Professor Ilir Gashi
Contact details
About
Overview
Ilir holds PhD (2007) and BEng (Honours) (2003) degrees in Software Reliability and Computing respectively from City St George's, University of London. He joined the Centre for Software Reliability (CSR) in July 2003, first as a Research Assistant and then as a PhD student. He was appointed a Research Fellow in January 2009, Lecturer in November 2012, Senior Lecturer in April 2014, Reader in October 2019, and Professor in Oct 2025.
Since January 2025 he is serving as the Director of the Centre for Software Reliability.
From July 2019 to August 2023, he served as the Head of Department of Computer Science. Prior to this he has served as Deputy Head of department (2018/19), Director of Undergraduate programmes (2017/18), and the Course Director for the MSc in Management of Information Security and Risk (2012-2018).
He is the Principle Investigator in an EPSRC ICASE grant (jointly funded by EPSRC and BT) on generative AI for cybersecurity response, which started in Oct 2024. He served as the Principal Investigator in two projects which investigated the potential benefits of diversity and defence in depth for security: the UK EPSRC-funded D3S project (2015-2018); and the EU H2020-funded DiSIEM project (Diversity Enhancements for SIEMs) (2016-2019). He was also a co-investigator in the SESAMO project (2012-2015), and the AQUAS project (2017-2020).
He has worked previously in the DOTS and DIRC projects, a research project sponsored by the UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) on technological trends of secure system evolution as well as the EU Framework Programme 6 (FP 6) project ReSIST and EU FP 7 project AMBER. He was the CSR lead on the ReSIST activity FOREVER.
He is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), and a member of IEEE, ACM and BCS.
Qualifications
- PhD Software Reliability, City, University of London, United Kingdom, January 2007
- BEng Computing, City, University of London, United Kingdom, 2003
Employment
- Professor, City St George's, University of London, United Kingdom, October 2025 - present
- Reader, City St George's, University of London, United Kingdom, October 2019 - October 2025
- Senior Lecturer, City St George's, University of London, United Kingdom, April 2014 - September 2019
- Lecturer, City St George's, University of London, United Kingdom, November 2012 - April 2014
- Research Fellow, City St George's, University of London, United Kingdom, January 2009 - November 2012
- Research Associate, City St George's, University of London, United Kingdom, September 2005 - December 2008
- Teaching Assistant, City St George's, University of London, United Kingdom, October 2004 - June 2007
- Research Assistant, City St George's, University of London, United Kingdom, July 2003 - October 2004
Memberships of professional organisations
- Member, IEEE, December 2013 - present
- CISSP, September 2013 - present
- Member, ACM
- Fellow, Higher Education Academy
- Member, British Computer Society (BCS)
Teaching
Educational Leadership
Previous:
Head of Department of Computer Science (2019-2023)
Deputy Head of Department of Computer Science (2018-2019)
Head of Employability and NSS (National Student Survey) coordination (2018-2019)
Director of Undergraduate programmes (2017-2018)
Course Director for MSc in Management of Information Security and Risk (MISR) (2012-2018)
Director of the Applied Postgraduate Stream (2012-2016)
Undergraduate modules taught
Current:
IN2034 Work Based Project
Previous:
IN1011 Operating Systems (2018-2019)
IN1013 Databases (2022-2023)
IN3012 IT Security (2012-2018)
IN2018 Team Project (2007-2011; 2018-2022)
IN2016 Software Measurements (2008-2010)
Postgraduate modules taught
Current:
INM363 Individual Projects
Previous:
INM416 Information Security Management (2012-2018)
INM440 Information Security Management (2014-2018)
INM330 Software Systems Design (2014)
Research
Research
Ilir's research focus is on quantitative assessment of the dependability and security of software-based systems. This focus has led him to research methods for assessing fault-tolerant and intrusion-tolerant systems that make use of “design diversity” – using more the one diverse protection system or end system to increase the overall system dependability and security. Other terms used in literature for “design diversity” are “layered defence”, “defence in depth” and “defence in breadth”. He has been closely involved in most of the security research undertaken at CSR since 2005, co-authoring the papers and proposals that resulted from this research. The research on diversity has included numerous application areas:
- Operating Systems
- Database Systems,
- AntiVirus (AV) products,
- Intrusion Detection Systems (IDSs),
- Static Analysis Tools (SATs),
- Botnet detectors and malicious web crawling detection;
- Biometric Fingerprint Authentication Systems
- ML-based malware detectors
He is currently a PI on an EPSRC ICASE project (jointly funded by EPSRC and BT) on generative AI for cybersecurity response (2024-2029). Previously, he served as PI on two research projects: EPSRC D3S (2015-2018) and H2020 DiSIEM (2016-2019), and Co-I on two others (SESAMO (2012-2015) and AQUAS (2017-2020).
