Shahriar Nick Rahimi, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor School of Computing Sciences & EngineeringUniversity of Southern Mississippi118 College DriveHattiesburg, MS 39402 Office: TEC 330Phone: (601)266-4949 (main office)nick.rahimi@usm.edu
Nick Rahimi, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Cybersecurity Education Coordinator
Director of Cyber Innovations Lab
CAE-CD Point of Contact (PoC)
Dr. Nick Rahimi is an assistant professor at the School of Computing Sciences & Computer Engineering at the University of Southern Mississippi (USM). He serves as the director of the Cyber Innovations Lab and is the Point of Contact (PoC) for the National Cybersecurity Agency (NSA) at USM. Dr. Rahimi earned his Ph.D. and master’s degrees in computer science from Southern Illinois University. He holds two bachelor’s degrees, one in computer software engineering and another in Information Systems Technologies with a concentration in Cybersecurity. His primary research interests encompass cybersecurity, distributed systems, decentralized networks, blockchain technology, cryptography, internet anti-censorship, and machine learning in cybersecurity. Dr. Rahimi brings substantial teaching experience to his role, having developed courses in cybersecurity, computer science, and information technology. He is the author of numerous papers in the fields of computer science and cybersecurity. Currently, he advises and mentors more than twenty undergraduate and graduate students engaged in computer science and cybersecurity research. Additionally, he possesses over eight years of industry experience, having worked as a software engineer and project manager.
Research Interest: Computer and Network Security, Machine Learning in cybersecurity, Peer-to-Peer Networks, Blockchain Technology , Applied Cryptography, Internet Anti-Censorship , Distributed Systems and Computer Networks .
I am looking for hardworking, creative, and self-motivated graduate and undergraduate (PhD , Master & Bachelor) students with interests in cybersecurity, decentralized networks, machine learning and blockchain. If you are a student interested in joining my lab, please send me an email with your CV, research interests and contact information.
Recent News:
My proposal to establish a new Computing Research Center (CRC) at our School of Computing Sciences and Computer Engineering (CSCE) has been selected to receive a $32,000 award from the Jimmy A. Payne Foundation.
This innovative initiative aims to create a center that will transform research engagement at CSCE.
In a major milestone in our cybersecurity education efforts and in a collaboration with the National Guard, we were awarded $1.5 million from the Department of Labor to develop new cyber warfare curricula to address evolving threats. This initiative will train National Guard soldiers in cutting-edge cybersecurity practices while providing our students valuable opportunities to work alongside experts in the field.
I will be serving as the Program Chair for the 33rd International Conference on Software Engineering and Data Engineering (SEDE 2024). SEDE 2024 will be held in conjunction with the 37th International Conference on Computer Applications in Industry and Engineering (CAINE 2024) at the Hilton San Diego Airport/Harbor Island in San Diego, California. The event is scheduled for October 20-21, 2024. The proceedings of the conference will be published by Springer Nature.
New publication in the top-tier IEEE Internet of Things Journal (impact factor 10.6):
Saydul Akbar Murad, PhD student under Dr. Nick Rahimi, publishes "Secure and Efficient Hierarchical P2P Fog Architecture: A Novel Approach for IoT." This paper explores novel approaches to ensuring data security and efficient resource management in IoT networks
In a significant milestone, University of Southern Mississippi has been designated as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense through the academic year 2028.
$75,716 has been awarded for a year by NSF for Post- Baccalaureate Research Program for LSMAMP students.
I am appointed as the Cybersecurity Education coordinator at USM
https://www.usm.edu/computing-sciences-computer-engineering/cybersecurity.php
I have been selected to receive a Summer Grant for the Improvement of Instruction award for summer 2024.
I will be serving as the faculty advisor for the Google Developer Club at USM.
www.usm.edu/news/2023/release/google-developer-robotics.php
Congratulations to Akbar Murad, the first author, and the entire team for their publication in Elsevier's "Future Generation Computer Systems," a prestigious journal with an impressive impact factor of 7.5 and a Cite Score of 21.1. The article, titled "SG-PBFS: Shortest Gap-Priority Based Fair Scheduling technique for job scheduling in the cloud environment," is available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.future.2023.09.005.
