Stefano Zanero
Full Professor, Politecnico di Milano
Stefano Zanero received a PhD in Computer Engineering from Politecnico di Milano, where he is currently a full professor with the Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria. His research focuses on malware analysis, cyberphysical security, and cybersecurity in general. Besides teaching “Computer Security” and “Digital Forensics and Cybercrime” at Politecnico, he has an extensive speaking and training experience in Italy and abroad.
He co-authored over 140 scientific papers and books. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE and the IEEE Computer Society, which has named him a Distinguished Lecturer and Distinguished Contributor; he is a lifetime senior member of the ACM, which has named him a Distinguished Speaker; and has been named a Fellow of the ISSA (Information System Security Association).
Stefano is also a co-founder and chairman of Secure Network, a leading cybersecurity assessment firm, and a co-founder of BankSealer, a startup in the FinTech sector that addresses fraud detection through machine learning techniques.
Lecture
A tormented love story: AI and Cybersecurity
In this lecture, we will try to illustrate the (rather long, actually!) and tormented love story between cybersecurity and different types of AI techniques. We will briefly dabble in perspectives from the past (applications of machine learning and other AI techniques to intrusion detection, dating as far back as the early 80s), and then fast forward to the present, introducing a choice of topics in malware analysis, in cyberphysical security, and in the detection of frauds. We will then try to look at a glimpse of some future promises of using LLMs for things such as threat intelligence and extraction of information from unstructured sources. In a plot twist of our love story, we will then also discuss the concerns for the security of AI and ML algorithms, as they become more and more critical to today’s world.
