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, 鈥淩ansomware Detection in Federated Learning Environments with Imbalanced Datasets鈥�, 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, 鈥淔ederated Learning Approach for Distributed Ransomware Detection鈥�, 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, 鈥淗ierarchy Descending SFC Provisioning Scheme with Load Balancing for Fog Computing鈥�, IEEE Communications Letters, Vol. 26, No. 9, September 2022, pp. 2096-2100.
  4. N. Siasi, M. Jasim, A. Yayimli, N. Ghani, 鈥淪ervice Function Chain Survivability Provisioning in Fog Networks鈥�, 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, 鈥淚oT Threat Detection Testbed using Generative Adversarial Networks鈥�, 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, 鈥淭heory for Optimizing Insecure Inter-Network Connections鈥�, 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, 鈥淥n Data-driven Curation, Learning, and Analysis for Inferring Evolving Internet-of-Things (IoT) Botnets in the Wild Computers & Security鈥�, Computers & Security, Vol. 91, April 2022, pp.1-20.
  8. N. Hudson, M. Hossain, M. Hosseinzadeh, H. Khamfroush, M. Rahnamay-Naeini, N. Ghani, 鈥淎 Framework for Edge Intelligent Smart Distribution Grids via Federated Learning鈥�, IEEE ICCCN 2021, July 2021 (invited paper).
  9. N. Neshenko, E. Bou-Harb, J. Crichigno, G. Kaddoum, N. Ghani, 鈥淒emystifying IoT Security: An Exhaustive Survey on IoT Vulnerabilities and a First Empirical Look on Internet-Scale IoT Exploitations鈥�, 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, 鈥淎n Overview of Recent Advances and Security Challenges in Emerging E-Enabled Aircraft Systems鈥�, Vol. 7, IEEE Access, May 2019, pp. 63164-63180.

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