Lab News:
Summer 2024:
Summer 2024:
New Conference Paper Publication Acceptance:
Title: Navigating the Ethical Landscape of Big Data Collection and Analysis
Authors: Nick Rahimi, Sarah Lee
Conference: The 2024 World Congress in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, & Applied Computing (CSCE'24)
Co-Sponsored by IEEE and IEEE Systems Council
2. New Book chapter Publication:
Title: Entrepreneurship Opportunities in Cybersecurity", to appear in Role of ICT in Transforming Business & Management Practices, Apple Academic Press/ CRC Press, USA, 2024.
Nick Rahimi, Saydul Akbar Murad, and Sarah Lee
April & May 2024:
Saydul Akbar Murad was being selected as one of the winners in The Proposal Project in CAS College. He has awarded $500.
New Book Chapter publication:
Title: Security Challenges in the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)
Authors: Akbar Murad, Nick Rahimi, Indranil Roy, Bidyut Gupta
Publisher: Taylr & Farncis Group
New Conference Paper Publication Acceptance:
Title: Analysis of Zero Day Attack Detection Using Mlp and Xai
Authors:Ashim Dahal, Orabin Bajgai, Nick Rahimi
Conference: the 23rd International Conference on Security & Management (SAM'24)
Co-Sponsored by IEEE and IEEE Systems Council
Feb & March 2024:
Sindhuja Penchala awarded $200 for travel funds from the college.
Sindhuja presented :Unveiling Text Mining Potential: A Comparative Analysis of Document Classification Algo at 39th International Conference on Computers and Their Applications (CATA 2024)- New Orleans
Our paper :On further improvement of data look-up latency in Residue Class (RC) based Peer-2-Peer networks, awarded the bet paper finalist at 39th International Conference on Computers and Their Applications (CATA 2024)- New Orleans
Jan 2024:
Two manuscripts accepted for presentation and publication at 39th International Conference on Computers and Their Applications (CATA 2024)
On further improvement of data look-up latency in Residue Class (RC) based Peer-2-Peer networks
Unveiling Text Mining Potential: A Comparative Analysis of Document Classification Algorithms
One manuscript submitted to The The 3rd IEEE International Conference on Computing and Machine Intelligence (ICMI 2024) 2024 Conference.
Analyzing Darknet Traffic: Classification and Mitigation of Adversarial Attacks
December 2023:
One manuscript submitted to The 62nd ACMSE 2024 Conference.
Enabling Seamless Healthcare Services with RC-Based Geographical Peer-to-Peer Fog Architecture in the Healthcare 4.0
Two manuscripts submitted to 39th International Conference on Computers and Their Applications (CATA 2024):
On further improvement of data look-up latency in Residue Class (RC) based Peer-2-Peer networks
Unveiling Text Mining Potential: A Comparative Analysis of Document Classification Algorithms
November 2023:
1. Rabeea Fatima and Sajim Ahmed represented USM and the CIL lab very well at the GC3 Conference. Their research poster, titled 'A Machine Learning Approach for Ransomware Detection,' was awarded first place at the conference. The 10th annual Gulf Coast Chapters Conference (GC3) was held in Biloxi, MS, where researchers from Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi showcased their research findings.
2. New Journal Acceptance
Title: Priority Based Job Scheduling Technique that Utilizes Gaps to Increase the Efficiency of Job Distribution in Cloud Computing
Journal: Sustainable Computing: Informatics and Systems, Elsevier.
October 2023:
1. During an invited talk at Oklahoma State University, Dr. Rahimi presented a novel research titled 'CryptoLoc: Secure Decentralized Location-based Cryptography without GPS'.
