I am the director of the Interdisciplinary Research Cetner for Intelligent Secure Systems (IRC-ISS) at KFUPM. I am an assistant professor with the Computer Engineering Department and the Information and Computer Science Department at KFUPM. My research focuses on Cybersecurity. In particular, I work on research problems related to data privacy. More recently, I started to develop some interest on research relating data security and privacy and quantum computing. For more details, see my research interests.

I earned my PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Purdue University in 2018. My advisor was Prof. Arif Ghafoor. Prior to that, I earned my MS degree from KAUST and Bachelor degree from KFUPM in 2008 and 2011, respectively. I am a member of the Dependable and Secure System Lab at KFUPM.

Latest news

Novmebr 2024
 Invited talks:
1- From Classical to Quantum Computing - College of Petroluem and Geoscinces (slides, recording)
2- Undergraduate Research: How to start? (slides)
October 2024
 Invited talks and panel discussions:
1- Penalist in a session titled "Quantum Technology in Saudi Arabia" in the Digital Technology Forum 2024 organized by the Commision of Communication, Space and Technology (CST) (media)
2- Invited talk in EXPECT ARC about the Quantum Computing program at KFUPM (slides)(poster)
3- Invited talk to Saudi Aramco Cyber Awareness (slides)
October 2024
 Our paper titled "File Fragment Type Classification using Light-Weight Convolutional Neural Networks" has been accepted for publication in the IEEE Access. This work started in 2020 by Kunwar Azaim. He worked with me remotely when he was BSc student at Aligrah Muslim University (now MSc student in Univeristy of Alberta). Kunwar published a conference paper on the same work in IFIP SEC 2022 (paper). Later, Dr. Mustafa Ghaleb (Postdoc at IRC-ISS) got involved and proposed two more lightweight models for file fragment classification. This work is in collaboration with Saleh Al-Saleh (now PhD student at Penn State University) while he was a Lecturer in COE department at KFUPM. Special thanks to Dr. Ahmad Al-Mulhem who proposed this idea and worked closely with the group to identify the research gap using his experise in Digital Forensics.
October 2024
 Our paper titled "Edge-Assisted Label-Flipping Attack Detection in Federated Learning" authoered by PhD student Nourah Al-Otaibi has been accepted with minor modification in the IEEE Open Journal for Communication Society. This is the first accepted journal paper from her PhD work. Congratulations Nourah.
July 2024
 Our paper titled "A Systematic Literature Review on Vulnerabilities, Mitigation Techniques, and Attacks in Field-Programmable Gate Arrays" has been accepted for publications in the Arabian Journal for Science and Engineering.  This paper is led by Dr. Ali Al-Suwiyan (KFUPM) and in collaboration with Prof. AkramulAzim from (Ontario Tech University) and Dr. Abdulaziz Tabakh (KFUPM).
July 2024
 A poster titled "Discovery of Quantum Algorithms Using Genetic Algorithms: Exponential Speedup via Random Sampling" will be presented in the IEEE Quantum Week (QCE 2024) in Montreal, Canada. This work was completed by Tariq Al-Mugbil in the Quantum Computing MX program project.
July 2024
 PhD student Nourah AlOtaibi will present her work in the 17th International Conference on Computational Intelligence in Security for Information Systems (CISIS 2024) in Salamanca, Spain.
June 2024
 Our paper titled "Exploring the Human Response to Anger: Uncovering Insights through Infrared Thermography and Experimental psychology" has been accepted in Acta Neuropsychologica. This paper is in collaboration with Dr. Tarik Abdulrahim from KFUPM. This paper is an example of the interdisciplinary work that we aspire to conduct at IRC-ISS.

