Systems & Security Research (SySR) Lab

The SySR Lab at Brigham Young University explores longstanding and emerging security concerns in systems/network security and privacy. Our research focuses include new techniques for automated vulnerability exploration, discovery and measurement of privacy and security concerns in cellular mobile networks, and design of secure-by-construction abstractions for low-level systems.

We are currently looking for undergraduate and graduate students interested in carrying out systems security research; see here for details.

news

Jul 01, 2026	Systems & Security Research (SySR) Lab started!

selected publications

Fizzle: A Framework for Deterministic and Reproducible Network Fuzzing

Nathaniel Bennett, Tyler Tucker, Carson Stillman, and 3 more authors

In Proceedings of the 47th IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, 2026

DOI
On the Security of 6 GHz Automated Frequency Coordination (AFC)

Nathaniel Bennett, Arupjyoti Bhuyan, and Nicholas Kaminski

In Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Security and Privacy of Next-Generation Networks (FutureG), 2026

DOI
RANsacked: A Domain-Informed Approach for Fuzzing LTE and 5G RAN-Core Interfaces

Nathaniel Bennett, Weidong Zhu, Benjamin Simon, and 4 more authors

In Proceedings of the 2024 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security, 2024

Abs DOI

Cellular network infrastructure serves as the backbone of modern mobile wireless communication. As such, cellular cores must be proactively secured against external threats to ensure reliable service. Compromised base station attacks against the core are a rising threat to cellular networks, while user device inputs have long been considered as an attack vector; despite this, few techniques exist to comprehensively test RAN-Core interfaces against malicious input. In this work, we devise a fuzzing framework that performantly fuzzes cellular interfaces accessible from a base station or user device, overcoming several challenges in fuzzing specific to LTE/5G network components. We also introduce ASNFuzzGen, a tool that compiles ASN.1 specifications into structure-aware fuzzing modules, thereby facilitating effective fuzzing exploration of complex cellular protocols. We run fuzzing campaigns against seven open-source and commercial cores and discover 119 vulnerabilities, with 93 CVEs assigned. Our results reveal common implementation mistakes across several cores that lead to vulnerabilities, and the successful coordination of patches for these vulnerabilities across several vendors demonstrates the practical impact ASNFuzzGen has on hardening user-exposed cellular systems.