I am the Class of 1953 Associate Professor of Computer Science at William & Mary, where I lead the Secure Platforms Lab (SPL). I am also the Director of the W&M Cybersecurity Center. My research secures platforms such as smart phones and smart homes by evaluating and improving automated security analyses used for vulnerability/malware detection.
In particular, I build frameworks for qualitative and quantitative evaluation of security analysis tools along three key directions: (1) empirically evaluating security and privacy techniques (NDSS’24, FSE’23 Demo-a, S&P’22, USENIX’18, ACM TOPS, ICSE’21 Tool Demo), (2) understanding and characterising developer and user expectations from tools (PETS’25, S&P’25-b, S&P’25-a, S&P’24-a Distinguished Paper Award, FSE’23 Demo-b, S&P’20), and (3) uncovering novel, practical, threats and building defenses for software/apps/frameworks (USENIX’24, S&P’24-b, WiSec’24, CCS’22, USENIX’22, ACM TCPS 2020, CODASPY’19 Best Paper, ACMiner).
On leave until Fall 2025.
I am on sabbatical leave until Fall 2025. My availability will be fairly limited, and response to emails will be delayed.
Join us!
I am looking for highly motivated PhD, Masters, and Bachelors students to join my lab (more info) !
Contact Information
Office: McGlothlin-Street Hall 104-C
Phone: (757) 221 2953
Email: apnadkarni at wm.edu
Quick Links
- IoTSpotter, for extracting and analyzing mobile-IoT apps
- MASC, for evaluating crypto-API misuse detectors
- Helion, for generating realistic home automation scenarios
- μSE, for evaluating Android data-leak detectors
Current PhD Students
- Amit Seal Ami (co-advised with Dr. Denys Poshyvanyk)
- Prianka Mandal
- Victor Olaiya
- Md. Akram Khan
Recent Professional Service
- ACM TOPS Associate Editor: June 2024 - present
- IEEE S&P Associate Chair: 2025
- IEEE S&P Program Committee: 2025, 2024, 2023
- USENIX Security Symposium Program Committee: 2023, 2021, 2019, 2018
- ISOC NDSS Program Committee: 2025, 2024, 2022, 2021, 2020
- The WebConf Program Committee: 2024
- PETS Program Committee: 2025, 2023
- ACSAC Program Committee: 2023, 2022, 2021
- ACM CCS Program Committee: 2018
- IEEE/ACM ASE Program Committee: 2021
- ACM WiSec Program Committee: 2023, 2022, 2020, 2019, 2018
News
March 10, 2025Our paper, "We can’t allow IoT vendors to pass off all such liability to the consumer - Investigating the U.S. Legal Perspectives on Liability for IoT Product Security" has been accepted to the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy 2025! [S&P'25]
January 29, 2025Our paper, "Free WiFi is not ultimately free - Privacy Perceptions of Users in the US regarding City-wide WiFi Services" has been accepted to the Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS/PoPETS 2025)! [PETS'25]
December 18, 2024Our paper, "Testing Practices, Challenges, and Developer Perspectives in Open-Source IoT Platforms" has been accepted to the IEEE International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation (ICST 2025)! [ICST'25]
September 9, 2024Our paper, "We can't change it overnight - Understanding Industry Perspectives on IoT Product Security Compliance and Certification" has been accepted to the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy 2025! [S&P'25]
August 19, 2024Our paper, "Enhancing Transparency and Accountability of TPLs with PBOM - A Privacy Bill of Materials" has been accepted to the 2024 ACM Workshop on Software Supply Chain Offensive Research and Ecosystem Defenses (SCORED 2024), co-located with ACM CCS 2024! [SCORED'24]
May 20, 2024Our paper, "False negative - that one is going to kill you - Understanding Industry Perspectives of Static Analysis based Security Testing" has received the Distinguished Paper Award at the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy 2024!
December 19, 2023Our proposal (PI - Sidi Lu; Co-PI - Adwait Nadkarni) on "Investigating Security and Privacy by Design for Teleoperated Autonomous Vehicles" has been funded as a part of the CCI Fall 2023 call on "Supply Chain Cybersecurity"![CCI Announcement]