Panagiotis Ilia

Dr. Panagiotis Ilia

Lecturer (tenure-track)
Director, Security, Privacy and Trust Research Laboratory (SPT@CUT)
Department of Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Engineering
Cyprus University of Technology

       

Dr. Panagiotis Ilia is a Lecturer (Tenure-track) at the Department of Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Engineering of the Cyprus University of Technology (CUT), and the Director of the Security, Privacy and Trust Research Laboratory (SPT@CUT). He holds a BSc in Informatics from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, an MSc in Advanced Computing – Internet Technologies with Security from the University of Bristol, and a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Crete. Before joining CUT he has held research positions at the Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH), the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the Technical University of Crete.

Dr. Ilia’s research focuses on web security and privacy, with emphasis on emerging threats, data leakage, browser and mobile security, fingerprinting and tracking, authentication mechanisms, and secure system and infrastructure design. His recent work also explores the intersection of AI and security, leveraging AI for vulnerability discovery, threat analysis, and the evaluation of outputs produced by large language models (LLMs), with focus on adversarial attacks and agent interference, either malicious or even unintentional. His research has been published in top-tier venues such as ACM CCS, USENIX Security, and NDSS, and has led to the disclosure of multiple real-world vulnerabilities (CVEs). He collaborates internationally and leads a focused research agenda at the intersection of security, privacy, AI, and emerging technologies.

Research Interests

  • Web and Mobile Security
  • Authentication and Access Control
  • Internet Privacy and PETs
  • Threat Modelling and Risk Analysis
  • Adversarial Behavior Analysis
  • Vulnerability Discovery and Exploitation
  • Fuzzing and Penetration Testing
  • Adversarial Machine Learning
  • Security of Intelligent Systems
  • Large-Scale Security Measurements