In 2010-2011 he was involved in a security review of the specifications of the European Railway Traffic Management System (ERTMS) on behalf of the UK railway industry.
He was one of 17 UK researchers to be selected to attend two workshops on Aviation Security organised by the UK Home Office and the US Department for Homeland Security in August and December 2010, which aimed to 'develop an assortment of creative and original ideas to help identify what aviation security could and should be in the year 2027'.
In the summer of 2011 he spent two months on a research visit to the US National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST). The visit was sponsored by NIST, and he researched open-ended vulnerability testing and assessment methods for electronic voting systems that could be used in US federal elections.
In the 2023/24 academic year he was on a 12 months sabbatical, visiting several institutions including University of Maryland, University of Queensland and KAUST.
In the last 20 years he has served as a member of the Programme Committee (PC) for the IEEE ISSRE (where he co-chaired the PC in 2017), DSN, EDCC, PRDC and NCA conferences as well as Springer-Verlag SAFECOMP conference. In 2018, he guest-edited a special issue of the IEEE Transaction on Reliability. He has reviewed for various journals including IEEE TSE, TDSC and TR.
Projects
- EPSRC ICASE project (jointly funded by EPSRC and BT) on Generative AI for CyberSecurity response (2024-2029) (PI)
- AQUAS (2017-2020) (co-I)
- D3S (2015-2018) (PI)
- DiSIEM (2016-2019) (PI)
- SESAMO (co-I)
- DOTS
- DIRC
- Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL)
- ReSIST
- AMBER
- FOREVER
Research students
Ghada Lahmar
Attendance: July 2025 - June 2029, full-time
Thesis title: Using LLMs to generate Graph Transformation Models
Role: 2nd Supervisor
India-Jane Barry
Attendance: October 2024 - September 2028, full-time
Thesis title: Generative AI for cybersecurity response
Role: 1st Supervisor
Eid Albedah
Attendance: October 2023 - present, full-time
Thesis title: Enhancing Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) Tools for Decision Making
Role: 1st Supervisor
Attila Brozik
Attendance: April 2021 - present, part-time
Thesis title: Explaining Behavioural Representations of Antivirus Detections
Role: 1st Supervisor
Amr Elkhawas
Attendance: July 2020 - present, part-time
Thesis title: Federated Machine Learning Applications in Malware Detection
Role: 1st Supervisor
Pedro Marques
Attendance: October 2018 - December 2021, full-time
Thesis title: Using design diversity and optimal adjudication for detecting malicious web scraping and malware samples
Role: 1st Supervisor
Further information: PhD awarded in June 2022
Areej Algaith
Attendance: October 2013 - December 2018, full-time
Thesis title: Empirical Assessment of Diversity and Defence in Depth for Security
Role: 1st Supervisor
Further information: PhD awarded in March 2019;
Cher Devey
Attendance: September 2013 - March 2019
Thesis title: A framework for data breach incident response and stakeholder notification in the EU-UK
Role: 2nd Supervisor
Further information: PhD awarded in June 2019
Publications
Publications by category
Chapters (2)
- Algaith, A., Gashi, I., Sobesto, B., Cukier, M., Haxhijaha, S. and Bajrami, G. (2016). Comparing Detection Capabilities of AntiVirus Products: An Empirical Study with Different Versions of Products from the Same Vendors. (pp. 48-53). IEEE.
- Gashi, I., Popov, P.T., Stankovic, V. and Strigini, L. (2003). On Designing Dependable Services with Diverse Off-the-Shelf SQL Servers. In Lemos, R.D., Gacek, C. and Romanovsky, A.B. (Eds.), Architecting Dependable Systems II - [the book is a result of the ICSE 2003 Workshop on Software Architectures for Dependable Systems] (pp. 191-214). Springer. ISBN 3540231684.
Conference papers and proceedings (40)
- Albedah, E., Gashi, I. and Howe, J.M. (2026). Longitudinal Vulnerability Lifecycle Analysis. European Dependable Computing Conference 7-10 April, Canterbury, UK.
