Ravindu De Silva

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Lost in the serenity. Kankesanthurai,
Sri Lanka 🇱🇰

I am a first year Ph.D. student in Computer Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, conducting research in SecLab supervised by Prof. Giovanni Vigna and Prof. Christopher Kruegel. My research primarily focuses on Web Application Security. Additionally, I participate in CTFs with the Shellphish team.


Linkedin , Google Scholar


EDUCATION HISTORY

PhD in computer science
Institution: University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
Status: Reading (2023 - )

Bachelor of Science Honours in Software Engineering [First Class]
Institution: University of Colombo School of Computing, Sri Lanka
College Honors: Gold Medal, Professor Soma Goonetillake Memorial Award
Thesis: CGraph-Graph Based Extensible Cyber Threat Intelligence System
Degree Awarded: 1st May of 2021


RESEARCH AND PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Graduate Researcher: UC Santa Barbara, CA, USA. (SecLab)
Supervisors: Dr. Giovanni Vigna and Dr. Christopher Kruegel
Research Domain: Web Application Security
Year: 2023 -

Research Associate: UC Santa Barbara, CA, USA. (SecLab)
Supervisors: Dr. Giovanni Vigna and Dr. Christopher Kruegel
Work carried out: Developed deep reinforcement learning simulation to mimic user actions against zk-snark-based smart contracts
Results: GuideEnricher: Protecting the Anonymity of Ethereum Mixing Service Users with Deep Reinforcement Learning, USENIX Security 24
Year: 2022

Research Intern : Qatar Computing Research Institute[Remote].
Supervisors: Dr. Mohamed Nabeel (QCRI)
Work carried out: Research conducted to identify attackers created and compromised domains using machine learning
Results: Compromised or Attacker-Owned: A Large Scale Classification and Study of Hosting Domains of Malicious URL, USENIX Security 21
Year: 2020


PUBLICATIONS

2024

GuideEnricher: Protecting the Anonymity of Ethereum Mixing Service Users with Deep Reinforcement Learning.
Ravindu De Silva, Wenbo Guo, Nicola Ruaro, Ilya Grishchenko, Christopher Kruegel, Giovanni Vigna
University of California, Santa Barbara. (USENIX Security 24)

2023

A Large Scale Study and Classification of VirusTotal Reports on Phishing and Malware URLs
Euijin Choo, Mohamed Nabeel. Doowon Kim, Ravindu De Silva, Ting Yu,Issa Khalil.
ACM on Measurement and Analysis of Computing Systems
(ACM MAC Volume7)

2021

Compromised or Attacker-Owned: A Large Scale Classification and Study of Hosting Domains of Malicious URLs
Ravindu De Silva, M Nabeel, C Elvitigala, I Khalil, T Yu, C Keppitiyagama
30th USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 21)

Malicious and Low Credibility URLs on Twitter during the AstraZeneca covid-19 Vaccine Development
S Horawalavithana, ,Ravindu De Silva, N Weerasekara, NG Kin Wai, M Nabeel, B Abayaratna, C Elvitigala, P Wijesekera, A Iamnitchi
Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory (CMOT22)


GRADUATE AWARDS & OTHER AWARDS

Graduate Awards

Professor Soma Goonetillake Memorial Award for the Best Final Year Software Engineering research project in B.Sc.(Hons) Software Engineering, Gold Medal.
Institution: University Of Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Year: 2021

Other Awards - International

Winner, Grand Challenge, North American Social Network Conference (NASN).
Institution : North American Social Network Conference (NASN).
Year: 2021


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