Bjorn De Sutter

Bjorn De Sutter

Full Professor
Computer Systems Lab
Dept. of Electronics and Information Systems
Ghent University
Technologiepark-Zwijnaarde 126
9052 Gent, Belgium

Voice: (+32) 9 264 33 67
E-mail: bjorn.desutter@ugent.be

Biography
Research: Projects, Funding & Publications
Postdocs, PhD Students & Open Positions
Professional Scientific Activities
Teaching

Personal view on science

Bjorn De Sutter has multiple open PhD student positions in the domain of software protection!

Biography

Bjorn De Sutter is Full Professor in the Computer Systems Lab in the Electronics and Information Systems Department of Ghent University.

His areas of interest include

Software protection and security (obfuscation, side channel mitigation, fault injection mitigation, software diversity, multi-variant execution)
Code generation for accelerators such as GPUs from higher-level languages such as Julia

His research at Ghent University has been funded by the Fund for Scientific Research - Flanders (FWO), the European Commission, the Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology (IWT), now VLAIO, the Cybersecurity Research Program Flanders, and several bilateral industrial collaborations. In the above areas, Bjorn published over 100 papers in international journals and conferences. He also participated in more than 40 program committees in these research areas.

For his Master thesis (in collaboration with Mark Christiaens) on multimedia architectures, he won the yearly Barco Award for Graduation Dissertations 1998, awarded by the Fund for Scientific Research - Flanders. In 2013 and 2018, Bjorn won two HiPEAC Technology Transfer Awards.

Before becoming a faculty member at Ghent University, Bjorn also lead the architecture & compilation team at IMEC (2005-2008), where the ADRES coarse-grained dynamically reconfigurable array architecture and its compiler were developed. He has also been a faculty member of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (2008-2011), and he has spent some time (2002-2003) in the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center to collaborate on Java whole program optimization with Frank Tip.

Research

Publications

[H-index=43] [Selected Publications] [All Publications]

Research Topics

Software Protection - Software and System Security

Software Protection Evaluation Methodologies

[CSUR-25,CSUR-25-SUPPL]

Code hardening against fault injection attacks

[IJIS-16,FC-13]

Anti-Debugging

[SAD-20,SSPREW-16]

Software Isolation

[EMSOFT-11]

Multi-variant Execution

[CS25, EuroSys-22, EuroSys-17,USENIX-ATC-16,IEEE-TDSC-16,FPS-12b]

Software Diversity

[IEEE-TDSC-20,CCS-15,MTD-15,AMC-TACO-13,IEEE S&P-13,ICISC-08,ICSM-07,DRM-04,ICISC-04]

Software Obfuscation and Deobfuscation

[CS-23,CS-22,IJIS-21,ACM-TOPS-20,SPE-20,JSS-19,WICSA-16,MTD-15,SPRO-15,IEEE-TDSC-14,FPS-12a,WQP-07,DRM-05,WISA-05]

Mitigations against Side Channel Attacks

[IEEE-TDSC-17,ACM-TACO-12,IEEE-S&P-09]

Cryptographic Key Extraction

[CheckMATE-24]

Attack and Protection Modelling

[JSS-25 CheckMATE-24,EMSE-19,ICPC-17]

Whole-Program Compiler Techniques & Binary Rewriting

Interprocedural Analysis: Dominators & Liveness

[TOPLAS-07,JSA-06]

Operating System Specialization & Compaction

[TECS-07,LCTES-05]

Program Compaction

[TECS-07b,LCTES-04,TOPLAS-05,CACM-03,LCTES-03,OOPSLA-02,LCTES-01,TOPLAS-00]

Binary Program Editing & Instrumentation

[PASTE-05,PASTE-04]

Java Refactoring and Optimization

[TOPLAS-11, ECOOP-04]

VLIW code generation

[CASES-07]

Compilation for accelerators - GPU and CGRA

High-Level GPU programming and compilation

[IEEE-TPDS-22,AES-19,IEEE-TDSC-19]

CGRA Survey

[HBSPS-19]

Compiler Techniques for CGRAs

[TACO-16,LCTES-08]

Software-Defined Radio Processing

[JSPS-10,MICRO-08,DATE-08]

Multimedia Accelerators

[MM-09, JSPS-08,HiPEAC-08,SPIE-07]

Multimedia Platform Design and Tool Flow

[JSPS-09]

Virtualization

System Virtualization

[JSA-16,JSA-13]

Medical Image Reconstruction and DSP Processing

Programming DSP filters

[IJHPCA-15]