- Brozik, A., Gashi, I. and Salako, K. (2025). Explaining Black-Box Malware Detectors: A Machine Learning Approach for Behaviour Analysis. 2025 20th European Dependable Computing Conference (EDCC) 8-11 April.doi:10.1109/edcc66201.2025.00029
- (2022). Message from the DCDS 2022 Organizers. 2022 52nd Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks Workshops (DSN-W) 27-30 June.doi:10.1109/dsn-w54100.2022.00009
- Medeiros, I., Gashi, I., Kamp, M. and Ferreira, P. (2021). Third International Workshop on Data-Centric Dependability and Security (DCDS). 2021 51st Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks Workshops (DSN-W) 21-24 June.doi:10.1109/dsn-w52860.2021.00006
- Medeiros, I., Gashi, I., Kamp, M. and Ferreira, P. (2020). Second International Workshop on Data-Centric Dependability and Security (DCDS). 2020 50th Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks Workshops (DSN-W) 29 June-2 July.doi:10.1109/dsn-w50199.2020.00007
- Alves, F., Andongabo, A., Gashi, I., Ferreira, P.M. and Bessani, A. Follow the Blue Bird: A Study on Threat Data Published on Twitter. .doi:10.1007/978-3-030-58951-6_11
- (2019). Message from the DCDS 2019 Organizers. 2019 49th Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks Workshops (DSN-W) 24-27 June.doi:10.1109/dsn-w.2019.00006
- Marques, P., Dabbabi, Z., Mironescu, M.-.M., Thonnard, O., Bessani, A., Buontempo, F.... Gashi, I. (2018). Detecting Malicious Web Scraping Activity: A Study with Diverse Detectors. 2018 IEEE 23rd Pacific Rim International Symposium on Dependable Computing (PRDC) 4-7 December.doi:10.1109/prdc.2018.00049
- Algaith, A., Nunes, P., Jose, F., Gashi, I. and Vieira, M. (2018). Finding SQL Injection and Cross Site Scripting Vulnerabilities with Diverse Static Analysis Tools. 2018 14th European Dependable Computing Conference (EDCC) 10-14 September.doi:10.1109/edcc.2018.00020
- Marques, P., Dabbabi, Z., Mironescu, M.-.M., Thonnard, O., Buontempo, F., Gashi, I.... Bessani, A. (2018). Using Diverse Detectors for Detecting Malicious Web Scraping Activity. 2018 48th Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks Workshops (DSN-W) 25-28 June.doi:10.1109/dsn-w.2018.00033
- Asad, H. and Gashi, I. Diversity in Open Source Intrusion Detection Systems. .doi:10.1007/978-3-319-99130-6_18
- Shahegh, P., Dietz, T., Cukier, M., Algaith, A., Brozik, A. and Gashi, I. (2017). AntiVirus and Malware Analysis Tool. 16th IEEE International Symposium on Network Computing and Applications 30 October-1 November, Boston, USA.
- Algaith, A., Elia, I.A., Gashi, I. and Vieira, M. (2017). Diversity with Intrusion Detection Systems: An Empirical Study. The 16th IEEE International Symposium on Network Computing and Applications 30 October-1 November, Boston, USA.doi:10.1109/NCA.2017.8171327
- Shahegh, P., Dietz, T., Cukier, M., Algaith, A., Brozik, A. and Gashi, I. (2017). AVAMAT: AntiVirus and malware analysis tool. 2017 IEEE 16th International Symposium on Network Computing and Applications (NCA) 30 October-1 November.doi:10.1109/nca.2017.8171379
- (2017). Message from the Program Co-Chairs. 2017 IEEE 28th International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering (ISSRE) 23-26 October.doi:10.1109/issre.2017.5
- Andongabo, A. and Gashi, I. (2017). vepRisk - A Web Based Analysis Tool for Public Security Data. 2017 13th European Dependable Computing Conference (EDCC) 4-8 September.doi:10.1109/edcc.2017.30
- Movahedi, Y., Cukier, M., Andongabo, A. and Gashi, I. (2017). Cluster-Based Vulnerability Assessment Applied to Operating Systems. 2017 13th European Dependable Computing Conference (EDCC) 4-8 September.doi:10.1109/edcc.2017.27
- Gashi, I., Povyakalo, A. and Strigini, L. (2016). Diversity, Safety and Security in Embedded Systems: Modelling Adversary Effort and Supply Chain Risks. 2016 12th European Dependable Computing Conference (EDCC) 5-9 September.doi:10.1109/edcc.2016.27
- Busnel, Y. and Gashi, I. EDCC 2015 - Fast Abstracts & Student Forum Proceedings. .
