Evasion Attack STeganography: Turning Vulnerability Of Machine Learning ToAdversarial Attacks Into A Real-world Application

in Proceedings of International Conference on Computer Vision 2021 (2021)

Evasion Attacks have been commonly seen as a weakness of Deep Neural Networks. In this paper, we flip the paradigm and envision this vulnerability as a useful application. We propose EAST, a new ... [more ▼]

Evasion Attacks have been commonly seen as a weakness of Deep Neural Networks. In this paper, we flip the paradigm and envision this vulnerability as a useful application. We propose EAST, a new steganography and watermarking technique based on multi-label targeted evasion attacks. Our results confirm that our embedding is elusive; it not only passes unnoticed by humans, steganalysis methods, and machine-learning detectors. In addition, our embedding is resilient to soft and aggressive image tampering (87% recovery rate under jpeg compression). EAST outperforms existing deep-learning-based steganography approaches with images that are 70% denser and 73% more robust and supports multiple datasets and architectures. [less ▲]

Killing Stubborn Mutants with Symbolic Execution

in ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (2021), 30(2), 191--1923

Load approximation for uncertain topologies in the low-voltage grid

in INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SMART GRID COMMUNICATIONS, 11-13 November 2020 (2020, November)

Smart grids allow operators to monitor the grid continuously, detect occurring incidents, and trigger corrective actions. To perform that, they require a deep understanding of the effective situation ... [more ▼]

Smart grids allow operators to monitor the grid continuously, detect occurring incidents, and trigger corrective actions. To perform that, they require a deep understanding of the effective situation within the grid. However, some parameters of the grid may not be known with absolute confidence. Reasoning over the grid despite uncertainty needs the consideration of all possible states. In this paper, we propose an approach to enumerate only valid potential grid states. Thereby, we allow discarding invalid assumptions that poison the results of a given computation procedure. We validate our approach based on a real-world topology from the power grid in Luxembourg. We show that the estimation of cable load is negatively affected by invalid fuse state combinations, in terms of computation time and accuracy. [less ▲]

Data-driven simulation and optimization for covid-19 exit strategies

in Ghamizi, Salah; Rwemalika, Renaud; Cordy, Maxime (Eds.) et al Data-driven simulation and optimization for covid-19 exit strategies (2020, August)

The rapid spread of the Coronavirus SARS-2 is a major challenge that led almost all governments worldwide to take drastic measures to respond to the tragedy. Chief among those measures is the massive ... [more ▼]

The rapid spread of the Coronavirus SARS-2 is a major challenge that led almost all governments worldwide to take drastic measures to respond to the tragedy. Chief among those measures is the massive lockdown of entire countries and cities, which beyond its global economic impact has created some deep social and psychological tensions within populations. While the adopted mitigation measures (including the lockdown) have generally proven useful, policymakers are now facing a critical question: how and when to lift the mitigation measures? A carefully-planned exit strategy is indeed necessary to recover from the pandemic without risking a new outbreak. Classically, exit strategies rely on mathematical modeling to predict the effect of public health interventions. Such models are unfortunately known to be sensitive to some key parameters, which are usually set based on rules-of-thumb.In this paper, we propose to augment epidemiological forecasting with actual data-driven models that will learn to fine-tune predictions for different contexts (e.g., per country). We have therefore built a pandemic simulation and forecasting toolkit that combines a deep learning estimation of the epidemiological parameters of the disease in order to predict the cases and deaths, and a genetic algorithm component searching for optimal trade-offs/policies between constraints and objectives set by decision-makers.Replaying pandemic evolution in various countries, we experimentally show that our approach yields predictions with much lower error rates than pure epidemiological models in 75% of the cases and achieves a 95% R² score when the learning is transferred and tested on unseen countries. When used for forecasting, this approach provides actionable insights into the impact of individual measures and strategies. [less ▲]

Preventing Overloading Incidents on Smart Grids: A Multiobjective Combinatorial Optimization Approach

in Communications in Computer and Information Science (2020, February 15)

Cable overloading is one of the most critical disturbances that may occur in smart grids, as it can cause damage to the distribution power lines. Therefore, the circuits are protected by fuses so that ... [more ▼]

Cable overloading is one of the most critical disturbances that may occur in smart grids, as it can cause damage to the distribution power lines. Therefore, the circuits are protected by fuses so that, the overload could trip the fuse, opening the circuit, and stopping the flow and heating. However, sustained overloads, even if they are below the safety limits, could also damage the wires. To prevent overload, smart grid operators can switch the fuses on or off to protect the circuits, or remotely curtail the over-producing/over-consuming users. Nevertheless, making the most appropriate decision is a daunting decision-making task, notably due to contractual and technical obligations. In this paper, we define and formulate the overloading prevention problem as a Multiobjective Mixed Integer Quadratically Constrained Program. We also suggest a solution method using a combinatorial optimization approach with a state-of-the-art exact solver. We evaluate this approach for this real-world problem together with Creos Luxembourg S.A., the leading grid operator in Luxembourg, and show that our method can suggest optimal countermeasures to operators facing potential overloading incidents. [less ▲]

Learning To Predict Vulnerabilities From Vulnerability-Fixes: A Machine Translation Approach

E-print/Working paper (2020)

Pandemic Simulation and Forecasting of exit strategies:Convergence of Machine Learning and EpidemiologicalModels

Report (2020)

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a public health emergency unprecedented in this century. The lack ofaccurate knowledge regarding the outcomes of the virus has made it challenging for policymakers to ... [more ▼]

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a public health emergency unprecedented in this century. The lack ofaccurate knowledge regarding the outcomes of the virus has made it challenging for policymakers to decideon appropriate countermeasures to mitigate its impact on society, in particular the public health and the veryhealthcare system.While the mitigation strategies (including the lockdown) are getting lifted, understanding the current im-pacts of the outbreak remains challenging. This impedes any analysis and scheduling of measures requiredfor the different countries to recover from the pandemic without risking a new outbreak.Therefore, we propose a novel approach to build realistic data-driven pandemic simulation and forecastingmodels to support policymakers. Our models allow the investigation of mitigation/recovery measures andtheir impact. Thereby, they enable appropriate planning of those measures, with the aim to optimize theirsocietal benefits.Our approach relies on a combination of machine learning and classical epidemiological models, circum-venting the respective limitations of these techniques to allow a policy-making based on established knowl-edge, yet driven by factual data, and tailored to each country’s specific context. [less ▲]

Verification and abstraction of real-time variability-intensive systems

in International Journal on Software Tools for Technology Transfer (2019), 21(6), 635-649

Towards context-aware automated writing evaluation systems

in Proceedings of the 1st ACM SIGSOFT International Workshop on Education through Advanced Software Engineering and Artificial Intelligence, EASEAI@ESEC/SIGSOFT FSE 2019, Tallinn, Estonia, August 26, 2019 (2019, August 26)

Multifaceted automated analyses for variability-intensive embedded systems

in Proceedings of the 41st International Conference on Software Engineering, ICSE 2019, Montreal, QC, Canada, May 25-31, 2019 (2019, May)