Publications

  1. SEC Spyridakis, K., Arkalakis, I., Diamantaris, M., Ioannidis, S., Polakis, J., & Ilia, P. (2026). Health Hazard, Handle with Care: Investigating the Privacy Risks of Android’s Health Connect. 35th USENIX Security Symposium, USENIX Security 2026, Baltimore, MD, USA, August 2026. (To appear).
  2. SEC Arkalakis, I., Diamantaris, M., Moustakas, S., Ioannidis, S., Polakis, J., & Ilia, P. (2024). Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here: A Dynamic, Longitudinal Investigation of Android’s Data Safety Section. 33rd USENIX Security Symposium, USENIX Security 2024, Philadelphia, PA, USA, August 14-16, 2024.
  3. CCS Solomos, K., Ilia, P., Nikiforakis, N., & Polakis, J. (2022). Escaping the Confines of Time: Continuous Browser Extension Fingerprinting Through Ephemeral Modifications. Proceedings of the 2022 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security, CCS 2022, Los Angeles, CA, USA, November 7-11, 2022, 2675–2688.
  4. SEC Solomos, K., Ilia, P., Karami, S., Nikiforakis, N., & Polakis, J. (2022). The Dangers of Human Touch: Fingerprinting Browser Extensions through User Actions. 31st USENIX Security Symposium, USENIX Security 2022, Boston, MA, USA, August 10-12, 2022, 717–733.
  5. SEC Karami, S., Kalantari, F., Zaeifi, M., Maso, X. J., Trickel, E., Ilia, P., Shoshitaishvili, Y., Doupé, A., & Polakis, J. (2022). Unleash the Simulacrum: Shifting Browser Realities for Robust Extension-Fingerprinting Prevention. 31st USENIX Security Symposium, USENIX Security 2022, Boston, MA, USA, August 10-12, 2022, 735–752.
  6. SEC Lin, X., Ilia, P., Solanki, S., & Polakis, J. (2022). Phish in Sheep’s Clothing: Exploring the Authentication Pitfalls of Browser Fingerprinting. 31st USENIX Security Symposium, USENIX Security 2022, Boston, MA, USA, August 10-12, 2022, 1651–1668.
  7. NDSS 🏆 Distinguished Paper Karami, S., Ilia, P., & Polakis, J. (2021). Awakening the Web’s Sleeper Agents: Misusing Service Workers for Privacy Leakage. 28th Annual Network and Distributed System Security Symposium, NDSS 2021, Virtually, February 21-25, 2021.
  8. Chen, Q., Ilia, P., Polychronakis, M., & Kapravelos, A. (2021). Cookie Swap Party: Abusing First-Party Cookies for Web Tracking. WWW ’21: The Web Conference 2021, Virtual Event / Ljubljana, Slovenia, April 19-23, 2021, 2117–2129.
  9. Pachilakis, M., Chariton, A. A., Papadopoulos, P., Ilia, P., Degkleri, E., & Markatos, E. P. (2020). Design and Implementation of a Compressed Certificate Status Protocol. ACM Transactions on Internet Technology (TOIT), 20(4), 34:1–34:25.
  10. CCS Lin, X., Ilia, P., & Polakis, J. (2020). Fill in the Blanks: Empirical Analysis of the Privacy Threats of Browser Form Autofill. CCS ’20: 2020 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security, Virtual Event, USA, November 9-13, 2020, 507–519.
  11. NDSS Karami, S., Ilia, P., Solomos, K., & Polakis, J. (2020). Carnus: Exploring the Privacy Threats of Browser Extension Fingerprinting. 27th Annual Network and Distributed System Security Symposium, NDSS 2020, San Diego, California, USA, February 23-26, 2020.
  12. Solomos, K., Ilia, P., Ioannidis, S., & Kourtellis, N. (2020). Clash of the Trackers: Measuring the Evolution of the Online Tracking Ecosystem. 4th Network Traffic Measurement and Analysis Conference, TMA 2020, Berlin, Germany, June 10, 2020. arXiv:1907.12860.
  13. Papadopoulos, P., Ilia, P., & Markatos, E. P. (2019). Truth in Web Mining: Measuring the Profitability and the Imposed Overheads of Cryptojacking. Information Security - 22nd International Conference, ISC 2019, New York City, NY, USA, September 16-18, 2019, Proceedings, 11723, 277–296.
  14. Solomos, K., Ilia, P., Ioannidis, S., & Kourtellis, N. (2019). TALON: An Automated Framework for Cross-Device Tracking Detection. 22nd International Symposium on Research in Attacks, Intrusions and Defenses, RAID 2019, Chaoyang District, Beijing, China, September 23-25, 2019, 227–241.
  15. NDSS Papadopoulos, P., Ilia, P., Polychronakis, M., Markatos, E. P., Ioannidis, S., & Vasiliadis, G. (2019). Master of Web Puppets: Abusing Web Browsers for Persistent and Stealthy Computation. 26th Annual Network and Distributed System Security Symposium, NDSS 2019, San Diego, California, USA, February 24-27, 2019.
  16. NDSS Drakonakis, K., Ilia, P., Ioannidis, S., & Polakis, J. (2019). Please Forget Where I Was Last Summer: The Privacy Risks of Public Location (Meta)Data. 26th Annual Network and Distributed System Security Symposium, NDSS 2019, San Diego, California, USA, February 24-27, 2019.
  17. NDSS Tsirantonakis, G., Ilia, P., Ioannidis, S., Athanasopoulos, E., & Polychronakis, M. (2018). A Large-scale Analysis of Content Modification by Open HTTP Proxies. 25th Annual Network and Distributed System Security Symposium, NDSS 2018, San Diego, California, USA, February 18-21, 2018.
  18. Solomos, K., Ilia, P., Ioannidis, S., & Kourtellis, N. (2018). Automated Measurements of Cross-Device Tracking. Information and Operational Technology Security Systems - First International Workshop, IOSec 2018, CIPSEC Project, Heraklion, Crete, Greece, September 13, 2018, 11398, 73–80.
  19. Ilia, P., Carminati, B., Ferrari, E., Fragopoulou, P., & Ioannidis, S. (2017). SAMPAC: Socially-Aware collaborative Multi-Party Access Control. Proceedings of the Seventh ACM Conference on Data and Application Security and Privacy, CODASPY 2017, Scottsdale, AZ, USA, March 22-24, 2017, 71–82.
  20. Chariton, A. A., Degkleri, E., Papadopoulos, P., Ilia, P., & Markatos, E. P. (2017). CCSP: A compressed certificate status protocol. 2017 IEEE Conference on Computer Communications, INFOCOM 2017, Atlanta, GA, USA, May 1-4, 2017, 1–9.
  21. Chariton, A. A., Degkleri, E., Papadopoulos, P., Ilia, P., & Markatos, E. P. (2016). DCSP: performant certificate revocation a DNS-based approach. Proceedings of the 9th European Workshop on System Security.
  22. CCS Ilia, P., Polakis, I., Athanasopoulos, E., Maggi, F., & Ioannidis, S. (2015). Face/Off: Preventing Privacy Leakage From Photos in Social Networks. Proceedings of the 22nd ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security, Denver, CO, USA, October 12-16, 2015, 781–792.
  23. Polakis, I., Ilia, P., Tzermias, Z., Ioannidis, S., & Fragopoulou, P. (2015). Social Forensics: Searching for Needles in Digital Haystacks. 4th International Workshop on Building Analysis Datasets and Gathering Experience Returns for Security, BADGERS@RAID 2015, Kyoto, Japan, November 5, 2015, 54–66.
  24. CCS Polakis, I., Ilia, P., Maggi, F., Lancini, M., Kontaxis, G., Zanero, S., Ioannidis, S., & Keromytis, A. D. (2014). Faces in the Distorting Mirror: Revisiting Photo-based Social Authentication. Proceedings of the 2014 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security, Scottsdale, AZ, USA, November 3-7, 2014, 501–512.
  25. Ilia, P., Oikonomou, G. C., & Tryfonas, T. (2013). Cryptographic Key Exchange in IPv6-Based Low Power, Lossy Networks. Information Security Theory and Practice. Security of Mobile and Cyber-Physical Systems, 7th IFIP WG 11.2 International Workshop, WISTP 2013, Heraklion, Greece, May 28-30, 2013. Proceedings, 7886, 34–49.

Contact

Email: panagiotis DOT ilia AT cut.ac.cy
Phone: +357 2500 2478
Office: Ttofis Building, 4th floor, 33 Saripolou, Limassol 3036, Cyprus

Lab website: spt.cut.ac.cy