PhD Student
Will Koch received his BS in computer engineering from University of Rhode Island where he developed interests in machine learning and cyber security. After graduation he worked as a software engineer for six years on the Sikorsky CH-53K King Stallion helicopter project before returning back to academia to receive his MS in machine learning from Stevens Institute of Technology. To focus on his growing interest in cyber security he came to Boston University for his PhD where he has been advised by Azer Bestavros.
He has published a number of papers in a wide area of cyber security including static and dynamic malware analysis, vulnerability analysis, cyber defense and attacks and mobile security. In 2017, Wil was introduced to first-person-view (FPV) drone racing and was immediately drawn to the sport for his love of flight, racing and engineering. This passion drove a shift in his research. He began working with Renato Mancuso, Richard West, and Azer Bestavros to fuse together machine learning and flight control leading to the development of the worlds first neural network flight control firmware, Neuroflight. As a leader and someone who encourages continued learning Wil has co-founded CT Hackerspace, Connecticut’s oldest and largest hackerspace and founded Boston Drone Racing, an FPV drone racing and hacking club.
Selected Publications
January 2019
Neuroflight: Next Generation Flight Control Firmware
William Koch, Renato Mancuso, Azer Bestavros
Pre-print PDF
January 2019
Reinforcement Learning for UAV Attitude Control
William Koch, Renato Mancuso, Richard West, Azer Bestavros
ACM Transactions on Cyber-Physical Systems PDF
August 2017
Identifier Binding Attacks and Defenses in Software-Defined Networks
Samuel Jero, William Koch, Rickard Skowyra, Hamed Okhravi, Cristina Nita-Rotaru, David Bigelow
USENIX Security Symposium PDF
July 2017
Semi-Automated Discovery of Server-Based Information Oversharing Vulnerabilities in Android Applications
William Koch, Abdelberi Chaabane, Manuel Egele, William Robertson, Engin Kirda
ACM International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis (ISSTA) PDF
April 2017
PayBreak: Defense Against Cryptographic Ransomware
Eugene Kolodenker, William Koch, Gianluca Stringhini, Manuel Egele
ACM Asia Conference on Computer and Communications Security (ASIACCS) PDF
October 2016
Markov Modeling of Moving Target Defense Games
Hoda Maleki, Saeed Valizadeh,William Koch, Azer Bestavros, Marten van Dijk
ACM Workshop on Moving Target Defense PDF