Dr. ElMouatez Karbab

About Me

Dr. ElMouatez Karbab is a postdoc at Concordia University. His research focuses on applied machine learning techniques on malware fingerprinting and mobile and IoT security. He is a research scientist at the National Cyber Forensic and Training Alliance (NCFTA) of Canada, an international organization which focuses on the investigation of cyber-crimes. He served as an associate researcher at Research Centre for Scientific and Technical Information (CERIST), Algeria, where he worked on international projects in collaboration with University of Cape Town, South Africa, and Heudiasyc Lab, France. ElMouatez has published many peer-reviewed research articles in international journals and conferences on malware fingerprinting using machine learning techniques, cyber security, and embedded systems.

Experiences

Concordia University

concordia.ca
2020-current

PostDoctoral

I am a researcher at Concordia Security Research Center.

NCFTA Canada

ncfta.ca
2014 - 2020

Data Scientist & Cyber-Security Specialist

I am a researcher at National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance (NCFTA Canada).

Investigating large-scale cyber threats.
Designing, developing and maintaining big data and machine learning systems for cyber security threats mitigation.

Concordia University

concordia.ca
2015-2020

Research Assistant

I focus on binary and malware fingerprinting using machine learning techniques. Also, I am participating in different projects that include Concordia University/ NCFTA Canada and other academic, industrial, and government partners.

Concordia University

concordia.ca
2016-2020

Teaching Assistant

I taught several tutorials and labs of graduate and undergraduate courses.

Big Data Analytics, Winter 2017 .
Computer Networks and Protocols, Fall 2017 .
Data Communication and Computer Networks, Fall 2016, Winter 2017, Fall 2017 .
Cyber-crime Investigations Fall 2016, Fall 2017 .
Mathematics for Computer Science, Fall 2017 .
System Hardware, Winter 2016 .

CERIST Research Center

cerist.dz
2011 - 2014

Research Assistant & Embedded System Developer

I was a research assistant at CERIST Research Center. I participated in national and international projects.

Embedded systems development.
Software development.

Mobilis Telecom

mobilis.dz
2010 - 2011

Software Engineer

I developed the management software for one department.

Java developer.
Database administrator.

Education

2020

Doctor of Philosophy Concordia University

Specialized in Cyber Security and Machine Learning.
Adviser: Dr. Debbabi
Thesis Title: "Resilient and Scalable Android Fingerprinting and Detection"
2013

Master of Computer Science, USTHB University

Specialized in Mobile Computing.
Adviser: Dr. Djenouri
Thesis Title: "Automatic Car Park Management with Integrated Radio Frequency Identification and Wireless Sensor Network"
Awards: Top Selected Students.
2010

Bachelor of Computer Science, Ferhat Abbas Setif University

Specialized in Advanced Information Systems.
Adviser: Dr. Aliouat
Thesis Title: "Improvement and Implementation of Data-Centric and Hierarchical Wireless Sensor Network Routing Protocols in TinyOS"
Awards: Top three students for four years.

Certifications

Udacity Data Scientist Nanodegree

DeepLearning.ai Deep Learning Specialization

MITx The Analytics Edge Certificate

Stanford University Machine Learning Certificate

Convolutional Neural Networks Certificate

University of Washington Machine Learning Certificate

Deep Learning Sequence Models Certificate

Berkeley Introduction to Apache Spark

Berkeley Big Data Analysis with Apache Spark

Johns Hopkins Data Scientist Toolbox Certificate

Structuring Machine Learning Projects Certificate

Improving Deep Neural Networks Certificate

Languages

Arabic

English

French

Hobbies

Electronics

Graphical Design

Chess

Contact

Address

Sir George Williams Campus
EV9.173, 1455 De Maisonneuve Blvd. W.
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
H3G 1M8