- Turkay, C., Mason, S., Gashi, I. and Cukic, B. (2014). Supporting Decision-Making for Biometric System Deployment through Visual Analysis. 2014 IEEE International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering Workshops (ISSREW) 3-6 November.doi:10.1109/issrew.2014.78
- Mason, S., Gashi, I., Lugini, L., Marasco, E. and Cukic, B. Interoperability between fingerprint biometric systems: An epirical sudy. .doi:10.1109/DSN.2014.60
- Mason, S., Gashi, I., Lugini, L., Marasco, E. and Cukic, B. (2014). Interoperability between Fingerprint Biometric Systems: An Empirical Study. 2014 44th Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN) 23-26 June.doi:10.1109/dsn.2014.60
- Gashi, I., Povyakalo, A.A., Strigini, L., Matschnig, M., Hinterstoisser, T. and Fischer, B. (2014). Diversity for Safety and Security in Embedded Systems. IEEE International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks 23-6 January, Atlanta, GA, USA.
- Gashi, I., Sobesto, B., Mason, S., Stankovic, V. and Cukier, M. (2013). A Study of the Relationship Between Antivirus Regressions and Label Changes. IEEE International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering 4-7 November, Pasadena, CA, US.
- Cukier, M., Gashi, I., Sobesto, B. and Stankovic, V. (2013). Does Malware Detection Improve With Diverse AntiVirus Products? An Empirical Study. 32nd International Conference on Computer Safety, Reliability and Security (SAFECOMP) 24-27 September, Toulouse, France.
- Lugini, L., Marasco, E., Cukic, B. and Gashi, I. (2013). Interoperability in Fingerprint Recognition: A Large-Scale Empirical Study. 43rd Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN 2013) 24-27 June, Budapest, Hungary.
- Gashi, I. (2012). How secure is ERTMS? Workshop on Dependable and Secure Computing for Large-scale Complex Critical Infrastructures (DESEC4LCCI) 25 September-, Herrenkrug, Germany.
- Gashi, I., Stankovic, V., Cukier, M. and Sobesto, B. (2012). Diversity with AntiVirus Products: Additional Empirical Studies. 42nd IEEE International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN) 2012 25-28 June, Boston, USA.
- Stroud, R. and Gashi, I. (2012). Methodology for a security audit of ERTMS. 42nd IEEE International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN) 2012 25-28 June, Boston, USA.
- Bishop, P., Bloomfield, R., Gashi, I. and Stankovic, V. Diverse protection systems for improving security: a study with AntiVirus engines. .
- Garcia, M., Bessani, A., Gashi, I., Neves, N. and Obelheiro, R. OS Diversity for Intrusion Tolerance: Myth or Reality? .
- Bishop, P., Bloomfield, R., Gashi, I. and Stankovic, V. Diversity for Security: a Study with Off-The-Shelf AntiVirus Engines. .doi:10.1109/ISSRE.2011.15
- Gashi, I., Stankovic, V., Leita, C. and Thonnard, O. An Experimental Study of Diversity with Off-The-Shelf AntiVirus Engines. .doi:10.1109/NCA.2009.14
- Stankovic, V., Bessani, A., Daidone, A., Gashi, I., Obelheiro, R. and Sousa, P. Enhancing Fault / Intrusion Tolerance through Design and Configuration Diversity. 3rd Workshop on Recent Advances on Intrusion-Tolerant Systems (WRAITS 2009) Estoril, Lisbon, Portugal.
- Bloomfield, R.E., Gashi, I., Povyakalo, A. and Stankovic, V. Comparison of Empirical Data from Two Honeynets and a Distributed Honeypot Network. .doi:10.1109/ISSRE.2008.62
- Bessani, A.N., Reiser, H.P., Sousa, P., Gashi, I., Stankovic, V., Distler, T.... Douglis, F. FOREVER: Fault/intrusiOn REmoVal through Evolution & Recovery. .doi:10.1145/1462735.1462763
- Gashi, I. and Popov, P. Uncertainty explicit assessment of off-the-shelf software: Selection of an optimal diverse pair. .
- Bishop, P., Gashi, I., Littlewood, B., Wright, D. and OConner, L. Reliability modeling of a 1-out-of-2 system: Research with diverse Off-the-shelf SQL database servers. .
- Gashi, I. and Popov, P.T. Rephrasing Rules for Off-The-Shelf SQL Database Servers. .doi:10.1109/EDCC.2006.20
- Gashi, I., Popov, P.T. and Strigini, L. Fault Diversity among Off-The-Shelf SQL Database Servers. .
Internet publications (3)
- (2013).Message from fast abstract co-chairs. IEEE.
- Gashi, I. and Kreidl, O.P.(2012).6th workshop on recent advances in intrusion tolerance and reSilience (WRAITS 2012).
