ADVANCING CYBER SECURITY & ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE Research

I am Dr. Faheem Ullah, an Assistant Professor at Zayed University, specializing in Cyber Security, Artificial Intelligence, and Software Engineering. My research focuses on developing intelligent systems for cybersecurity analytics, machine learning applications, and secure software architectures. I have extensive experience in academia and research, with publications in high-impact journals and international conferences.

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RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS

RECENT RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS

Dr. Faheem Ullah has published numerous research papers in leading international journals and conferences in the areas of Cyber Security, Artificial Intelligence, and Software Engineering. His research focuses on intelligent cybersecurity analytics, machine learning for security, cloud and distributed systems, and secure software architectures.

Teaching

Zayed University, Abu Dhabi, UAE

Assistant Professor: Jan 2024 - Present
- Designed and taught the following courses:
  - Machine Learning
  - Applied Neural Networks and Deep Learning
  - Problem Solving with Data Structures and Algorithms
  - Information Security and Data Privacy
- Coordinated the development and delivery of Machine Learning course
- Part of the task force developing Applied AI program for ZU
- Leading two research projects as PI
- Supervising 5 final year projects
- Member of the research committee
- Member of the recruitment committee

The University of Adelaide, Australia

Assistant Professor: Mar 2022 - Dec 2023
- Designed and taught the following courses:
  - Concepts in Cyber Security
  - Secure Software Engineering
  - Cyber Security Industry Projects
  - Cyber Security Research Projects
- Supervised PhD and Master students
- Led the R&D of big data cluster at CREST
- Led CSCRC research project as Co-PI
Program Director for Cyber Security: Mar 2022 - Dec 2023
- Provided academic leadership for Master of Cyber Security Program
- Ensured courses are aligned with the academic and professional accreditation needs
- Mentored subject matter experts and course coordinators
- Conducted student recruitment webinars
Casual Lecturer: Mar 2019 - Nov 2019
- Designed and taught the following courses:
  - Software Architecture
  - Software Requirements Engineering
Associate Lecturer: Mar 2017 - Nov 2018
- Taught and supported the delivery of the following courses:
  - Software Design and Analysis
  - Software Requirements Engineering
  - Software Architecture

GIK Institute of Engineering and Technology, Pakistan

Associate Lecturer: Nov 2014 - Sept 2015
- Designed and conducted lab sessions for the following courses:
  - Circuit Analysis
  - Micro controller and Interfacing
  - Computer Architecture
- In-charge of activities (e.g., competitions) in Software Engineering Lab
- Coordinated events of student societies such as ACM and NETRONICS
- Member of the team responsible for Faculty Self-Assessment Program

Center for Advanced Studies in Engineering (CASE), Pakistan

Associate Lecturer: Aug 2013 - Oct 2014
- Designed and conducted lab sessions for the following courses:
  - Data Structures and Algorithms
  - Programming Techniques
  - Object Oriented Programming
  - Computer Architecture
  - Computer Organization and Assembly Language
  - Digital Logic Design
- In-charge of activities (e.g., competitions) in Software Engineering Lab
- Coordinated events of student societies such as ACM and NETRONICS
- Member of the team responsible for Faculty Self-Assessment Program

Selected Publications

Conference Publications

Mapping Industry Demands for Digital Forensics: A Study of Penetration Tester Requirements

Authors: Pragya Kaushik, Faheem Ullah, and Muhammad Imran Taj
Venue: 2025 12th IFIP International Conference on New Technologies, Mobility and Security (NTMS), IEEE, pp. 8–16
Year: 2025
Enhancing Mobile AI: Feature-Based Knowledge Distillation for Efficient Image Classification

Authors: Luca Canala, Muhammad Uzair, Faheem Ullah, Babar Shah
Venue: 19th International Conference on Information Technology and Applications (ICITA)
Year: 2025
From Air to Water: Harnessing Artificial Intelligence to Tackle UAE’s Water Scarcity

Authors: Shouq Alseiari, Hoor Alkatheeri, Faheem Ullah, Muhammad Imran Taj
Venue: Student Research Conference on Applied Computing, UAE
Year: 2025
Data Breaches: What Happened over the Last 20 Years?