Website

https://karbab.net

Mail

mouatez _at_ karbab.net

Publications

http://scholar.google.com

Git Repositories

http://github.com/Mouatez
http://gitlab.com/Mouatez

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mouatez

Events

[14/07/2021] Talk: DIMVA Conference, Portable Malware Detection using Machine Learning Techniques
[26/04/2019] Talk: DFRWS, Oslo-Norway: Portable Malware Detection using Machine Learning Techniques
[28/08/2018] Talk: ARES, Hamburg-Germany: Automatic Investigation of Android Malware Cyber-Infrastructures.
[13/11/2018] Workshop: Montreal-Canada, RoboCup International Competition

DFRWS, Florence-Italy: Telephony Threat Analysis and Campaign Detection

[23/03/2018] Talk: DFRWS, Florence-Italy: Automatic Framework for Android Malware Chasing Using Deep Learning
[10/02/2016] Workshop: Palo Alto-USA: Bay Area Deep Learning School, Stanford University
[08/12/2016] Talk: ACSAC, Los Angeles-USA: Building Community-Based Cyber-Defense Infrastructure for Malware Detection
[18/10/2016] Talk: MALWARE, Porto Rico-USA: Dynamic Fingerprinting for the Automatic Detection of Android Malware
[08/08/2016] Talk: DFRWS, Seattle-USA: Fingerprinting Android Packaging for Malware Detection
[23/10/2013] Talk: IoT-SAICSIT, East London-South Africa: A Comparative Review of Implemented Smart Car Parking Frameworks
[23/10/2013] Talk: IoT-SAICSIT, East London-South Africa: A Survey on Smart Framework of WSN and RFID integration
[08/2013] Research Visit: Cape Town-South Africa: Research Visit to Cape Town University (1 month).
[11/2012] Research Visit: Compiègne-France: Research Visit to Heudiasyc Laboratory (1 month).
[08/2012] Research Visit: Cape Town-South Africa: Research Visit to Cape Town University (1 month).

Skills

Programming languages

Python

Bash

Rust

Javascript

Machine Learning Frameworks

scikit-learn

PyTorch

Tensorflow

Data Store and Processing

PostgreSQL

ELK

MySql

Pandas

Sql

PySpark

Embedded System and IoT Development

Arduino

Energia

Platformio

Nuttx OS

Build and Continuous Integration

Git

Make

Gradle

Jenkins

Cloud Computing and Virtualization

Docker

Vagrant

Qemu

KVM

Projects

Joint Security Project

Collaboration between Concordia University, Canarie, and several Canadian academic institutions to strengthen the overall state of network security at connected institutions within Canada's National Research and Education Network (NREN).

I built a machine learning system for maliciousness detection on academic institutions network traffic. The system is online and serving over ten academic institutions.

Telephony Abuse Mitigation

Collaboration between Concordia University, CRTC in a research project for telephony abuse mitigation.

I developed multiple statistical analyses to detect and cluster campaigns of telephony abusers from call detail records (CDR) and users' complaints .

CyberFusion Log Analysis Project

Collaboration between Concordia University, Carleton University, and Industrial partners to conduct research and development on OS systems' logs and network traffic to detect and classify abnormal and malicious behaviors.

Developing malware detection system on ClearOS Linux system logs based on deep learning techniques.
Deploping IoT malware detection system on IoT device Logs based on deep learning techniques.
builing an IoT intrusion detection system (IDS) to detect malicious traffic and devices in IoT network. The system has been deployed in an IoT testbed at Concordia university security lab.

Road Traffic Management using Sensor networks

Collaboration between CERIST (Algeria) Research Center and Heudiasyc (France) Laboratory.

Developing of a smart prototype, hardware and embedding system development, for road traffic in management using wireless sensor network (WSN) and ultrasonic sensors.

Smart car parking using wireless sensor network

Collaboration between CERIST (Algeria) Research Center and University of Cape Town (South Africa).

Building a prototype of smart car parking manager, hardware and embedding system development, using wireless sensor network (WSN), radio frequency identification (RFID), ultrasonic sensor, and image processing.