Research

Impact Areas

Lead

Una-May O'Reilly

Research Group

Computation Structures Group

Our mission is fostering the creation and development of high-performance, reliable and secure computing systems that are easy to interact with.

+23

Leads

Srini Devadas

Daniel Sanchez

Armando Solar-Lezama

Arvind

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Srini Devadas

Daniel Sanchez

Armando Solar-Lezama

Arvind

+23

Research Group

Cryptography and Information Security Group

We seek to develop techniques for securing tomorrow's global information infrastructure by exploring theoretical foundations, near-term practical applications, and long-range speculative research.

Leads

Shafi Goldwasser

Silvio Micali

Ronald Rivest

Vinod Vaikuntanathan

Butler Lampson

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Shafi Goldwasser

Silvio Micali

Ronald Rivest

Vinod Vaikuntanathan

Butler Lampson

Research Group

Data Systems Group

We conduct research on all areas of database systems and information management.

+16

Leads

Sam Madden

Michael Stonebraker

Tim Kraska

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Sam Madden

Michael Stonebraker

Tim Kraska

+16

Research Group

Software Design Group

Our goal is to find better ways to make software, and ways to make software better.

Daniel Jackson

Leads

Daniel Jackson

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Daniel Jackson

Research Center

Internet Policy Research Initiative

Our mission is to work with policy makers and cybersecurity technologists to increase the trustworthiness and effectiveness of interconnected digital systems.

Leads

Daniel Weitzner

Hal Abelson

David Clark

Lalana Kagal

Karen Sollins

Gerald Sussman

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Daniel Weitzner

Hal Abelson

David Clark

Lalana Kagal

Karen Sollins

Gerald Sussman

Research Center

Center for Deployable Machine Learning (CDML)

The MIT Center for Deployable Machine Learning (CDML) works towards creating AI systems that are robust, reliable and safe for real-world deployment.

Aleksander Madry

Leads

Aleksander Madry

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Aleksander Madry

Research Group

Lecturers

Lecturers in CSAIL

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Community of Research

Theory of Computation Community of Research

The goal of the Theory of Computation CoR is to study the fundamental strengths and limits of computation as well as how these interact with mathematics, computer science, and other disciplines.

+21

Costis Daskalakis

Leads

Costis Daskalakis

Research Areas

Computational Biology

Impact Areas

Lead

Costis Daskalakis

Costis Daskalakis

Community of Research

Cognitive AI Community of Research

This CoR aims to develop AI technology that synthesizes symbolic reasoning, probabilistic reasoning for dealing with uncertainty in the world, and statistical methods for extracting and exploiting regularities in the world, into an integrated picture of intelligence that is informed by computational insights and by cognitive science.

Howard Shrobe

Leads

Howard Shrobe

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Howard Shrobe

Community of Research

Computing & Society Community of Research

This community is interested in understanding and affecting the interaction between computing systems and society through engineering, computer science and public policy research, education, and public engagement.

Daniel Weitzner

Leads

Daniel Weitzner

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Daniel Weitzner

Community of Research

Vertical AI Community of Research

This CoR takes a unified approach to cover the full range of research areas required for success in artificial intelligence, including hardware, foundations, software systems, and applications.

Martin Rinard

Leads

Martin Rinard

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Martin Rinard

Community of Research

Systems Community of Research

The Systems CoR is focused on building and investigating large-scale software systems that power modern computers, phones, data centers, and networks, including operating systems, the Internet, wireless networks, databases, and other software infrastructure.

+21

Sam Madden

Leads

Sam Madden

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Sam Madden

Sam Madden

18 Project Results matching all criteria

Project

Automated Attack Tree Generation for Critical Infrastructure

Using AI methods, we are developing an attack tree generator that automatically enumerates cyberattack vectors for industrial control systems in critical infrastructure (electric grids, water networks and transportation systems). The generator can quickly assess cyber risk for a system at scale.

