Dr. Ilias Giechaskiel

Education

I hold a DPhil in Cyber Security for my thesis, Leaky Hardware: Modeling and Exploiting Imperfections in Embedded Devices, from the University of Oxford, where I was funded by the Clarendon Fund, the EPSRC, Kellogg College, and the CDT in Cyber Security. I spent the first half of 2019 as a “Visiting Assistant in Research (VAR)” at the Computer Architecture and Security Lab of Yale University, with which I later collaborated as a Research Affiliate. In 2014, I received an MPhil in Advanced Computer Science with Distinction from the University of Cambridge, where I was the Goulandris Scholar at Magdalene College. A year earlier, I graduated Summa Cum Laude from Princeton University, with an AB in Mathematics and a Certificate in Applications of Computing. In 2009, I was the valedictorian of Anatolia College's IB Diploma Programme.

Work and Teaching Experience

Until recently, I was a Senior Hardware Research Engineer at Jump Trading, where I also spent the summers of 2017 and 2018. Earlier, I interned with the Embedded Systems team at Microsoft Research, the Product Abuse team at Dropbox, the Windows Security team at Microsoft, and the Data License team at Bloomberg. During my degree at Princeton, I was a Grader and Lab Teaching Assistant (TA) at the computer science department for courses across all undergraduate levels. I have had similar duties in the mathematics and computer science departments at Oxford, including being the TA for masters-level computer security courses.

Peer-Reviewed Publications

[BC3]S. Tian, I. Giechaskiel, W. Xiong, and J. Szefer, “Fingerprinting and Mapping Cloud FPGA Infrastructures,” In J. Szefer and R. Tessier, editors, Security of FPGA-Accelerated Cloud Computing Environments, chapter 9, pp. 239—272. Springer, Cham, 1^st edition, 2024. ISBN 978-3-031-45394-6. [Final Version.]

[BC2]I. Giechaskiel, K. B. Rasmussen, and J. Szefer, “Cross-board Power-Based FPGA, CPU, and GPU Covert Channels,” In J. Szefer and R. Tessier, editors, Security of FPGA-Accelerated Cloud Computing Environments, chapter 7, pp. 173—202. Springer, Cham, 1^st edition, 2024. ISBN 978-3-031-45394-6. [Final Version.]

[BC1]I. Giechaskiel*, S. Tian*, and J. Szefer, “Contention-Based Threats Between Single-Tenant Cloud FPGA Instances,” In J. Szefer and R. Tessier, editors, Security of FPGA-Accelerated Cloud Computing Environments, chapter 6, pp. 137—172. Springer, Cham, 1^st edition, 2024. ISBN 978-3-031-45394-6. [Final Version.]

[J3]I. Giechaskiel*, S. Tian*, and J. Szefer, “Cross-VM Covert- and Side-Channel Attacks in Cloud FPGAs,” ACM Transactions on Reconfigurable Technology and Systems (TRETS), vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 1—29, March 2023. [Author Copy and Final Version.]

[M2]I. Giechaskiel, K. B. Rasmussen, and K. Eguro, “Long-Wire Leakage: The Threat of Crosstalk,” IEEE Design & Test (D&T), vol. 39, no. 4, pp. 41—48, August 2022. [Author Copy and Final Version.]

[C14]I. Giechaskiel*, S. Tian*, and J. Szefer, “Cross-VM Information Leaks in FPGA-Accelerated Cloud Environments,” 14^th IEEE International Symposium on Hardware Oriented Security and Trust (HOST), Tysons Corner, VA, United States of America, December 2021. Best Paper Recognition Award. [Author Copy and Final Version.]

[C13]J. Burgiel, D. Esguerra, I. Giechaskiel, S. Tian, and J. Szefer, “Characterization of IOBUF-based Ring Oscillators,” 20^th International Conference on Field-Programmable Technology (FPT), Auckland, New Zealand, December 2021. [Author Copy, Code, and Final Version.]

[C12]O. Nnorom Jr.*, J. Morris*, I. Giechaskiel, and J. Szefer, “Chill Out: Freezing Attacks on Capacitors and DC/DC Converters,” 26^th IEEE European Test Symposium (ETS), Bruges, Belgium, May 2021. [Author Copy and Final Version.]

[C11]S. Tian*, I. Giechaskiel*, W. Xiong, and J. Szefer, “Cloud FPGA Cartography Using PCIe Contention,” 29^th IEEE International Symposium on Field-Programmable Custom Computing Machines (FCCM), Orlando, FL, United States of America, May 2021. [Author Copy and Final Version.]

[C10]S. Tian, A. Krzywosz, I. Giechaskiel, and J. Szefer, “Cloud FPGA Security with RO-Based Primitives,” 19^th International Conference on Field-Programmable Technology (FPT), Maui, HI, United States of America, December 2020. [Author Copy, Code, and Final Version.]

[C9]I. Giechaskiel and J. Szefer, “Information Leakage from FPGA Routing and Logic Elements,” 39^th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD), San Diego, CA, United States of America, November 2020. [Author Copy and Final Version.]