- Vieira, M. and Gashi, I.(2012).EDCC 2012 - Fast Abstracts & Student Forum Proceedings.
Journal articles (10)
- Elkhawas, A.I., Chen, T.M. and Gashi, I. (2025). Privacy-Preserving Federated Learning for Phishing Detection. IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, 44(2), pp. 77-84. doi:10.1109/mts.2025.3558971
- Asad, H., Adhikari, S. and Gashi, I. (2024). A perspective–retrospective analysis of diversity in signature-based open-source network intrusion detection systems. International Journal of Information Security, 23(2), pp. 1331-1346. doi:10.1007/s10207-023-00794-9
- Asad, H. and Gashi, I. (2022). Dynamical analysis of diversity in rule-based open source network intrusion detection systems. Empirical Software Engineering, 27(1). doi:10.1007/s10664-021-10046-w
- Marques, P., Rhode, M. and Gashi, I. (2021). Waste not: Using diverse neural networks from hyperparameter search for improved malware detection. Computers & Security, 108, pp. 102339-102339. doi:10.1016/j.cose.2021.102339
- Movahedi, Y., Cukier, M. and Gashi, I. (2021). Predicting the Discovery Pattern of Publically Known Exploited Vulnerabilities. IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing pp. 1-1. doi:10.1109/tdsc.2020.3014872
- Movahedi, Y., Cukier, M. and Gashi, I. (2019). Vulnerability prediction capability: A comparison between vulnerability discovery models and neural network models. Computers & Security, 87, pp. 101596-101596. doi:10.1016/j.cose.2019.101596
- Movahedi, Y., Cukier, M., Andongabo, A. and Gashi, I. (2019). Cluster-based vulnerability assessment of operating systems and web browsers. Computing, 101(2), pp. 139-160. doi:10.1007/s00607-018-0663-0
- Garcia, M., Bessani, A., Gashi, I., Neves, N. and Obelheiro, R. (2013). Analysis of operating system diversity for intrusion tolerance. Software - Practice and Experience
- Gashi, I., Popov, P.T. and Stankovic, V. (2009). Uncertainty explicit assessment of off-the-shelf software: A Bayesian approach. , 51, pp. 497-511. doi:10.1016/j.infsof.2008.06.003
- Gashi, I., Popov, P.T. and Strigini, L. (2007). Fault Tolerance via Diversity for Off-the-Shelf Products: A Study with SQL Database Servers. , 4, pp. 280-294. doi:10.1109/TDSC.2007.70208
Report
- Gashi, I. and Bloomfield, R.E. (2008). Evaluating the resilience and security of boundaryless, evolving socio-technical Systems of Systems. City University London.
Thesis/dissertation
- Gashi, I. Software dependability with off-the-shelf components. (PhD)
Professional activities
Collaborations (academic) (3)
-
Research on analysis of biometric fingerprint data project ( 2012 - present)
Other partners: Bojan Cukic -
Research on diverse AnitVirus detection capability analysis project ( 2011 - present)
Other partners: Michel Cukier -
Research on analysis of vulnerabilities from the National Vulnerability Database (NVD) project ( 2008 - present)
Other partners: Nuno Neves, Alysson Bessani, Miguel Garcia
Editorial activity
- I am a member of the IFIP 10.4 working group on Dependable Computing and Fault Tolerance. I have served as Program Committees (co-) chair for the following conferences, workshops and streams of conferences: - 2017 IEEE ISSRE conference - 2013 IEEE ISSRE Fast Abstracts - 2012 6th Workshop on Recent Advances in Intrusion Tolerance and Resilience (WRAITS) - 2011 IEEE ISSRE Fast Abstracts - 2010 IEEE ISSRE Student papers I served as the co-Program Manager for the ISSRE 2013 conference I served on the PC of the following conferences: - IEEE DSN 2024, 2022, 2021, 2019, 2018, 2013, 2012, 2011 - IEEE ISSRE 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2014, 2013, 2011, 2010 - Safecomp 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016 - IEEE EDCC 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016 - IEEE PRDC 2022, 2013, 2012 - IEEE EWDC 2013 - IEEE NCA 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, Service in program committes and editorial boards.
Keynote lectures/speeches (3)
- Diversity with AntiVirus Products: overview of research. Morgantown, WV, USA (2013). Invited seminar
- Vulnerability diversity with Operating Systems: an empirical study with data from NIST NVD. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK (2011). Invited seminar
- Security review of the European Railway Traffic Management System (ERTMS) specifications. DHS, Washington DC, USA (2011). Invited seminar