Authors: Faheem Ullah, Liwei Wang, Uswa Fatima, and Muhammad Imran Taj
Venue: International Conference on Data Science, Technology and Applications (DATA)
Year: 2025
Characterizing Vulnerabilities in Microservices: Source, Age and Severity

Authors: Samuel Beahan, Faheem Ullah, Lachlan Chalmers, Uswa Fatima, Mojtaba Shahin
Venue: International Conference on Software Architecture (ICSA), Odense, Denmark
Year: 2025
An Exploratory Study of Vulnerabilities in Big Data Systems

Authors: Tyllis, Nikolas, Faheem Ullah, and Muhammad Uzair
Venue: 2023 IEEE International Conference on Big Data (BigData), IEEE, pp. 1360–1367
Year: 2023
Co-Tuning of Cloud Infrastructure and Distributed Data Processing Platforms

Authors: Dharmadasa, Isuru, and Faheem Ullah
Venue: 2023 IEEE International Conference on Big Data (BigData), IEEE, pp. 207–214
Year: 2023
Guidance Models for Designing Big Data Cyber Security Analytics Systems

Authors: Faheem Ullah and Muhammad Ali Babar
Venue: European Conference on Software Architecture, pp. 70–80, Springer Nature Switzerland
Year: 2023
Scalable Containerized Pipeline for Real-time Big Data Analytics

Authors: Rana Aurangzaib, Waheed Iqbal, Muhammad Abdullah, Faisal Bukhari, Faheem Ullah, Abdelkarim Earradi
Venue: International Conference on Cloud Computing Technology and Science (CloudCom), Perth, Australia
Year: 2022
Automated Security Assessment for the Internet of Things

Authors: Xuanyu Duan, Mengmeng Ge, Triet HM Le, Faheem Ullah, Shang Gao, Xuequan Lu, M Ali Babar
Venue: International Symposium on Dependable Computing (PRDC), Perth, Australia
Year: 2022
Quantifying the Impact of Design Strategies for Big Data Cyber Security Analytics Systems: An Empirical Investigation

Authors: Faheem Ullah and M. Ali Babar
Venue: Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing, Applications and Technologies (PDCAT), Gold Coast, Australia
Year: 2019
QuickAdapt: Scalable Adaptation for Big Data Cyber Security Analytics

Authors: Faheem Ullah and M. Ali Babar
Venue: Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Engineering of Complex Computer Systems (ICECCS), Guangzhou, China
Year: 2019
An Architecture-driven Adaptation Approach for Big Data Cyber Security Analytics

Authors: Faheem Ullah and M. Ali Babar
Venue: Proceedings of the International Conference on Software Architecture (ICSA), Hamburg, Germany
Year: 2019
Security Support in Continuous Deployment Pipeline

Authors: Faheem Ullah, Adam Johannes Raft, Mojtaba Shahin, Mansooreh Zahedi, and M. Ali Babar
Venue: Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Evaluation of Novel Approaches to Software Engineering (ENASE), pp. 57–68, Porto, Portugal
Year: 2017

Journal Publications

A Survey on Immersive Cyber Situational Awareness Systems

Authors: Hussain Ahmad, Faheem Ullah, and Rehan Jafri
Venue: Journal of Cybersecurity and Privacy 5, no. 2
Year: 2025
Evaluation of Distributed Data Processing Frameworks in Hybrid Clouds

Authors: Faheem Ullah, Shagun Dhingra, Xiaoyu Xia, and M. Ali Babar
Venue: Journal of Network and Computer Applications 224
Year: 2024
Towards Deep Learning Enabled Cybersecurity Risk Assessment for Microservice Architectures

Authors: Majid Abdulsatar, Hussain Ahmad, Diksha Goel, Faheem Ullah
Venue: Journal of Cluster Computing
Year: 2024
Microservice Vulnerability Analysis: A Literature Review with Empirical Insights

Authors: Raveen Kanishka Jayalath, Hussain Ahmad, Diksha Goel, Muhammad Shuja Syed, Faheem Ullah
Venue: IEEE Access
Year: 2024
Design and Implementation of Fragmented Clouds for Evaluation of Distributed Databases

Authors: Yaser Mansouri, Faheem Ullah, Shagun Dhingra, and M. Ali Babar
Venue: IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing
Year: 2023
Defending SDN Against Packet Injection Attacks Using Deep Learning