Radiological Path Computations - Positron Emission Tomography

[JHPCA-22,JSA-99,ParComp-99]

Citation Analysis

To be cited or not to be cited

[CACM-12]

External Funding

VLAIO Baekeland fellowships (as promotor)
- Pieter De Cremer (starting Jul 2017)
IWT and FWO PhD Grants (as promotor)

Thomas Faingnaert (starting Nov 2020)
Jens Vanden Broeck (starting Jan 2015)
Tim Besard (starting Jan 2013)
Stijn Volckaert (starting Jan 2012)
Panagiotis Theocharis (starting Jan 2011)
Niels Penneman (starting Jan 2010)
Jeroen Van Cleemput (starting Jan 2010)
Christophe Foket (starting Jan 2010)
FWO Projects (as promotor or co-promotor)

Partial Multi-Variant eXecution, 226,500 euro, 2020-2023
Evaluation Models for the Resilience and Stealth of Software Protections and Malware, 270,000 euro, 2018-2021 (joint FWO-FWF project)
Compiler interfaces for unrestricted use of high-level languages for programming accelerators, 250,000 euro, 2018-2021
Protected execution: from Physically Unclonable Functions to Virtual Machines, 240,000 euro, 2013-2016
Multi-objective Compiler Optimization Space Exploration, 280,000 euro, 2010-2013
Variability-Aware PrOgram Relocation, 267.200 euro, 2009-2012)
European FP7 Projects (as coordinator or co-promotor)

ASPIRE: Advanced Software Protection: Integration, Research and Exploitatin, 2.95M euro, 2013-2016, coordinator
EUROMILS: Secure European Virtualisation for Trustworthy Applications in Critical Domains, 2012-2015, partner
Other (Past) funding

Several bilateral agreements with industry
Personal Postdoc Grant FWO (granted for 2002-2005 and for 2005-2008)
Apollo project funding through bilateral contracts with industry at IMEC (2006-2008)
2 International Stay Abroad funding by FWO (2001, 2002-2003)

Patents

US Patent 7,356,802. Automatic customization of classes

US Patent 11,580,007, EU Patent 3,549,020 Self-Debugging

PhD Students & Postdocs

Current PhD Students

Yifan Wu
Thomas Faingnaert
Tab Zhang
Waldo Verstraete

Former PhD Students

Bart Coppens (grad 2013)
Jeroen Van Cleemput (grad 2015)
Stijn Volckaert (grad 2015)
Christophe Foket (grad 2015)
Niels Penneman (grad 2015)
Tim Besard (grad 2019)
Bert Abrath (grad 2019)
Pieter De Cremer (grad 2022)
Jens Van den Broeck (grad 2022)

Current Master Thesis Students

Bram Debode
Midas Van den Bulcke
Guillaume Verhamme
Hannes Wille
Noah Vandamme
Pjotr Visman

