OS Internals · Vulnerability Research · Malware Analysis · AI Security
Security researcher at Lumia Security, working on AI governance and security. Interests include AI security and safety, OS internals, enterprise security, malware analysis, and vulnerability research. I also have a B.Sc. in Physics, though it won’t help with anything. This one-pager collects past research, publications, and presentations.
Dec 2021 – Aug 2026 · OS internals, MS-RPC security research, malware analysis, AI/agentic-application security
Found that Cursor's PR-review workflows (BugBot and Security Review) check out untrusted fork branches and auto-load attacker-controlled .cursor/hooks.json, achieving remote code execution on the reviewer's machine from a malicious pull request.
Found that major AI coding assistants (Antigravity, Cursor, Visual Studio, Claude Code, VS Code) blindly execute named binaries via PATH lookup, enabling PATH-hijacking persistence, lateral movement in shared environments, and an escalation path to full RCE.
New attack class against GenAI desktop apps (ChatGPT, Claude, Microsoft 365 Copilot): harvesting local auth tokens/cookies to hijack, read, delete or prompt-inject a victim's AI conversations. Incorporated as a case study into MITRE ATLAS's November 2025 update, contributing new techniques and tactics.
Discovery of CVE-2024-43532, an NTLM-relay elevation-of-privilege vulnerability in the Windows Remote Registry client. Presented at No Hat 2024.
Discovery and analysis of NoaBot, a custom Mirai-derived SSH-worm/cryptominer botnet linked to the P2PInfect campaign.
How to use the Windows ETW RPC/TCP/SMB providers to detect PSExec, Remote Task Scheduler, DCSync and PetitPotam lateral-movement attacks over MS-RPC. Originally presented at Black Hat USA 2023.
Survey of non-SSH protocols (SNMP, RDP variants, Telnet, r-commands, FTP, Samba, NFS, rsync) usable for lateral movement on Linux hosts, with defensive guidance.
Tracked the 2023 resurgence of the Romania-linked "Mexals"/Diicot cryptojacking campaign, including a new SSH-worm module and LAN spreader.
Discovery of CVE-2022-44707, an RPC-cache-based bypass of Wininit's WindowsShutdown interface enabling unauthenticated remote shutdown.
Discovery of an MS-RPC security-callback caching bypass, yielding CVE-2022-38034 and CVE-2022-38045; includes an automated methodology for hunting vulnerable RPC interfaces.
Discovery and reverse engineering of Panchan, a Golang P2P SSH-worm/cryptojacking botnet with an embedded "godmode" admin panel; includes threat-actor attribution.
Analysis of the leaked Conti ransomware group's internal operator manuals: attack methodology, toolkit, and mapped mitigations.
Comprehensive guide to Windows RPC filters — using netsh and the WFP API to restrict and audit RPC traffic, plus internals of rule creation and packet filtering.
| Conference | Talk | Slides | Video |
|---|---|---|---|
| RSAC 2026 | AIKatz — harvesting local auth tokens/cookies from GenAI desktop apps to hijack, read, or prompt-inject a victim’s AI conversations | Write-up | — |
| No Hat 2024 | Call & Register — relay attack on WinReg RPC client (CVE-2024-43532) | YouTube | |
| Black Hat USA 2023 | Lifting the Fog of War — monitoring, identifying, and mitigating MS-RPC-based threats | YouTube | |
| 44CON 2023 | Lifting the Fog of War — monitoring, identifying, and mitigating MS-RPC-based threats | PPTX | YouTube |
| Hexacon 2022 | Exploring Ancient Ruins to Find Modern Bugs — discovering a 0-day in an MS-RPC service (with Ophir Harpaz) | YouTube |
| CVE | CVSS | Product / Component | Vulnerability | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CVE-2022-38034 | 4.3 | Windows RPC — WksSvc (MS-WKST) | Elevation of privilege: RPC security-callback caching bypass allows remote calls to functions restricted to local clients (NetrUseAdd/NetrUseDel/etc.), enabling NTLM credential theft or MITM file-serving. | Cold Hard Cache |
| CVE-2022-44707 | 6.5 | Windows — wininit.exe (WindowsShutdown RPC interface) | Denial of service: RPC caching bypass on the undocumented WsdrCheckForHiberboot function lets a remote authenticated user bypass the SID check and force WsdrInitiateShutdown/WsdrAbortShutdown. | Can't Wait to Shut You Down |
| CVE-2023-21549 | 8.8 | Windows — SMB Witness Service (MS-SWN) | Elevation of privilege: a malicious RPC call abuses the Witness service to reach RPC functions normally restricted to privileged/cluster callers, enabling privilege escalation on the target server. Not covered in an Akamai blog post; credited directly via Microsoft's January 2023 Patch Tuesday acknowledgments. | Tripwire VERT — Jan 2023 Patch Tuesday |
| CVE-2024-43532 | 8.8 | Windows — Remote Registry client (WinReg) | Elevation of privilege: WinReg client falls back to an insecure RPC authentication level over TCP/IP, allowing NTLM relay to AD Certificate Services and creation of a rogue domain admin. | Call and Register |