Authors: Phu Anh Tuan, Bo Li, Faheem Ullah, Tanvir Ul Huque, Ranesh Naha, Muhammad Ali Babar, and Hung Nguyen
Venue: Computer Networks 234
Year: 2023
A Review on C3I Systems’ Security: Vulnerabilities, Attacks, and Countermeasures

Authors: Hussain Ahmad, Isuru Dharmadasa, Faheem Ullah, and M. Ali Babar
Venue: ACM Computing Surveys
Year: 2022
Resource Utilization of Distributed Databases in Edge-Cloud Environment

Authors: Yaser Mansouri, Victor Prokhorenko, Faheem Ullah, and M. Ali Babar
Venue: IEEE Internet of Things Journal
Year: 2022
Design and Evaluation of Adaptive System for Big Data Cyber Security Analytics

Authors: Faheem Ullah, M. Ali Babar, Aldeida Aleti
Venue: Expert Systems with Applications
Year: 2022
On the Scalability of Big Data Cyber Security Analytics

Authors: Faheem Ullah and M. Ali Babar
Venue: Journal of Network and Computer Applications (JNCA)
Year: 2021
Machine Learning for Detecting Data Exfiltration: A Review

Authors: Bushra Sabir, Faheem Ullah, M. Ali Babar, and Raj Gaire
Venue: ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR) 54, no. 3
Year: 2021
Architectural Tactics for Big Data Cybersecurity Analytics: A Review

Authors: Faheem Ullah and M. Ali Babar
Venue: Journal of Systems and Software (JSS), Volume 151, Pages 81–118
Year: 2019
Data Exfiltration: A Review of External Attack Vectors and Countermeasures

Authors: Faheem Ullah, Matthew Edwards, Rajiv Ramdhany, Ruzanna Chitchyan, M. Ali Babar, and Awais Rashid
Venue: Journal of Network and Computer Applications (JNCA), Volume 101, Pages 18–54
Year: 2018

Industry Experience

Project Manager
The University of Adelaide, Australia (2016–2017)
Managed a university-funded project to develop SuperSort, a mobile application designed to educate students about proper waste disposal.
Software Developer
TECNEX, Pakistan (2013)
Worked on a hospital management system project, focusing on bug fixing and improving system reliability.

Awards & Honors

Most Cited Paper Award

Journal of Systems and Software

Architectural Tactics for Big Data Cyber Security Analytics (2022)
Best Paper Award Nominee

ENASE Conference

Security Support in Continuous Deployment Pipeline (2017)
Bronze Medalist

Faculty of Computer Engineering, GIK Institute

3rd Position in BS Computer Engineering (2013)
Dean's Honor for Academic Excellence

GIK Institute

Academic distinction for outstanding performance (2011–2013)
Gold Medalist

Board of Intermediate & Secondary Education Peshawar

1st Position among 62,000 students (2009)
Gold Medalist

Board of Intermediate & Secondary Education Mardan

1st Position among 57,000 students (2007)

Research Grants & Funded Projects

Year 2025

Research Intensive Fund, Zayed University

The Dual Edge of AI - Security Implications of Integrating AI in Mobile Applications

Duration: 2026 - 2027
Principle Investigator: Faheem Ullah
Grant Amount: AUD 248,000
Year 2025

Ministry of Education, Saudi Arabia

Revolutionizing Urban Planning in Saudi Arabia with AI: From NEOM to the Red Sea

Duration: 2025 - 2026
Co-Investigator: Faheem Ullah
Grant Amount: SAR 50,000
Year 2024

Start Up Grant, Zayed University

Dynamic Risk Assessment for IoT-based Smart Cities

Duration: 2024 - 2025
Principle Investigator: Faheem Ullah
Grant Amount: AED 30,000
Year 2024

Short Term Grant, Zayed University

Machine Learning for Detecting Data Exfiltration Attacks

Duration: 2024 - 2025
Principle Investigator: Faheem Ullah
Grant Amount: AED 10,000
Year 2022

Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre, Australia

SCReed – Sharing Cyber Security Data for Australian Research

Duration: 2022 - 2024
Co-Investigator: Faheem Ullah
Grant Amount: AUD 540,000
Year 2022

