HyPerSec
Hardening the foundations of virtualized systems.
Systems security research group · Systems Security Research Group · [Institution placeholder]
About
HyPerSec is a research group focused on the security of the systems software that modern computation runs on: hypervisors, operating systems, and trusted execution environments. We build defenses that are small enough to verify and strong enough to ship.
Our work spans attack-surface reduction, isolation, and formal reasoning about systems code, with a shared conviction that the trusted computing base should shrink, not grow.
Placeholder copy — the group's real introduction will replace this paragraph.
Research
Three directions, one goal: make the foundations of virtualized systems trustworthy.
Hypervisor & Virtualization SecuritySample — replace
Making the layer under everything smaller, and harder to break.SAMPLE — replace with a real description. We study how hypervisors fail and how to make them fail less: attack surface reduction, memory-safety hardening of device models, and formally verified micro-hypervisors.
Operating System Kernel HardeningSample — replace
Defense in depth for the code that everything else trusts.SAMPLE — replace with a real description. Exploit mitigations, kernel isolation primitives, and automated vulnerability discovery for commodity and research operating systems.
Confidential Computing & Trusted ExecutionSample — replace
Trust models, attestation, and side channels for enclaves and confidential VMs.SAMPLE — replace with a real description. We examine what enclaves and confidential VMs actually guarantee: attestation protocols, microarchitectural side channels, and usable trust models.
News
site Public website launched Sample — replace
SAMPLE — replace. The HyPerSec website is now live at www.sgrastar.zone, covering our research directions, members, and publications.
paper Paper accepted at a top-tier venue Sample — replace
SAMPLE — replace. A paper on hypervisor attack surface reduction was accepted; details will be posted here.
member A new PhD student joins the group Sample — replace
SAMPLE — replace. A new PhD student joins the group to work on kernel hardening.
Selected publications
Hardening the Edge: A Survey of Hypervisor Attack Surfaces and DefensesSample — replace
SAMPLE ABSTRACT — replace. We survey the attack surface of commodity hypervisors and systematize defenses along the dimensions of attack surface reduction, isolation, and formal verification.
BibTeX
@inproceedings{sample2026hardening,
title = {Hardening the Edge: A Survey of Hypervisor Attack Surfaces and Defenses},
author = {Alex Sample and Dana Sample and Min Sample},
booktitle= {USENIX Security},
year = {2026},
doi = {10.0000/sample.2026.001},
} Enclave in Enclave: Lightweight Isolation for Confidential Virtual MachinesSample — replace
SAMPLE ABSTRACT — replace. We propose a nested isolation design that splits a confidential VM into security domains with minimal additions to the trusted computing base.
BibTeX
@inproceedings{sample2025enclave,
title = {Enclave in Enclave: Lightweight Isolation for Confidential Virtual Machines},
author = {Dana Sample and Alex Sample},
booktitle= {IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy},
year = {2025},
eprint = {2501.00000},
} Shrink the TCB: Verified Boot Chains for Nested VirtualizationSample — replace
SAMPLE ABSTRACT — replace. We build and formally analyze boot-chain verification for nested virtualization setups, cutting the trusted code that must be audited by an order of magnitude.
BibTeX
@article{sample2024shrink,
title = {Shrink the TCB: Verified Boot Chains for Nested Virtualization},
author = {Alex Sample and Casey Sample},
journal = {ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology},
year = {2024},
doi = {10.0000/sample.2024.007},
} Interested in joining or collaborating?
We are always happy to talk to motivated students and researchers about systems security.