Open Positions

Multiple PhD student positions in software protection

Selected Professional Scientific Activities

Editorial Board & Steering Committee
- ACM DTRAP: Digital Threats: Research and Practice
- ISSISP: International Summer School on Information Security and Protection
Conference General Chair
- ARES 2025: 20th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security
Program Committee Chair
- SPRO 2016: International Workshop on Software Protection>
- LCTES 2011: ACM SIGPLAN/SIGBED 2011 Conference on Languages, Compilers, and Tools for Embedded Systems
- DAC 2010: Design Automation Conference, Embedded Software Tools And Design Track
- DAC 2009: Design Automation Conference, Embedded Software Tools And Design Track
- DAC 2008: Design Automation Conference, Embedded Software Tools And Design Track
- NTCT 2002: International Symposium on New Trends In Compiler Technology, Ghent University
Program Committee Member -- Conferences
- SAC 2025: 40th ACM/SIGAPP Symposium on Applied Computing (SPIRIT: Software Protection and Reverse Engineering Track)
- ICCQ 2025: 5th International Conference on Code Quality
- ISC 2025: 27th Information Security Conference
- ISC 2024: 27th Information Security Conference
- EuroSec 2024: 17th European Workshop on Systems Security (EuroSec), co-located with ACM EuroSys 2024
- PAAP 2022: Int’l Symposium on Parallel Architectures, Algorithms and Programming
- ARES 2022: 17th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security
- PACT 2021: International Conference on Parallel Architectures and Compilation Techniques
- ARES 2021: 16th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security
- ARES 2021: 16th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security
- ARES 2020: 15th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security
- LCTES 2020: ACM SIGPLAN/SIGBED Conference on Languages, Compilers, and Tools for Embedded Systems
- SPRO 2019: Workshop on Software Protection
- PARCO 2019: International Conference on Parallel Computing
- DATE 2018: Design, Automation & Test in Europe
- SSPREW 2018: Software Security, Protection and Reverse Engineering Workshop
- ICDCS2018: IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (security track)
- ParCo 2017: International Conference on Parallel Computing
- DATE 2017: Design, Automation & Test in Europe
- SSPREW 2016: Software Security, Protection and Reverse Engineering Workshop
- TRUST 2016: International Conference on Trust and Trustworthy Computing
- ParCo 2015: International Conference on Parallel Computing
- PPREW 2015: Program Protection and Reverse Engineering Workshop
- SPRO 2015: Workshop on Software Protection
- PPREW 2014: Program Protection and Reverse Engineering Workshop
- CC 2014: International Conference on Compiler Construction
- SSP 2013: ACM/DAPA Workshop on Software Security and Protection
- ParCo 2013: International Conference on Parallel Computing
- PPREW 2013: Program Protection and Reverse Engineering Workshop
- DATE 2013: Design, Automation & Test in Europe
- CC 2012: International Conference on Compiler Construction
- DSD 2012: Euromicro Conference on Digital System Design
- ParCo 2011: International Conference on Parallel Computing
- DATE 2011: Design, Automation & Test in Europe
- HiPEAC 2011: International Conference on High Performance Embedded Architectures & Compilers
- DATE 2010: Design, Automation & Test in Europe
- DSD 2010: Euromicro Conference on Digital System Design
- CC 2010: International Conference on Compiler Construction
- LCTES 2010: ACM SIGPLAN/SIGBED 2010 Conference on Languages, Compilers, and Tools for Embedded Systems
- PACT 2009: International Conference on Parallel Architectures and Compilation Techniques
- LCTES 2008: ACM SIGPLAN/SIGBED 2008 Conference on Languages, Compilers, and Tools for Embedded Systems
- CGO 2008: International Symposium on Code Generation and Optimization
- CASES 2007: International Conference on Compilers, Architecture and Synthesis for Embedded Systems
- LCTES 2007: ACM SIGPLAN/SIGBED 2007 Conference on Languages, Compilers, and Tools for Embedded Systems
- HiPEAC 2007: International Conference on High Performance Embedded Architectures & Compilers
- RTAS 2006: IEEE Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium
- EUC 2005: International Conference on Embedded and Ubiquitous Computing
- LCTES 2005: ACM SIGPLAN/SIGBED Conference on Languages, Compilers, and Tools for Embedded Systems
Reviewing -- Journals
- ACM Computing Surveys
- ACM Transactions on Architectures and Code Optimization
- ACM Transactions on Design Automation of Electronic Systems
- ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems
- ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology
- IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering
- IEEE Transactions on CAD of Integrated Circuits and Systems
- IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems
- IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computing
- IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration Systems
- IEEE Software Magazine
- IEEE Access
- Microprocessors and Microsystems (Elsevier)
- Journal of Systems and Software (Elsevier)
- Journal of Systems Architecture (Elsevier)
- Journal of Industrial Information Integration (Elsevier)
- Journal of Software Maintenance and Evolution: Research and Practice (Wiley)
- Software: Practice and Experience (Wiley)
- Empirical Software Engineering (Springer)
- Telecommunication Systems (Springer )
- Journal of Design Automation for Embedded Systems (Springer)
- IET Software (Wiley)
- Transactions on HiPEAC
- EURASIP Journal on Information Security
- Journal of Sensor and Actuator Networks
- Journal of Industrial Information Integration
- Science of Computer Programming
Guest Editor
- ACM TECS: ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems, Vol. 12, No. 1s, March 2013
- CACM: Communications of the ACM, Vol. 46, No. 8, August 2003

Teaching

2011-2019:	Various topics at several editions of the International Summer School on Information Security and Protection (ISSISP)
2012-2026:	Compilers (Ghent University)
2008-2026:	Inleiding tot de Elektrotechniek (Ghent University)
2015-2026:	Software Hacking & Protection (Ghent University)
2018-2025:	Blockchain: Technology and Applications (Ghent University)
2008-2011:	Advanced Computer Architecture (Vrije Universiteit Brussel)
2008-2011:	Code Generation for Embedded Systems (Vrije Universiteit Brussel)