Student Spotlight: Subash Poudyal

Posted on 2021-06-07

Subash Poudyal is a doctoral candidate working with Prof. Dipankar Dasgupta on cybersecurity issues. Subash completed his undergraduate studies in computer science and information technology in 2011 from St. Xavier’s College, Tribhuvan University of Nepal, after which he worked for about five years as a professional software engineer. He joined the University of Memphis in 2017. In addition to his research work, he serves as a system administrator at the Center for Information Assurance and conducts hands-on labs in topics such as web security, network analysis, secure coding, identity management, penetration testing, and malware analysis for both graduate and undergraduate students.

Recently, Subash's work on ransomware and possible AI-based countermeasures was featured in Analytics India Magazine. Cybercriminals are constantly changing their attack strategy, and security checkpoints often miss catching them. "It is possible to capture malware even if they bypass other checkpoints," says Subash. "There is a need for an intelligent way to combat ransomware attacks. We need to leverage the power of artificial intelligence and advanced reverse engineering techniques to build a robust detection system with low false positives and the ability to catch even zero-day ransomware attacks. Our AI framework is designed to address these challenges."

Subash also presented this work at the April 2021 Hot Topics in the Science of Security (HoTSoS) conference, hosted virtually by the National Security Agency.

More information about Subash can be found on his personal website at https://sites.google.com/view/subashpoudyal.