Anna Sperotto

Anna Sperotto is an Associate Professor of Proactive Network Security at the Design and Analysis of Communication Systems (DACS) group within the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (EEMCS) at the University of Twente. She leads research in network security, particularly focusing on DNS infrastructure, DDoS attacks, and proactive threat detection methodologies. Her work bridges theoretical research with practical implementations in real-world network environments.

Dr. Sperotto earned her PhD in Computer Science from the University of Twente in 2010 with her thesis 'Flow-based Intrusion Detection.' Prior to that, she completed her MSc (2006) and BSc (2004) in Computer Science at Ca' Foscari University in Venice, Italy. This strong academic foundation has supported her development as a leading researcher in network security.

Her research interests center on network monitoring, intrusion detection, network security, and network management, with particular expertise in DNS security and DDoS attack mitigation. Dr. Sperotto's work often involves large-scale Internet measurements to understand security threats and develop innovative detection mechanisms. She has pioneered approaches for proactive threat detection using DNS measurements and has made significant contributions to understanding DNS infrastructure vulnerabilities.

Dr. Sperotto has received multiple prestigious awards including a Best Paper Award at TMA'21 for her work on DNS Anycast adoption, an ACM IMC Community Contribution Award, and the IRTF Applied Networking Research Prize in 2015. Her publications consistently address critical challenges in network security with practical implications for Internet infrastructure resilience.

As an academic leader, Dr. Sperotto supervises multiple PhD candidates and has successfully guided numerous doctoral students to completion. She has held significant service roles including General Co-Chair of ACM IMC 2019 and TPC Co-Chair of PAM 2020. She serves as Area Editor for ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review and Associate Editor for multiple leading network management journals, demonstrating her significant influence in the networking research community.

Her research is supported by multiple projects including MASCOT (MeAsuring Security in Cloud OuTsourcing), MADDVIPR (Mapping DNS DDoS Vulnerabilities to Improve Protection and Prevention), and TIDE (Threat Identification Using Active DNS Measurements), reflecting her focus on practical solutions to real-world security challenges.