Riccardo Paccagnella is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, where he is a core faculty member in the Software and Societal Systems Department (S3D) and CyLab's Security and Privacy Institute, with a courtesy appointment in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department (ECE). His work focuses on system and hardware security, with particular expertise in microarchitectural vulnerabilities and their implications for secure software. Paccagnella earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2023, where he was advised by Chris Fletcher. His doctoral research laid the foundation for his continuing work on hardware security vulnerabilities. Dr. Paccagnella's research centers on system and hardware security, with a focus on uncovering and mitigating new classes of microarchitectural vulnerabilities. His work examines how hardware features like data memory-dependent prefetchers, dynamic frequency scaling, and on-chip interconnects can be exploited to leak sensitive information. He has made significant contributions to understanding side-channel attacks on cryptographic implementations, particularly those related to power and timing analysis. His research bridges the gap between theoretical security models and practical hardware implementations, revealing vulnerabilities in widely used processors from Apple, Intel, and AMD. Paccagnella's recent publications reveal a strong focus on microarchitectural side-channel attacks, particularly those exploiting hardware prefetchers, frequency scaling mechanisms, and on-chip interconnects. His work has demonstrated novel attacks like GoFetch (targeting Apple's M-series chips) and Hertzbleed (turning power side channels into remote timing attacks), which have fundamentally challenged assumptions about constant-time cryptographic implementations. His research spans both theoretical analysis and practical demonstrations, with many of his findings receiving industry recognition through awards like the Pwnie Awards. Dr. Paccagnella's research has been recognized with numerous prestigious awards, including the Pwnie 2024 Award for Best Cryptographic Attack for his GoFetch research, multiple Pwnie Award nominations, the IEEE Micro Top Picks 2023 recognition, and the Intel Bug Bounty Award. His work has also been selected for the Top Picks in Hardware and Embedded Security 2024. These accolades reflect the significant impact of his research on both academic and industry understanding of hardware security vulnerabilities. Paccagnella advises PhD students including Inwhan Chun and Isabella Siu, and is actively recruiting new students for CMU's Security and Privacy-focused PhD programs. His research has been supported by significant funding from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, and industry partners including Intel, Qualcomm, and Cisco. As a core faculty member of CyLab's Security and Privacy Institute at CMU, Paccagnella collaborates with a broad network of security researchers across multiple departments. His work often involves cross-institutional collaborations, particularly with researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, University of Texas at Austin, and Georgia Institute of Technology. He is part of CMU's vibrant security research ecosystem that includes the Software and Societal Systems Department and the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department.