Howard Shrobe

Leads

Howard Shrobe

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Howard Shrobe

Project

Securing IoT

IoT devices primarily use free embedded Linux which has many security flaws. We are conducting penetration tests on IoT and developing a secure version of embedded Linux.

Howard Shrobe

Leads

Howard Shrobe

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Computation Structures Group

Internet of Things

Howard Shrobe

Project

Secure Public-Key Distribution

Our work aims to ensure nobody's listening in on your online activities, whether you are doing online banking or texting your friends via WhatsApp.

Ioan Tomescu Nicolescu

Leads

Ioan Tomescu Nicolescu

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Ioan Tomescu Nicolescu

Project

Security by Design for Cyberphysical Systems

An approach to reducing risks of attack on cyberphysical infrastructure (such as water purification plants and electric grids) with new software design and analysis techniques.

Daniel Jackson

Leads

Daniel Jackson

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Advanced Network Architecture Group

Daniel Jackson

Project

Denial of Service Mitigation through Protocol Design

We aim to better understand the features of network protocols that facilitate denial of service attacks, in order to design more robust protocols and architectures in the future and evaluate existing designs more accurately.

Karen Sollins

Leads

Karen Sollins

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Cryptography and Information Security Group

Karen Sollins

Project

Data Garbling: Computing on Encrypted Data

Theory of Computation Community of Research

We are investigating the limits of computing on encrypted data, with a focus on the private outsourcing of computation over sensitive data.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Project

Data Civilizer

Data Systems Group

Data scientists universally report that they spend at least 80% of their time finding data sets of interest, accessing them, cleaning them and assembling them into a unified whole.

Michael Stonebraker

Sam Madden

Leads

Michael Stonebraker

Sam Madden

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Michael Stonebraker

Sam Madden

Project

Keys Under Doormats

Our report argues that giving the government special access to data poses major security risks

Daniel Weitzner

Leads

Daniel Weitzner

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Daniel Weitzner

Project

Keeping America Safe: Toward More Secure Networks for Critical Sectors

Report warns of hacking risk to electric grid, oil pipelines, and other critical infrastructure

Joel Brenner

Leads

Joel Brenner

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Cryptography and Information Security Group

Joel Brenner

Project

Splinter: Practical Private Queries on Public Data

Theory of Computation Community of Research

Splinter protects users’ queries on public data and scales to realistic applications.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Project

Reliable and Robust Machine Learning

Algorithms Group

We work towards a principled understanding of the current machine learning toolkit and making this toolkit be robust and reliable.

Aleksander Madry

Leads

Aleksander Madry

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Aleksander Madry

Project

Poirot: Secure Protocol Implementation by Design

Even formally verified protocols that have been faithfully implemented have been found to have security vulnerabilities. A new framework eliminates such vulnerabilities by design.

Daniel Jackson

Leads

Daniel Jackson

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Parallel and Distributed Operating Systems

Daniel Jackson

Project

Vuvuzela: Metadata private messaging

Vuvuzela is the first messaging system that provides differential privacy for users' metadata.

David Lazar

Nickolai Zeldovich

Leads

David Lazar

Nickolai Zeldovich

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Decentralized Information Group

David Lazar

Nickolai Zeldovich

Project

PrivacyML - A Privacy Preserving Framework for Machine Learning

We are developing a general framework that enforces privacy transparently enabling different kinds of machine learning to be developed that are automatically privacy preserving.

Lalana Kagal

Vaikkunth Mugunthan

Leads

Lalana Kagal

Vaikkunth Mugunthan

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lalana Kagal

Vaikkunth Mugunthan

Project

Random Graph with Applications in MPC

To explore how randomness in connectivity can improve the performance of secure multi-party computation (MPC) and the properties of communication graph to support MPC.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Project

Privacy-Preserving Decentralized Optimization

To enable privacy preservation in decentralized optimization, differential privacy is the most commonly used approach. However, under such scenario, the trade-off between accuracy (even efficiency) and privacy is inevitable. In this project, distributed numerical optimization scheme incorporated with lightweight cryptographic information sharing are explored. The affect on the convergence rate from network topology is considered.

