Cyber Threat Intelligence Lab — Louisiana State University
Elias Bou-Harb, Ph.D., CISSP
Tenured Associate Professor of Computer Science · Director, Cyber Threat Intelligence Laboratory · Louisiana State University (LSU)
Orchestrating national-scale offensive and defensive strategy through empirical research, operational training, and advanced threat intelligence.
Research
Four threads of inquiry, one adversary.
- Network Security — Traffic analysis, protocol security, and the measurement of emerging networks at planetary scale (encrypted traffic analysis, zero-day protocol exploitation, 5G/6G attack surfaces).
- Cyber Operations — Offensive and defensive operations, malware reverse engineering, and disciplined adversary emulation (ransomware-as-a-service, living-off-the-land, EDR evasion & C2).
- Critical Infrastructure — Securing cyber-physical systems that power industry and society (OT/IT convergence, EV charging exploits, smart grid & IIoT).
- Data Science & AI — Machine intelligence for threat hunting, and the security of AI systems.
Selected Work
- ChargePrint — Internet-scale discovery and security analysis of EV charging management systems (NDSS 2023).
- Jbeil — Temporal graph-based inductive learning that infers lateral movement across evolving enterprise networks (IEEE S&P 2024).
- NATO Coalition Exercise — Designing and leading multinational cyber-defense exercises with NATO Allied Command Transformation.
Ventures
- ExamLock — Academic-integrity and secure online-assessment technology.
- Vector³ — Privacy-native, unified data-leakage-protection platform.
Publications
3 books, 59 journal articles, and 79 conference papers at venues including IEEE S&P, NDSS, and DSN. Full, continually updated record on Google Scholar.
- Cyber Threat Intelligence for the Internet of Things — Springer, 2020
- Smart Cities: Cyber Situational Awareness to Support Decision Making — Springer, 2022
- High-Speed Networks: A Tutorial — Springer, 2022
Awards & Honors
- 2025 — Excellence in Research Award, inaugural Silicon Bayou Gala, LSU
- 2023 — UT System-wide Distinguished Research Award (top 10 of 120+ candidates)
- 2023 — University-wide Service Award for Center Leadership, UTSA
- 2021 — UTSA Faculty Research Award (sole recipient)
- 2020 — Piccione Endowed Faculty Award for Research Excellence, UTSA
- 2020 — Elevated to IEEE Senior Member
- 2019 — Junior Faculty-wide Research Award, Florida Atlantic University (sole recipient)
- 2015–2023 — Six Best Conference Paper Awards
- 2016 — NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship (top 1% in Canada)
Media
25+ press mentions across 4 national outlets, a U.S. Senate mention (Senator John Cornyn), and coverage in WIRED, Reuters, Network World, the Houston Chronicle, and the San Antonio Express-News.
Contact
For research collaborations, speaking, press, or prospective graduate students.