PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Mauro Conti

Mauro Conti is a computer security researcher at the University of Padua whose work includes attacks on machine learning systems, from hate-speech detectors to federated learning. He earned a PhD in computer science at Sapienza University of Rome in 2009, worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and joined Padua in 2011, becoming a full professor in 2018. A 2018 paper he coauthored showed that seven hate-speech detection models could be evaded with typos, changed word boundaries or innocuous words, and a 2023 CCS paper designed an attack on federated learning for graph neural network recommender systems. IEEE elevated him to Fellow in 2021, and he was editor-in-chief of IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security from 2022 to 2024. Since 2025, he is also Wallenberg Guest Professor and Chair in Cybersecurity at Örebro University in Sweden, and he heads the SPRITZ Security and Privacy Research Group in Padua.

Works
1,031
Citations
29,814
h-index
84
Rankings
#76 by first-author papers and #81 by cited papers
Badges

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 22 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 2005–2011

    Sapienza PhD and Amsterdam postdoc

    He earns an MSc in 2005 and a PhD in computer science in 2009 at Sapienza University of Rome, advised by Luigi V. Mancini, and visits George Mason University's Center for Secure Information Systems in 2008. After winning an ERCIM "Alain Bensoussan" Fellowship in 2009, he works from 2009 to 2011 as a postdoctoral researcher at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam under Andrew S. Tanenbaum and Bruno Crispo.

  2. 2011–2018

    Professor at Padua

    He joins the University of Padua as an assistant professor in 2011, becomes associate professor in 2015 and full professor in 2018. From 2012 to 2016, he holds an EU Marie Curie Fellowship for PRISM-CODE, a project on privacy and security for mobile cooperative devices, and from 2014 to 2016 he leads a Padua project on tackling mobile malware with machine learning techniques.

  3. 2016–2017

    The Skype & Type attack

    In 2016, with Alberto Compagno, Daniele Lain and Gene Tsudik, he presents Skype & Type, a keyboard eavesdropping attack that reconstructs keystrokes from the audio of a Skype call. With some knowledge of the victim's typing style and keyboard model, the attack reaches 91.7% top-5 accuracy in guessing a random key, and the paper appears at ACM AsiaCCS in 2017.

  4. 2018

    Evading hate-speech detection

    In 2018, he coauthors "All You Need is 'Love': Evading Hate-speech Detection" with Tommi Gröndahl, Luca Pajola, Mika Juuti and N. Asokan for the ACM Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Security. The team reproduces seven hate-speech detection models and shows that inserted typos, changed word boundaries or added innocuous words break them, while a combination of these tricks also works against Google Perspective.

  5. 2021–2023

    IEEE Fellow and Italian knighthood

    In 2021, IEEE elevates him to Fellow for contributions to communications network security, and the Young Academy of Europe names him a Fellow. He is made a Knight of the Order of the Italian Republic in 2022 and an ACM Distinguished Member in 2023.

  6. 2022–2024

    Editor-in-chief of IEEE TIFS

    He is editor-in-chief of IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security from 2022 to 2024. In 2024, he also joins the editorial board of IEEE Intelligent Systems for its AI and Cybersecurity Department.

  7. 2023

    Attacking federated recommender systems

    In 2023, he coauthors an ACM CCS paper with Marco Arazzi, Antonino Nocera and Stjepan Picek on graph neural network recommender systems built with federated learning. The work finds a security flaw in setups that combine federated learning with differential privacy and community-driven approaches, and it designs an attack that deceives state-of-the-art defenses.

  8. Since 2025

    Wallenberg chair at Örebro

    In April 2025, WASP announces his appointment as Wallenberg Guest Professor and Chair in Cybersecurity, a five-year part-time role at Örebro University in the Unit of Computer Science and the Center on AI, Robotics, and Cybersecurity. AI is a recurring theme in his research, including how tampering with a model's learning process, for example through backdoors, can change its decisions. He is a full professor at the University of Padua, where he heads the SPRITZ Security and Privacy Research Group and is the Rector's Delegate for Industry Relations.

Career

  1. Since 2025Örebro UniversityWallenberg Guest Professor and Chair in Cybersecurity
  2. Since 2011University of PaduaAssistant professor, Associate professor
  3. 2020–2025Delft University of Technology
  4. 2018–2025University of Washington
  5. 2016–2017Sapienza University of Rome
  6. 2009–2011Vrije Universiteit AmsterdamPostdoctoral researcher
  7. 2008George Mason University

Education

  1. 2009Sapienza University of RomePhD
  2. 2005Sapienza University of RomeMSc

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

Most-cited works

  1. A Survey on Homomorphic Encryption Schemes2018 · ACM Computing Surveys · 1,386 citations
  2. A Survey on Security and Privacy Issues of Bitcoin2018 · IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials · 1,111 citations
  3. A Survey of Man In The Middle Attacks2016 · IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials · 724 citations
  4. Internet of Things security and forensics: Challenges and opportunities2017 · Future Generation Computer Systems · 719 citations
  5. Smart health: A context-aware health paradigm within smart cities2014 · IEEE Communications Magazine · 595 citations

From OpenAlex, as of 21 October 2026.

  1. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes University of Padua. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.
  2. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes University of Padua. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.
  3. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes University of Padua. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  4. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes University of Washington. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, recent citations, dual appointments and job moves across 2,420 university researchers and 308 frontier-lab researchers.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. Mauro Conti, PhD - Full Professor - EU Marie Curie Fellow (Short Bio) math.unipd.it. Checked 20 October 2026.
  2. Mauro Conti | UW Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering ece.uw.edu. Checked 20 October 2026.
  3. Mauro Conti, PhD - Full Professor - EU Marie Curie Fellow (Research) math.unipd.it. Checked 20 October 2026.
  4. [1609.09359] Don't Skype & Type! Acoustic Eavesdropping in Voice-Over-IP arxiv.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  5. [1808.09115] All You Need is "Love": Evading Hate-speech Detection arxiv.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  6. Mauro Conti elevated to IEEE Fellow tudelft.nl. Checked 20 October 2026.
  7. Mauro Conti, PhD - Full Professor - EU Marie Curie Fellow (Professional Activities and Services) math.unipd.it. Checked 20 October 2026.
  8. [2305.05355] Turning Privacy-preserving Mechanisms against Federated Learning arxiv.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  9. Cybersecurity expert engaged as a chair guest professor by WASP | WASP wasp-sweden.org. Checked 20 October 2026.
  10. Cybersecurity expert engaged as a chair guest professor by WASP - Örebro University oru.se. Checked 20 October 2026.
  11. Mauro Conti, PhD - IEEE Fellow - Full Professor - EU Marie Curie Fellow Alumni math.unipd.it. Checked 20 October 2026.