[C8]I. Giechaskiel, K. B. Rasmussen, and J. Szefer, “C³APSULe: Cross-FPGA Covert-Channel Attacks through Power Supply Unit Leakage,” 41^st IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (S&P), San Francisco, CA, United States of America, May 2020. [Author Copy and Final Version.]

[J2]I. Giechaskiel and K. B. Rasmussen, “Taxonomy and Challenges of Out-of-Band Signal Injection Attacks and Defenses,” IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials (COMST), vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 645—670, March 2020. [Author Copy, Earlier Preprint, and Final Version.]

[C7]S. Tian, W. Xiong, I. Giechaskiel, K. B. Rasmussen, and J. Szefer, “Fingerprinting Cloud FPGA Infrastructures,” 28^th ACM/SIGDA International Symposium on Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA), Seaside, CA, United States of America, February 2020. [Author Copy, Code, and Final Version.]

[C6]I. Giechaskiel, K. B. Rasmussen, and J. Szefer, “Reading Between the Dies: Cross-SLR Covert Channels on Multi-Tenant Cloud FPGAs,” 37^th IEEE International Conference on Computer Design (ICCD), Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, November 2019. [Author Copy, Code, and Final Version.]

[C5]I. Giechaskiel, Y. Zhang, and K. B. Rasmussen, “A Framework for Evaluating Security in the Presence of Signal Injection Attacks,” 24^th European Symposium on Research in Computer Security (ESORICS), Luxembourg, Luxembourg, September 2019. Best Paper Award. [Author Copy, Extended Technical Report, and Final Version.]

[C4]I. Giechaskiel, K. B. Rasmussen, and J. Szefer, “Measuring Long Wire Leakage with Ring Oscillators in Cloud FPGAs,” 29^th International Conference on Field-Programmable Logic & Applications (FPL), Barcelona, Spain, September 2019. [Author Copy and Final Version.]

[J1]I. Giechaskiel, K. Eguro, and K. B. Rasmussen, “Leakier Wires: Exploiting FPGA Long Wires for Covert- and Side-Channel Attacks,” ACM Transactions on Reconfigurable Technology and Systems (TRETS), vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 1—29, September 2019. [Author Copy and Final Version.]

[C3]I. Giechaskiel, K. B. Rasmussen, and K. Eguro, “Leaky Wires: Information Leakage and Covert Communication Between FPGA Long Wires,” 13^th ACM Asia Conference on Computer and Communications Security (ASIACCS), Incheon, South Korea, June 2018. Top Picks in Hardware and Embedded Security 2020. [Author Copy, Earlier Preprints, and Final Version.]

[M1]I. Giechaskiel, C. Cremers, and K. B. Rasmussen, “When the "Crypto" in Cryptocurrencies Breaks: Bitcoin Security Under Broken Primitives,” IEEE Security & Privacy, vol. 16, no. 4, pp. 46—56, August 2018. [Author Copy and Final Version.]

[C2]I. Giechaskiel, C. Cremers, and K. B. Rasmussen, “On Bitcoin Security in the Presence of Broken Cryptographic Primitives,” 21^st European Symposium on Research in Computer Security (ESORICS), Heraklion, Greece, September 2016. [Author Copy, Earlier Preprint, and Final Version.]

[C1]I. Giechaskiel, G. Panagopoulos, and E. Yoneki, “PDTL: Parallel and Distributed Triangle Listing for Massive Graphs,” 44^th International Conference on Parallel Processing (ICPP), Beijing, China, September 2015. [Author Copy, Code, Extended Technical Report, and Final Version.]

Miscellanea

My name, spelled Ηλίας Γιεχασκιέλ in Greek, is pronounced as ee-LEE-us ye-ha-SKEL. In my spare time, I play soccer as a goalkeeper.

During my PhD years, I participated in several security Capture-the-Flag (CTF) contests, placing second in Tripwire VERT's 2015 Cyber Security Capture The Flag Contest. I co-founded the Oxford Computer Science CTF Team Ox002147, of which I was captain until 2019. The team was ranked top 100/14,000+ teams globally in 2017, and placed first in in-person CTF competitions organized by Deloitte and BAE Systems. In high school, I competed in Mathematical Olympiads at the Greek National, Balkan (1, 2), and International (1, 2) level.

I am an alumnus of Camp Rising Sun, and the Ross Mathematics Program at Ohio State University, both as a student, and as a Junior Counselor.

I was the Communications & Technology chair for the Princeton Association UK alumni club between 2015-2019 and was also the president of the Oxford University Greek Society between 2016-2018.

I designed my brother's personal and book websites and my sister's beauty salon site. The canonical URL for this website is https://ilias.giechaskiel.com, but it can also be accessed through the more memorable ilias.io. As I have opted not to use JavaScript anywhere on my page, the CSS-only light/dark mode toggle cannot be made persistent across the site, but respects the prefers-color-scheme media feature.

Contact

For more details, including my email address, please refer to my CV. My PGP key can be found here. You can also find me on GitHub, Google Scholar, and LinkedIn.