Simone Raponi

AI & Cybersecurity  ·  From the Dark Web to the Deep Sea

Open to collaborations

Nearly a decade of bringing AI & ML to adversarial problems at the extremes, from criminal networks and critical infrastructure to satellite systems and the ocean floor. One question drives it all: where can intelligent systems make the decisive difference?

16 H-Index
1,615 Citations
1 Book
23 Papers
2 Patents
$700K+ Grants

My career at a glance

AI & Computer Vision Vessel classification via hydrophones · fish detection & tracking · biomass estimation · pellet counting · acoustic video streaming · subsea digital twins · AI telemetry chatbots
Cybersecurity Active cyber threat monitoring & real-time mitigation · Designated Officer for Classified Data & Information Security
Defense Programs ASTERION (European Defence Fund) · Seacure (European Defence Fund) · SEAFENCE (National Military Research Plan) · DEEP 2.0 (Fincantieri)
API Scanning Engine Designed & built from scratch: full endpoint-exploration orchestrator, advanced parameter-resolution strategies, inter-parameter dependency computation
AI Microservices Suite of Golang & Python services combining supervised/unsupervised ML and Generative AI (LLMs) for adaptive, autonomous API security assessment
AI Division Co-founded and led from the ground up as Employee #4 · opened new market segments enabling enterprise API perimeter security
>70% Faster scans vs. state-of-the-art API security tools
>80% Better detection Vulnerability accuracy vs. market competitors
€10M Series A Direct contribution to closing the funding round
PROMENADE · Key Contributor Led the ML workstream of the European project advancing maritime safety and AI-driven surveillance technologies
Seq2Seq LSTM Model Encoder-Decoder architecture with LSTMs · advanced data fusion combining AIS and raw radar streams for maritime situational awareness
70% Lower prediction error vs. state-of-the-art vessel trajectory forecasting solutions
2.5 nmi Forecast accuracy Over 9-hour prediction horizons using heterogeneous sensor fusion
Tor De-anonymization De-anonymizing Tor users through activity time-zone patterns and native-language stylometry, without ever touching the encryption
Satellite Fingerprinting CNN-extracted hardware imperfections in 100M+ IRIDIUM IQ samples as fingerprints for transmitter authentication at the physical layer
Cryptojacking Detecting cryptojacking inside VPN-encrypted traffic via ML flow fingerprinting, exposing rogue miners through the network noise they cannot suppress
Acoustic Forensics Classifying firearms by caliber and model from muzzle-blast recordings using AI, with no hardware beyond a microphone
Wireless Keylogging Reconstructing keystrokes on wireless keyboards at 15 m through passive RF capture alone, requiring no malware, no firmware access, no physical proximity
Zero-Crypto Keys Establishing 128-bit shared secrets over radio frequency-hopping collisions, achieving provably secure key exchange with zero cryptographic primitives
Seabed Surveillance Seabed-to-satellite sensor fusion for real-time surveillance of critical undersea infrastructure, applied to the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage
Supply Chain A first-principles post-mortem of the SolarWinds attack, charting the systemic supply chain attack surface and prescribing countermeasures for critical infrastructure
Container Security Full-stack vulnerability analysis of the Docker ecosystem, exposing architectural weaknesses across container runtime, image registry, and orchestration layers
Vessel Cybersecurity Mapping the full cyber attack surface of modern vessels, from AIS spoofing and GNSS manipulation to bridge network intrusions and autonomous ship threats
Defense Programs AI-driven perimeter hardening for classified maritime and critical infrastructure programs under NATO and national defense mandates
Information Warfare Modeling misinformation spread through epidemic theory, framing AI-amplified fake news as a precision weapon of modern information warfare
Programmable Firewalls A distributed stateful firewall embedded natively in the SDN data plane, enforcing per-flow security policies at line rate without sacrificing programmability
Edge Security Threat modeling of edge computing deployments, uncovering open attack surfaces and charting the roadmap for edge-native intrusion detection
Navigation Poisoning Weaponizing commercial navigation APIs through phantom traffic injection, demonstrating coordinated rerouting attacks capable of paralyzing urban mobility at scale
Ph.D. Computer Science & Engineering Hamad Bin Khalifa University · Qatar AI‑driven Detection of Cybersecurity‑related Patterns ★ Best Ph.D. Award · Outstanding Performance Award
M.Sc. Computer Science Sapienza University of Rome · Italy Geographical De‑anonymization of Crowds in the Dark Web 110/110 summa cum laude
B.Sc. Computer Science Sapienza University of Rome · Italy An Administrative Model for Attribute‑Based Access Control 110/110 summa cum laude

Latest News & Achievements

Experience

Contact me

The right problem finds the right mind.

Some of the most interesting work I've done started with an unexpected conversation, not a formal pitch, not a job listing, but someone who had a genuinely hard problem and the conviction to pursue it.

Whether it's a shared research question, a technical advisory role, a joint project, or something harder to categorize: if there's a chance we could build something exceptional together, at the frontier of AI, cybersecurity, or wherever the two collide, why wait to find out?

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Funded Research Grants

Principal Investigator on $700K+ in competitive research funding.

Patents

2 US patent applications in applied cybersecurity: authentication and account recovery.

Publications

1 book  ·  11 journal papers  ·  12 conference papers

Book

Journal Papers

Conference Papers

Academic Services

Technical Program Committee

PC member for 20+ international conferences, including ANT, DEXA, SACMAT, IWCC, and FPS.

Reviewer

Reviewer for 50+ venues across IEEE, ACM, Elsevier, and Springer, including IEEE INFOCOM, ACM WiSec, IEEE Internet of Things Journal, IEEE Access, and Computer Communications. Technical Reviewer for "10 Machine Learning Blueprints you should know for Cybersecurity" (Packt).

Session Chair Mentor

Extracurricular