Ali Hajiabadi

Postdoctoral Researcher and Lecturer at ETH Zurich

prof_pic.jpg

I am a postdoctoral researcher in the Computer Security Group at ETH Zurich, led by Prof. Kaveh Razavi. Also, I teach Computer Security and Computer Engineering in the D-ITET, ETH Zurich. I completed my PhD at National University of Singapore (NUS) with Prof. Trevor E. Carlson. My PhD thesis explores innovative solutions to build efficient and secure processors through hardware/software co-design. My current research has expanded into broader areas of hardware security, including DRAM read disturbance vulnerabilities and the analysis of real-world attacks on modern DRAM devices and CPUs.

My research has been recognized and supported by the School of Computing CS PhD Thesis Award (Honorable Mention), Dean’s Graduate Research Excellence Award, 61st DAC Best Paper Award nomination, President’s Graduate Fellowship (2019-2023), NUSGS Research Incentive Award, and Research Achievement Award.

You can find my CV here.

Teaching (Lecturer/Co-lecturer)

  • Computer Security. BSc Fall 2025 (ETH Zurich)
  • Computer Engineering. BSc Spring 2025 (ETH Zurich)
  • P&S Cybersecurity (Capture the Flag). BSc Spring 2025 (ETH Zurich)

Academic Services

  • Program Committee: HPCA 2026, MICRO 2025, EuroS&P 2026, AsiaCCS 2026
  • Sub-reviewer: USENIX Security 2025
  • Journals: ACM TACO, ACM TRETS, IEEE CAL
  • Shadow Program Committee: EuroSys 2024, EuroSys 2023

latest news

Jul 15, 2025 Our Stack Engine paper is accepted to appear in MICRO 2025 (top-tier conference in Computer Architecture).
Mar 22, 2025 Cassandra is accepted to appear in ISCA 2025 (top-tier conference in Computer Architecture).
Aug 06, 2024 I am a winner of the prestigious award of Deans Graduate Research Excellence Award.
Jul 15, 2024 I have started a new position as a PostDoc in the COMSEC group, ETH Zurich.
Jul 02, 2024 My thesis is recognized by the SoC CS PhD Thesis Award (Honorable Mention), as top five selected theses.

selected publications

  1. ISCA’25
    Cassandra: Efficient Enforcement of Sequential Execution for Cryptographic Programs
    Ali Hajiabadi, and Trevor E. Carlson
    In Proceedings of 52nd International Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA 2025), Jun 2025
  2. TACO’25
    PARADISE: Criticality-Aware Instruction Reordering for Power Attack Resistance
    Yun Chen*Ali Hajiabadi*, Romain Poussier, Yaswanth Tavva, Andreas Diavastos, Shivam Bhasin, and Trevor E. Carlson
    ACM Transactions on Architecture and Code Optimization (TACO), Mar 2025
  3. DAC’24
    Conjuring: Leaking Control Flow via Speculative Fetch Attacks
    Ali Hajiabadi, and Trevor E. Carlson
    In Proceedings of 61st Design Automation Conference (DAC 2024), Jun 2024
  4. DAC’24
    Levioso: Efficient Compiler-Informed Secure Speculation
    Ali Hajiabadi, Archit Agarwal, Andreas Diavastos, and Trevor E. Carlson
    In Proceedings of 61st Design Automation Conference (DAC 2024), Jun 2024
  5. HPCA’24
    GadgetSpinner: A New Transient Execution Primitive using the Loop Stream Detector
    Yun Chen*Ali Hajiabadi*, and Trevor E. Carlson
    In Proceedings of 30th International Symposium on High-Performance Computer Architecture (HPCA 2024), Mar 2024
  6. ASPLOS’21
    NOREBA: A Compiler-Informed Non-speculative Out-of-Order Commit Processor
    Ali Hajiabadi, Andreas Diavastos, and Trevor E. Carlson
    In Proceedings of 26th International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems (ASPLOS 2021), Apr 2021