2. Saydul Akbar Murad represented USM and CIL Lab at "IEEE- 10th International Conference on Internet of Things: Systems, Management and Security (IOTSMS 2023), San Antonio, and presented: Secure and Scalable Permissioned Blockchain using LDE-P2P Networks
3. Rabeea Fatima and Sajim Ahmed, undergraduate researchers at the CIL lab, recently submitted a poster titled 'A Machine Learning Approach for Ransomware Detection' to the Gulf Coast Annual Regional Conference (GC3). Excitingly, the poster has been accepted.
September 2023:
1. New Conference Paper Publication Acceptance:
Title: Secure and Scalable Permissioned Blockchain using LDE-P2P Networks
Authors: Saydul Akbar Murad, Nick Rahimi
Conference: 10th International Conference on Internet of Things: Systems, Management and Security (IOTSMS 2023), San Antonio, Texas , USA. October 23-25, 2023
Co-Sponsored by IEEE and IEEE Systems Council
2. Saydul Akbar Murad awarded another $300 for travel funds from the Graduate School.
August 2023:
New Journal Publication
Title: SG-PBFS: Shortest Gap-Priority Based Fair Scheduling technique for job scheduling in cloud environment
Authors: Saydul Akbar Murad, Zafril Rizal M. Azmi, Abu Jafar Md Muzahid, MD. Khairul Bashar Bhuiyan, Md Saib, Nick Rahimi, Nusrat Jahan Prottasha, Anupam Kumar Bairagi
Journal: Future Generation Computer Systems, Elsevier. Impact Factor: 7.5
Saydul Akbar Murad awarded $500 for travel funds from the Graduate Committee in the School of BEES
July 2023:
Saydul Akbar Murad presented PhishGuard: Machine Learning-Powered Phishing URL Detection at IEEE CPS International Conference. The presentation can be viewed via the link provided above
New Book Chapter Publication Acceptance:
Title: Security Challenges in the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)
Authors: Seydul Akbar Murad, Nick Rahimi, Indranil Roy, Bidyut Gupta
Journal: CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Group -Date: 26 Jun 2023
June 2023: New Journal Publication Acceptance:
Title: The Advantages of Optimizing Reaction Conditions Using Machine Learning to Improve and Predict Yield for the Polyol Millifluidic Synthesis of Silver Nanowires
Authors: Destiny Williams, Nick Rahimi, James Smay, Shohreh Hemmati
Journal: Springer, Applied Nanoscience
Date: 22 Jun 2023
April 2023: A research paper entitled: "PhishGuard: Machine Learning-Powered Phishing URL Detection" accepted in Las Vegas, Nevada: IEEE CPS /The 2023 International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence.
April 2023: Seydul Akbar Murad, an PhD student in Cyber Innovations Lab presented his paper on the "Design of a New Secured Hierarchical Peer-to-Peer Fog Architecture Based on Linear Diophantine Equation" at the 38th International Conference on Computers and Their Applications (CATA-2023).
March 2023: Heather Broome and Yaju Shrestha , undergraduate researchers at Cyber Innovations Lab awarded 2nd place in computing Undergraduate Symposium for Research and Creative Activity at Southern Miss. Their reserach entitled : "Darknet Traffic Classification and Adversarial Attacks." Aayush Gautam and NyZaireyus Harrison are collaborating in this research as well.
April 2023: Aayush Gautam awarded Drapeau Summer Research Grant for $4000. Aayush will be working on "Deep Learning Approaches for Detecting Advanced Persistent Threats in Enterprise Networks" under supervisor of Dr. Rahimi. Congratulations Aayush!
March 2023- Aayush Gautam, an undergrad researcher presented his first-ever research paper on the "Viability of Machine Learning in Android Scareware Detection" at the 38th International Conference on Computers and Their Applications (CATA-2023)
May 2023: New Journal Publication Acceptance:
Title: Secured Communication in Generalized Non DHT-based Pyramid Tree
Authors: Nick Rahimi, Indranil Roy, Ziping Liu, Bidyut Gupta, Narayan Debnath
Journal: International Journal of Computers and Their Applications (IJCA)
Date: 28 May 2023