Hanshen Xiao

Leads

Hanshen Xiao

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Hanshen Xiao

Project

Alloy

Human-Computer Interaction Community of Research

Alloy is a language for describing structures and a tool for exploring them. It has been used in a wide range of applications from finding holes in security mechanisms to designing telephone switching networks. Hundreds of projects have used Alloy for design analysis, for verification, for simulation, and as a backend for many other kinds of analysis and synthesis tools, and Alloy is currently being taught in courses worldwide.

Daniel Jackson

Leads

Daniel Jackson

Research Areas

Anyscale Learning for All ALFA

Impact Areas

Daniel Jackson

Project

Adversarial Cyber Security

Applied Machine Learning Community of Research

Our goal is to understand the nature of cyber security arms races between malicious and bonafide parties. Our vision is autonomous cyber defenses that anticipate and take measures against counter attacks.

Una-May O'Reilly

Leads

Una-May O'Reilly

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Vuvuzela: Metadata private messaging

Una-May O'Reilly

4 People Results matching all criteria

Gregory Falco

Postdoctoral Associate

Dr. Falco is a hacker and expert in IoT and IIoT cybersecurity.

E gfalco@mit.edu

Dr. Falco is a hacker and expert in IoT and IIoT cybersecurity.

David Lazar

Graduate Student

David Lazar is a PhD student in systems security

E lazard@mit.edu

Lead

Member

Parallel and Distributed Operating Systems

David Lazar is a PhD student in systems security

Ilia Lebedev

Graduate Student

E ilebedev@csail.mit.edu

Lead

Sanctum Secure Processor

Member

Computation Structures Group

Sanctum Secure Processor

Vaikkunth Mugunthan

Graduate Student

Privacy and Big Data

E vaik@mit.edu

Lead

PrivacyML - A Privacy Preserving Framework for Machine Learning

Member

Decentralized Information Group

Privacy and Big Data

19 News Results matching all criteria

Algorithms & Theory Computing & Health Computational Biology Computer Architecture Graphics & Vision Human-Computer Interaction Programming Languages & Software Engineering Robotics Security & Cryptography Systems & Networking Cybersecurity Education Energy Entertainment Health Care Manufacturing Transportation Wireless

June 27 '19

CSAIL hosts first-ever TEDxMIT

Speakers — all women — discuss everything from gravitational waves to robot nurses

CSAIL hosts first-ever TEDxMIT

Security & Cryptography Cybersecurity

February 20 '19

Platform ensures that web services adhere to users' privacy preferences

New MIT/Harvard platform acts as gatekeeper to ensure web services adhere to data restrictions

Platform ensures that web services adhere to users' privacy preferences

Thomas Bourgeat, Andrew Wright, Arvind and Sizhou Zhang

Computer Architecture Security & Cryptography Cybersecurity Energy

October 22 '18

Opening up open-source to design better chips

MIT CSAIL system lets users change one part of a processor’s design without impacting the others

Opening up open-source to design better chips

Computing & Health Computational Biology Security & Cryptography Cybersecurity Health Care

October 18 '18

Cryptographic protocol enables greater collaboration in drug discovery

Neural network that securely finds potential drugs could encourage large-scale pooling of sensitive data.

Cryptographic protocol enables greater collaboration in drug discovery

Algorithms & Theory Security & Cryptography Cybersecurity

August 08 '18

Holding law-enforcement accountable for electronic surveillance

CSAIL system encourages government transparency using cryptography on a public log of wiretap requests.

Holding law-enforcement accountable for electronic surveillance

Computational Biology Security & Cryptography Cybersecurity Health Care

May 10 '18

Protecting confidentiality in genomic studies

Genome-wide association studies, which look for links between particular genetic variants and incidence of disease, are the basis of much modern biomedical research.

