that integrates domain-specific causal knowledge with probabilistic inference to automate cyber-physical root-cause analysis while handling real-world uncertainty (PESGM'26).
Prior Research: IoT Network Traffic Analysis
Explored security and privacy in Industrial and Smart Home IoT networks, including detecting smart home device activities from encrypted traffic, uncovering dual-purpose MQTT protocol traffic-based adversarial attacks in industrial IoT systems, and conducting a literature review on metaheuristics- and ML-based NIDSs (network intrusion detection systems) in IoT. (TDSC: GitHub, SWEVO, IoT, ..., CMC: GitHub)
Recent News:
23 August 2026: A first-authored work published in IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid (TSG)
August 2026: Two sole-authored book chapters on adversarial machine learning attacks and countermeasures in IoT networks published by the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET)
03 March 2026: A first-authored paper accepted in IEEE PESGM'26
09 July 2025: Elected as a Full Member of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society
06 May 2025: A literature review paper on IoT-NIDSs published in the Swarm and Evolutionary Computation (SWEVO) journal [Q1, IF=9.6 (2026)]
11 July 2024: A first-authored undergraduate work published in IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing (TDSC)
Graduate Research Assistant [2024-Present]
Department of Information Sciences and Technology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park
Lecturer [2023-2024]
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, United International University, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Teaching
Computer Security (CSE 4531)
Cloud Computing (CSE 4587)
Discrete Mathematics (CSE 2213)
Structured Programming Language Lab (CSE 1112)
Data Structure and Algorithms I Lab (CSE 2216)
Mentoring
Supervised a group of undergrad students and published two international conference papers (IEEE TENSYMP’24 and ICCA’24)
Undergraduate Research Assistant [2022-2023]
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology
J = Journal, C = Conference, B = Book Chapter, U = Under Review, FA = First Author
2026
J06. (Accepted in IEEE TSG) Ahsan, M. S., Wang, H., Motakatla, V. R., Zhu, M., & Liu, P. (2026). Differentiation Between Faults and Cyberattacks through Combined Analysis of Cyberspace Logs and Physical Measurements. arXiv preprint https://arxiv.org/pdf/2601.03289
J05. (Accepted in CMC) Ahsan, M. S., Gaber, M. G., Ahmed, M., & Pathan, A.-S. K. (2026). Exposing and Exploiting the Ineffectiveness of Real-Time ML-based NIDSs on Ambiguous Traffic in Industrial IoT Networks. Computers, Materials & Continua. (PDF)
B02. Ahsan, M. S. (2026). Adversarial Machine Learning Countermeasures in IoT Networks. In The Convergence of AI, IoT, Smart Sensors and Remote Sensing for Sustainable Smart Environment Applications. Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET). (PDF)
B01. Ahsan, M. S. (2026). Adversarial Machine Learning Attacks in IoT Networks. In The Convergence of AI, IoT, Smart Sensors and Remote Sensing for Sustainable Smart Environment Applications. Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET). (PDF)
C04. (Accepted in IEEE PESGM 2026) Ahsan, M. S., Minghui Zhu, and Peng Liu. Bayesian Network-based Reasoning for Assisting the Differentiation between Cyberattacks and Undetected Faults in DER Systems. (PDF) (POSTER)
2025
J04. Rahman, M., Ahsan, M.S., Chen, CW. et al. A census-based genetic algorithm for target set selection problem in social networks. Neural Comput & Applic (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00521-025-11480-3 (PDF)
J03. Ahsan, M. S., Islam, S., & Shatabda, S. (2025). A systematic review of metaheuristics-based and machine learning-driven intrusion detection systems in IoT. Swarm and Evolutionary Computation, 96, 101984. (PDF)
J02. Ahsan, M. S., & Pathan, A. S. K. (2025). A Comprehensive Survey on the Requirements, Applications, and Future Challenges for Access Control Models in IoT: The State of the Art. IoT, 6(1), 9. (PDF)
2024
C03. Ahsan, M. S., Ahmed, A. R., & Saidur Rahman, M. (2024, December). Randomized Algorithm for Online k-Server Problem on a Line. In International Conference on Information and Communication Technology for Competitive Strategies (pp. 371-381). Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore. (PDF)
C02. Ahmed, S. N., Sajib, M. S. I., Ahmed, N., Ali, U. S., Fariha, L. T. J., Afroz, A., ... & Ahsan, M. S. (2024, October). AI and RBAC Enhanced Security System for Hospitals in Bangladesh. In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Computing Advancements (pp. 169-176). (PDF)
C01. Uddin, M. A., Sonali, S. H., Rahman, M. S., & Ahsan, M. S. (2024, September). Deep Learning for Agile Malware Detection. In 2024 IEEE Region 10 Symposium (TENSYMP) (pp. 1-6). IEEE. (PDF)
J01. Ahsan, M. S., Islam, M. S., Hossain, M. S., & Das, A. (2024). “Detecting Smart Home Device Activities Using Packet-Level Signatures from Encrypted Traffic.” IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing (TDSC). (PDF)
Reviewer & Sub-Reviewer (Conference)
IEEE S&P'27
ACM SIGOPS ATC ’26
USENIX ATC'25
IEEE/IFIP DSN'25, DSN'26
ESORICS'26
Reviewer (Journals)
IEEE:
Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing (TDSC)
Internet of Things (IEEE-IoT-J)
Springer:
Archives of Computational Methods in Engineering
Artificial Intelligence Review
Neural Computing and Applications (NCAA)
Peer-to-Peer Networking and Applications (P2PNA)
Springer Nature Computer Science (SNCS)
Cluster Computing
IOS Press:
Journal of Computer Security
Taylor & Francis:
International Journal of Computers and Applications
Journal of Cyber Security Technology
Additional Service
Judge, 2026 Graduate Exhibition, Pennsylvania State University (Category: research poster, design, and visual arts)
Judge, 2025 Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Science (PJAS) State Meet, Pennsylvania State University (Category: High School Computer Science)
Outside of research, I enjoy playing Chess and am currently in the learning phase, exploring strategies and improving my game.
I also play Cricket and have previously competed as a top-order batsman in school and collegiate tournaments.
PersonalQuote 1: "If any knowledge makes me arrogant, then it is worthless."
PersonalQuote 2: "Don't compare yourself with others; rather, compete with yourself. There will always be many people who are better than you."
© 2026 Mohammad Shamim Ahsan · Last updated: August 2026