Adelaide Summer Research Scholarship

Big Data Analytics for Climate Change Analysis

Duration: Nov 2022 - Feb 2023
Principle Investigator: Faheem Ullah
Grant Amount: AUD 2,400
Year 2022

Adelaide Summer Research Scholarship

Securing of Big Data Systems

Duration: Nov 2022 - Feb 2023
Principle Investigator: Faheem Ullah
Grant Amount: AUD 1,200
Year 2021

Faculty of Sciences, Engineering, and Technology (The University of Adelaide)

Machine Learning for Detecting Data Exfiltration Attacks

Duration: Nov 2021 - Feb 2022
Principle Supervisor: Faheem Ullah
Grant Amount: AUD 1,200
Year 2021

Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre, Australia

Automated Security Assessment for the Internet of Things

Duration: Nov 2021 - Feb 2022
Principle Supervisor: Faheem Ullah
Grant Amount: AUD 7,200
Year 2021

Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre & Faculty of SET (University of Adelaide)

Protecting SDN against Packet Injection Attacks

Duration: Nov 2021 - Feb 2022
Principle Supervisor: Faheem Ullah
Grant Amount: AUD 4,800
Year 2021

Adelaide Graduate School (The University of Adelaide)

User Behavioural Analytics for Healthcare Security

Duration: 2021 - 2024
Project Designer: Faheem Ullah
Grant Amount: 1 PhD ScholarshipAUD 27,000/year

Student Supervision

PhD Students

Yongzheng Xie (2020 - 2024)

Topic: AI-based Failure Detection and Root Cause Analysis
Affiliation: The University of Adelaide, Australia
Hussain Ahmad (2021 - 2022)

Topic: Engineering Secure ML based Cybersecurity Systems
Affiliation: The University of Adelaide, Australia

Master Students

Mohideen Abdul Jan (2023 - Sept 2023)

Topic: Machine Learning for Detecting Data Exfiltration Attacks
Affiliation: The University of Adelaide, Australia
Kaiyun Yu (Oct 2022 - May 2023)

Topic: Comparative Security Analysis of Microservice and Monolithic Architectures
Affiliation: The University of Adelaide, Australia
Che-Fu (Oct 2022 - May 2023)

Topic: Security Analysis of Microservice Architecture based on Stack Overflow Posts
Affiliation: The University of Adelaide, Australia
Jianwei He (May 2022 - Dec 2022)

Topic: Identifying Security Issues Based on Mobile App Reviews
Affiliation: The University of Adelaide, Australia
Yuen Yuen (May 2022 - Dec 2022)

Topic: Identifying Security Issues Based on Mobile App Reviews
Affiliation: The University of Adelaide, Australia
Xiaohan Ye (May 2022 - Dec 2022)

Topic: Topic: What Expertise Security Professionals Need
Affiliation: The University of Adelaide, Australia
YuxiWu (May 2022 - Dec 2022)

Topic: Machine Learning Skills for Cyber Security Professionals
Affiliation: The University of Adelaide, Australia
Imaduddin Mohammed (Feb 2021 - Oct 2021)

Topic: Energy-aware Task-offloading for Big Data Platforms in Edge-Cloud Environment
Affiliation: The University of Adelaide, Australia
The Trung Le (Feb 2021 - Oct 2021)

Topic: The Impact of Node Failure and Node Addition on the Performance of Big Data Platforms
Affiliation: The University of Adelaide, Australia
Shagun Dhingra (Sept 2020 - May 2021)

Topic: Performance Evaluation of Hadoop, Spark, and Flink in Hybrid Clouds
Affiliation: The University of Adelaide, Australia
Atukoralage Kusala Rajakaruna (Sept 2020 - May 2021)

Topic: Co-tuning of Cloud and Big Data System
Affiliation: The University of Adelaide, Australia
Sharon Khate Damaso (Sept 2020 - May 2021)

Topic: Co-tuning of Cloud and Big Data System
Affiliation: The University of Adelaide, Australia
Trung Ky Moc (Feb 2020 - Oct 2020)

Topic: IoT Edge Processing for Smart Parking System
Affiliation: The University of Adelaide, Australia
Anying Xiang (Feb 2019 - Oct 2019)

Topic: Scalable and Reliable Big Data Cyber Security Analytics with Spark
Affiliation: The University of Adelaide, Australia

I'am Dr Faheem Ullah Assistant Professor

Faheem