Protecting confidentiality in genomic studies

Security & Cryptography Cybersecurity

April 24 '18

MIT engineering students team up with Georgetown lawyers-in-training on internet privacy legislation

Every spring, engineering students from MIT and law students from Georgetown University overcome the distance between their institutions and disciplines in a semester-long flurry of virtual classroom meetings and late-night Google hangout sessions, culminating in presentations to policy experts in DC.

MIT engineering students team up with Georgetown lawyers-in-training on internet privacy legislation

Human-Computer Interaction Security & Cryptography Cybersecurity

April 13 '18

MIT experts discuss online security and protecting data in a “public-private” Internet age

Last week CSAIL hosted the fourth “Hot Topics in Computing” speaker series, a monthly forum where experts hold discussions with community members on various hot-button tech topics.

MIT experts discuss online security and protecting data in a “public-private” Internet age

Security & Cryptography Cybersecurity

February 23 '18

Private browsing gets more private

New system patches security holes left open by web browsers’ private-browsing functions.

Private browsing gets more private

Security & Cryptography Cybersecurity

February 13 '18

Energy-efficient encryption for the internet of things

Special-purpose chip reduces power consumption of public-key encryption by 99.75 percent, increases speed 500-fold.

Energy-efficient encryption for the internet of things

Computer Architecture Security & Cryptography Cybersecurity

February 01 '18

MIT security experts discuss “Spectre” and “Meltdown” processor flaws

Last week CSAIL hosted the second “Hot Topics in Computing” speaker series, a monthly forum where computing experts hold discussions with community members on various topics in the computer science field.

MIT security experts discuss “Spectre” and “Meltdown” processor flaws

Algorithms & Theory Security & Cryptography Big Data Cybersecurity Education Entertainment Health Care Internet of Things Manufacturing

January 16 '18

Goldwasser, Micali, and Rivest win BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards

This week it was announced that MIT professors and CSAIL principal investigators Shafi Goldwasser, Silvio Micali, Ronald Rivest, and former MIT professor Adi Shamir won this year’s BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards in the Information and Communication Technologies category for their work in cryptography.

Goldwasser, Micali, and Rivest win BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards

Algorithms & Theory Robotics Security & Cryptography Cybersecurity Internet of Things Manufacturing

December 11 '17

Four from MIT named 2017 Association for Computer Machinery Fellows

Today four MIT faculty were named among the Association for Computer Machinery's 2017 Fellows for making “landmark contributions to computing.”

Four from MIT named 2017 Association for Computer Machinery Fellows

Computing & Health Security & Cryptography Big Data Cybersecurity Internet of Things Transportation

November 02 '17

Fooling neural networks w/3D-printed objects

Artificial intelligence (AI) in the form of “neural networks” are increasingly used in technologies like self-driving cars to be able to see and recognize objects. Such systems could even help with tasks like identifying explosives in airport security lines.

Fooling neural networks w/3D-printed objects

Computer Architecture Security & Cryptography Cybersecurity

October 22 '17

Selective memory

In a traditional computer, a microprocessor is mounted on a “package,” a small circuit board with a grid of electrical leads on its bottom. The package snaps into the computer’s motherboard, and data travels between the processor and the computer’s main memory bank through the leads.

Selective memory

Researchers including MIT professor Daniela Rus (left) and research scientist Stephanie Gil (right) have developed a technique for preventing malicious hackers from commandeering robot teams’ communication networks.

Computing & Health Robotics Security & Cryptography Cybersecurity

March 16 '17

Security for multirobot systems

Distributed planning, communication, and control algorithms for autonomous robots make up a major area of research in computer science.

Security for multirobot systems

New untraceable text-messaging system comes with statistical guarantees.

Security & Cryptography Systems & Networking Cybersecurity

December 07 '15

Untraceable text messages - guaranteed

Anonymity networks, which sit on top of the public Internet, are designed to conceal people’s Web-browsing habits from prying eyes. The most popular of these, Tor, has been around for more than a decade and is used by millions of people every day.