In this paper, Hassan Al-Saffar (then BSc student in EE, KFUPM) explored an interesting idea to study the correlation between infrared Thermography and Psychology. Dr. Tarik sat up an experiment to provoke the anger emotion through a guided experiment while capturing the change of skin temperature using thermal camera. For more information about the paper (paper) (image)
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October 2022 
 Three papers have been accpeted to CICN2022, which will be held in PMU, Al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia. Congratulations to:
1- Shuroog Al-Ogbi (MX student),
2- Mahmoud Ellouh (BSc student), and
3- Khaled Al-Butainy (BSc student)
March 2022 
 Our paper entitled "BeeCast: A Device-to-Device Collaborative Video Streaming System" has been accepted to the IWCMC 2022. This paper is an outcome of research project USRG1904 with Asaad Al-ghamdi, Younes Balah, and Mohammad Al-Bejadi.
March 2022 
 Our paper entitled "File Fragment Classification using Depth-wise Seperable Convultions" has been accepted to IFIP SEC 2022, Denmark. This paper is a collaboration with Dr. Ahmed Al-Mulhem and Mr. Saleh Al-Saleh from COE, KFUPM. The work is mainly conducted by Kunwar Asaaim from Aligrah Muslim University, India. Congratulations Kunwar!
December 2021 
 Dr. Muhamad is serving as a Guest Edtior in the upcoming special issue on "Enhanced Cyber-Physical Security in IoT" in Information, MDPI. The deadline is 28/2/2022 15/3/2022
October 2021 
 Our paper titled "Guard: Attack-Resilient Adaptive Load Balancing in Distributed Streaming Systems" was accepted for publication in IEEE TDSC. This paper is a collaboration with Dr. Anas Daghistani and Dr. Musab Khayat while at DMSL, Purdue University.
October 2021 
 Our paper titled "A Modelling and Scheduling Tool for Crowd Movement in Complex Network" was accepted for publication in Intelligent Automation and Soft Computing. This paper is an outcome of Project MDP-IRI-9-2020 funded by Makkah Portal for Research and Innovation.
October 2021 
 Dr. Muhamad delivered a talk titled "From Classical to Quantum Computing" to Physics Department, KFUPM. Slides
June 2021 
 Dr. Muhamad delivered a talk titled "AI and Data Privacy" in Thakaa Center. Youtube
March 2021 
 Our paper titled "Rule-based Detection of False Data Injections attacks Against Optimal" was accepted for publication in Sensors. Congratulations Sani for publishing two papers!
March 2021  
 Our papaer titled "Advanced Persistent False Data Injection Attacks Against Optimal Power Flow in Power Systems" was accepted in IEEE IWCMC 2021, Harbin, China (Acceptance rate is 39%).
March 2021  
 Dr. Muhamad delivered a talk titled "From Classical to Quantum Computing" to the COE Talks Series at KFUPM. (Video)
February 2021  
 Dr. Muhamad was appointed as acting (founding) director for the new Interdisciplinary Research Center for Intelligent Secure Systems at KFUPM.
February 2021  
 Dr. Muhamad delivered an invited talk titled "From Classical to Quantum Computing" for Aramco EXPEC Computing Center.
November 2020 
 Sani Umer, an MSc student at KFUPM, has successfully defended his MS Thesis. Prof. Tarek Shaltami and Dr. Yahya Osais were in the examining committee. Congratiolations Sani!
October 2020 
 BeeCast won the 2nd place in the 2021 ACM Student Research Competition (SRC). Congratulations Asaad Alghamdi, Younes Balah, and Mohammed Albejadi You can find the paper here.(News coverage)
September 2020 
 In summer 2020, KFUPM has approved  21 new CX programs and 15 new MX programs. This Fall, I am teaching three courses:
1- COE 526 Data Privacy
2- COE 426 Data Privacy
3- COE 466 Quantum Architecture and Algorithms
July 2020
 Our demo paper entitled "BeeCast: A Collaborative Video Streaming System" has been accepted in the Demo track of MobiCom 2020. This is the first outcome of the project funded by DSR-KFUPM.
June 2020  
 Pleased to be part of the Digital Revolution Task Force for S20 Saudi Arabia
May 2020
 Pleased to receive a research grant from KACST as part of their response to COVID-19. Project Title: Robust, Privacy Preserving Survillance System for COVID-19. Duration: 6 months. Project website