I am a PhD candidate at University of California, Santa Barbara, advised by Prof. Giovanni Vigna and Prof. Christopher Kruegel (expected graduation July 2026). My research sits at the intersection of machine learning and computer security, with a focus on malware analysis, reverse engineering, and ML-driven threat detection. I build systems that translate security research into practical tools for malware investigation, cyber threat intelligence, and vulnerability analysis.
Doctor of Philosophy(Ph.D), Computer Science, 2021 - present
University of California, Santa Barbara
Bachelor of Technology, Computer Science, 2016 - 2020
Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Kerala, India
* Developed a large-scale .NET malware detection pipeline over 5M+ malicious and benign samples, achieving a 10% relative F1 improvement over prior academic baselines.
* Designed cross-platform XDR anomaly detection using Markov-chain process models and ancestry trees to identify anomalous execution patterns across macOS and Windows.* Led research on MalwarePT, a binary-level foundation model for malware analysis, covering pretraining, downstream evaluation, and robustness analysis.
* Built ML/LLM pipelines that map malware behavior to malicious capabilities, convert attack evidence into CTI, and support automated vulnerability root-cause analysis.
* Participating in Capture The Flag (CTF) competitions as a member of team Shellphish.* Built red-team assessment modules for RCE, lateral movement, and N-day vulnerability simulation using C, C++, C#, and Python.
* Built modular exploit payloads and post-exploitation scripts that expanded the red-team framework's coverage for enterprise assessments.
* Designed and developed a novel malware post-detection framework that identifies potentially malicious capabilities in Windows malware, outperforming existing solutions by 20% in precision and 80% in recall.
* Reverse-engineered malware executables and mapped their attack implementations to the MITRE ATT&CK Framework.* Conducted malware analysis, documented results, and developed proof-of-concept attack methods.
* Fostered collaborative learning by teaching reverse engineering and malware analysis, promoting ongoing education.
* Participated actively in Capture The Flag (CTF) competitions as part of team bi0s