Untraceable text messages - guaranteed

How artificial intelligence can be used to sift through thousands of pages of tax law to root out shady tax-shelters.

Computing & Health Security & Cryptography Systems & Networking Big Data Cybersecurity

October 17 '15

Tax-evading corporations, watch out: our AI knows what you're doing

CSAIL researchers recently helped develop "STEALTH," a system that uses artificial intelligence to combat tax evasion by corporations.

Tax-evading corporations, watch out: our AI knows what you're doing

Formally verified working file system could lead to computers guaranteed never to lose your data.

Security & Cryptography Systems & Networking Cybersecurity

August 24 '15

Crash-proof computer systems

In a computer operating system, the file system is the part that writes data to disk and tracks where the data is stored. If the computer crashes while it’s writing data, the file system’s records can become corrupt. Hours of work could be lost, or programs could stop working properly.At a symposium this fall, MIT researchers will present the first file system that is mathematically guaranteed not to lose track of data during crashes. Although the file system is slow by today’s standards, the techniques the researchers used to verify its performance can be extended to more sophisticated designs. Ultimately, formal verification could make it much easier to develop reliable, efficient file systems.

Crash-proof computer systems

13 Group Results

Research Group

Anyscale Learning for All ALFA

Our vision is data-driven machine learning systems that advance the quality of healthcare, the understanding of cyber arms races and the delivery of online education.

Una-May O'Reilly

Leads

Una-May O'Reilly

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Una-May O'Reilly

Research Center

Center for Deployable Machine Learning (CDML)

The MIT Center for Deployable Machine Learning (CDML) works towards creating AI systems that are robust, reliable and safe for real-world deployment.

Aleksander Madry

Leads

Aleksander Madry

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Aleksander Madry

Community of Research

Cognitive AI Community of Research

Howard Shrobe

Leads

Howard Shrobe

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Howard Shrobe

Research Group

Computation Structures Group

Our mission is fostering the creation and development of high-performance, reliable and secure computing systems that are easy to interact with.

+23

Leads

Srini Devadas

Daniel Sanchez

Armando Solar-Lezama

Arvind

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Srini Devadas

Daniel Sanchez

Armando Solar-Lezama

Arvind

+23

Community of Research

Computing & Society Community of Research

Daniel Weitzner

Leads

Daniel Weitzner

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Daniel Weitzner

Research Group

Cryptography and Information Security Group

We seek to develop techniques for securing tomorrow's global information infrastructure by exploring theoretical foundations, near-term practical applications, and long-range speculative research.

Leads

Shafi Goldwasser

Silvio Micali

Ronald Rivest

Vinod Vaikuntanathan

Butler Lampson

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Shafi Goldwasser

Silvio Micali

Ronald Rivest

Vinod Vaikuntanathan

Butler Lampson

Research Group

Data Systems Group

We conduct research on all areas of database systems and information management.

+16

Leads

Sam Madden

Michael Stonebraker

Tim Kraska

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Sam Madden

Michael Stonebraker

Tim Kraska

+16

Research Center

Internet Policy Research Initiative

Our mission is to work with policy makers and cybersecurity technologists to increase the trustworthiness and effectiveness of interconnected digital systems.

Leads

Daniel Weitzner

Hal Abelson

David Clark

Lalana Kagal

Karen Sollins

Gerald Sussman

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Daniel Weitzner

Hal Abelson

David Clark

Lalana Kagal

Karen Sollins

Gerald Sussman

Research Group

Lecturers

Lecturers in CSAIL

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Research Group

Software Design Group

Our goal is to find better ways to make software, and ways to make software better.

Daniel Jackson

Leads

Daniel Jackson

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Daniel Jackson

Community of Research

Systems Community of Research

+21

Sam Madden

Leads

Sam Madden

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lead

Sam Madden

Sam Madden

Community of Research

Theory of Computation Community of Research

The goal of the Theory of Computation CoR is to study the fundamental strengths and limits of computation as well as how these interact with mathematics, computer science, and other disciplines.

+21

Costis Daskalakis

Leads

Costis Daskalakis

Research Areas

Computational Biology

Impact Areas

Lead

Costis Daskalakis

Costis Daskalakis

Community of Research

Vertical AI Community of Research

This CoR takes a unified approach to cover the full range of research areas required for success in artificial intelligence, including hardware, foundations, software systems, and applications.

Martin Rinard

Leads

Martin Rinard

Research Areas

Anyscale Learning for All ALFA

Impact Areas

Lead

Martin Rinard

18 Project Results

Project

Adversarial Cyber Security

Applied Machine Learning Community of Research

Una-May O'Reilly

Leads

Una-May O'Reilly

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Una-May O'Reilly

Project

Alloy

Human-Computer Interaction Community of Research

Daniel Jackson

Leads

Daniel Jackson

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Daniel Jackson

Project

Automated Attack Tree Generation for Critical Infrastructure

Howard Shrobe

Leads

Howard Shrobe

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Howard Shrobe

Project

Data Civilizer

Data Systems Group

Data scientists universally report that they spend at least 80% of their time finding data sets of interest, accessing them, cleaning them and assembling them into a unified whole.

Michael Stonebraker

Sam Madden

Leads

Michael Stonebraker

Sam Madden

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Cryptography and Information Security Group

Michael Stonebraker

Sam Madden

Project

Data Garbling: Computing on Encrypted Data

Theory of Computation Community of Research

We are investigating the limits of computing on encrypted data, with a focus on the private outsourcing of computation over sensitive data.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Advanced Network Architecture Group

Project

Denial of Service Mitigation through Protocol Design

Karen Sollins

Leads

Karen Sollins

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Karen Sollins

Project

Keeping America Safe: Toward More Secure Networks for Critical Sectors

Report warns of hacking risk to electric grid, oil pipelines, and other critical infrastructure

Joel Brenner

Leads

Joel Brenner

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Joel Brenner

Project

Keys Under Doormats

Our report argues that giving the government special access to data poses major security risks

Daniel Weitzner

Leads

Daniel Weitzner

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Daniel Weitzner

Project

Poirot: Secure Protocol Implementation by Design

Even formally verified protocols that have been faithfully implemented have been found to have security vulnerabilities. A new framework eliminates such vulnerabilities by design.

Daniel Jackson

Leads

Daniel Jackson

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Daniel Jackson

Project

Privacy-Preserving Decentralized Optimization

Hanshen Xiao

Leads

Hanshen Xiao

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Decentralized Information Group

Hanshen Xiao

Project

PrivacyML - A Privacy Preserving Framework for Machine Learning

We are developing a general framework that enforces privacy transparently enabling different kinds of machine learning to be developed that are automatically privacy preserving.

Lalana Kagal

Vaikkunth Mugunthan

Leads

Lalana Kagal

Vaikkunth Mugunthan

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Lalana Kagal

Vaikkunth Mugunthan

Project

Random Graph with Applications in MPC

To explore how randomness in connectivity can improve the performance of secure multi-party computation (MPC) and the properties of communication graph to support MPC.

Leads

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Project

Reliable and Robust Machine Learning

Algorithms Group

We work towards a principled understanding of the current machine learning toolkit and making this toolkit be robust and reliable.

Aleksander Madry

Leads

Aleksander Madry

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Computation Structures Group

Aleksander Madry

Project

Secure Public-Key Distribution

Our work aims to ensure nobody's listening in on your online activities, whether you are doing online banking or texting your friends via WhatsApp.

Ioan Tomescu Nicolescu

Leads

Ioan Tomescu Nicolescu

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Ioan Tomescu Nicolescu

Project

Securing IoT

IoT devices primarily use free embedded Linux which has many security flaws. We are conducting penetration tests on IoT and developing a secure version of embedded Linux.

Howard Shrobe

Leads

Howard Shrobe

Research Areas

Impact Areas

Internet of Things

Howard Shrobe

Project

Security by Design for Cyberphysical Systems