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Researchers unveil first defense against cryptanalytic attacks on AI

“AI systems are valuable intellectual property, and cryptanalytic parameter-extraction attacks are the most efficient, effective, and accurate way to steal that intellectual property,” says Ashley Kurian, first author of the study and Ph.D. student in electrical and computer engineering at NC State.

NC State ECE researchers have developed the first functional defense capable of protecting AI models from cryptanalytic attacks that attempt to extract and reconstruct model parameters. The new approach trains neural networks to reduce differences between neurons in the same layer, forming a barrier that prevents extraction while maintaining accuracy with less than 1 percent change.

The paper, Train to Defend: First Defense Against Cryptanalytic Neural Network Parameter Extraction Attacks, will be presented at NeurIPS 2025 in San Diego.

Read the full story:
http://ncst.at/18zO50XvTbV

The Department of Energy has renewed funding through 2030 for the Quantum Science Center, allocating $125 million to establish a fault-tolerant, quantum-accelerated high-performance computing ecosystem.

NC State is a key partner in this initiative. In 2024, the university received up to $10 million for a five-year project advancing hybrid quantum computing architectures. Researchers from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Computer Science and Physics are collaborating to explore quantum harmonic oscillators and qubits at NC State’s IBM Quantum Innovation Center.

This investment underscores NC State’s commitment to advancing quantum science and compounding its national leadership in transformative computing systems.

Read more: http://ncst.at/hr0O50XrSO0

Congratulations to Ph.D. student Mohammad Riahi on receiving the Graduate Diversity Enrichment Program award sponsored by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. The award provides $5,000 over two years to support Ph.D. students through enhanced research enrichment opportunities.

Riahi’s research focuses on developing battery-free biomedical devices, including an implantable optical stimulation device that operates using radio waves with only a few milliwatts of energy. His work demonstrates how NC State engineers drive innovation through curiosity, creativity and a commitment to impact. ⚡

Atul Sharma ’21 turned classroom theory into global impact.

As a student of professor Yannis Viniotis in the Department of Computer Engineering, Atul took on one of the toughest challenges in networking, debugging complex protocols, and developed a solution that continues to benefit engineers worldwide.

Collaborating with RFC authors and open-source reviewers, he created a copyrighted Wireshark Dissector for the RFC 8497 standard, introducing a traceable “digital fingerprint” to every Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) session. His work helps providers like Amazon Web Services, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Ericsson track and diagnose network traffic more efficiently, strengthening the reliability of global systems.

Today, Atul is a senior software engineer at Cisco Systems, where he helps design secure, next-generation SD-WAN connectivity for major corporations. His journey reflects how NC State ECE students turn innovation into impact on campus and around the world.

Congratulations, Atul!

Paschalis Gkoupidenis, associate professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Physics, received the inaugural Sherwin I. Seligsohn Innovation Award from Universal Display Corporation for his work in organic, brain-inspired electronics.

Read more:
http://ncst.at/Ep1O50XiFJn

NC State researchers uncovered GATEBLEED, a hardware flaw that lets attackers reveal data used to train AI systems. The finding shows how chip design choices can put AI privacy at risk.
http://ncst.at/jfVe50XiFh7

Researchers at NC State have improved wearable health-monitoring technology to more accurately detect coughs — even distinguishing them from speech and other human sounds. The advance could make it easier to track chronic respiratory conditions and predict health risks such as asthma attacks.

By combining sound and motion data from chest-worn monitors, the team developed a more reliable model that reduces false positives and enhances privacy protection in real-world environments.

Learn how this breakthrough is shaping the future of digital health:
http://ncst.at/oL8V50XiF2t

The ECE Distinguished Speaker Series welcomes Dr. Magnus Egerstedt, Dean of Engineering at UC Irvine and former School Chair at Georgia Tech. His talk, From Coordination to Collaboration in Multi-Robot Systems: Lessons from Ecology, explores how insights from nature can inspire new approaches to multi-robot collaboration, where the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts.

🎙️ Dr. Magnus Egerstedt
📅 October 16
🕒 3 p.m.
📍 BTEC Building, Room BTC-123

More info: http://ncst.at/JMXM50X7Wfo