Emma Dauterman

Research Abstract:

Users and organizations have grown increasingly reliant on applications that require them to send their private data to a remote server. This centralization of private data creates a target for attackers, resulting in many high-profile attacks damaging to individuals and organizations. Many attacks on private user data follow a pattern: the attacker exploits some weakness, often account security, to access application servers, and then it copies the data stored at the servers. My research is motivated by the observation that compromises are bound to happen, and so we should focus on reducing damage in the event of compromise. Through this lens, I take a defense-in-depth approach to the problem of data theft: my research centers on (1) securing user accounts in the event of compromise, and (2) hiding sensitive user data from remote servers.

Bio:

Emma Dauterman is a fifth-year Ph.D. student studying computer science at UC Berkeley where she is advised by Raluca Ada Popa and Ion Stoica. Her research centers on building systems with strong security and privacy guarantees using cryptography. Her work is supported by a Microsoft Ada Lovelace Research Fellowship and a NSF GRFP Fellowship. Emma completed her B.S. and M.S. at Stanford, where she was advised by David Mazières.