Marc Dacier
Leveraging 20+ years of international experience, Professor Dacier leads the charge in uncovering internet vulnerabilities and developing robust defenses, building a more secure digital future for all.
Biography
Marc Dacier is a professor of Computer Science at KAUST. He is the principal investigator of the Security Research Bearing Experimental Results (SeRBER) Group. He previously served as a full professor and head of the Digital Security Department at EURECOM.
Dr. Dacier holds a Ph.D. in computer science (European Doctorate) from the Institut National Polytechnique de Toulouse, France, awarded in 1994. He has received numerous scientific awards and has served on over 120 security and dependability conference program committees.
Dacier has had a distinguished career in both academia and industry, working with several notable companies and institutions. His experience includes consulting for France Telecom and roles at IBM Research, Symantec Research Labs and the Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI).
At IBM, Dacier was the director of the IBM Global Security Analysis Laboratory, where his group produced the first market product for intrusion detection alert correlation. During his time at Symantec, his team developed an open platform called Worldwide Intelligent Network Environment (WINE) to share operational security data with researchers worldwide, promoting the reproducibility of security experiments. While at QCRI, he served as the founding director of the institute's cybersecurity research group.
He has served on over 120 program committees for major security and dependability conferences and has been a member of the editorial board of several top-tier peer-reviewed technical journals. In 1998, he founded the Research in Attacks, Intrusions and Defenses (RAID) conference (formerly known as Recent Advances in Intrusion Detection), which is ranked as a "Class A" conference by the Computing Research and Education Association of Australasia (CORE).
Research Interests
The internationally recognized expert in cybersecurity, who joined KAUST in 2021, focuses his research on intrusion detection, intrusion tolerance, network security, cybersecurity, threat intelligence and fraud detection.
At KAUST, Professor Dacier and his SeRBER group address network security issues related to the detection of middleboxes—devices that can serve a legitimate purpose in the connection between a client and a server but can also be misused by attackers to commit man-in-the-middle attacks. Another active area of research involves the security of online gaming (e-games, e-sports) and, more broadly, the metaverse. Additionally, they focus on the IoT ecosystem and operational technology (OT) networks, which are of particular interest to the oil and water industries.
Awards and Distinctions
- IBM Outstanding Technical Achievement Award, 2024
- The IBM Faculty Award, 2005
- Community Service Award for having served for 20 years as chair of the RAID symposium steering committee, 2018
Education
- Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
- Computer Science, INPT National Polytechnic Institute of Toulouse, France, 1994
- Master of Science (M.S.)
- Computer Science, UCLouvain, Belgium, 1989
Related Media
Patents
- Methods to identify malicious web domain names thanks to their dynamics, I. Khalil, T. Yu, M. Dacier, US Patent 10,681,070, 2020, Published June 9, 2020.
- Detecting a hijacked network address, P.A Vervier, M. Dacier, O. Thonnard, US Patent 9,654,504, 2017, Published May 16, 2017.
- Heuristics-based protocol labeling for industrial control systems, C. Leita, M. Dacier, US Patent 9384066, Published July 5, 2016.
- Systems and methods for performing Internet site security analyses, C. Leita, M. Dacier, US Patent 9161249, Published October 13, 2015.
- Systems and methods for neutralizing file-format-specific exploits included within files contained within electronic communications, C. Nachenberg, F. Guo, S. Nanda, S. Bhatkar, D. Shou, M. Dacier, US Patent 9009459, Published April 14, 2015.
- Method, computer program element and a system for processing alarms triggered by a monitoring system, M. Dacier, K. Julisch, US Patent 7,437,762 (US 20030101260A1) – Published: 2003-06-12 / Filed: 2002-11-1, International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY.
- Detection of intrusions containing overlapping reachabilities, M. Dacier, P. Scotton, US Patent US6487204 – Published: 2002-11-26 / Filed: 1999-05-12, International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY.