PhD Position F/M Detecting Dangerous Browser Extensions to Protect the Security and Privacy of Web Users

Inria; Valbonne; Hybrid; EUR 26,000 - 34,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Partial transport reimbursement

Congés: 7 semaines + RTT + congés spé.

Possibilité de télétravail

Équipements fournis

Événements sociaux et culturels

Couverture santé

Job summary

Inria Côte d’Azur recherche un doctorant en informatique pour rejoindre Sophia Antipolis et les sites de Nice et Montpellier. Le candidat mènera des recherches en sécurité Web et en confidentialité, sous supervision des équipes du center.

Profil recherché: Master en informatique (idéalement cybersécurité), compétences en Python, connaissance en ML appréciée, et maîtrise de l’anglais (C1 ou plus). Le français n’est pas nécessaire; l’équipe privilégie l’anglais.

Qualifications

• Master en informatique ou équivalent.
• Idéalement spécialisation en cybersécurité.
• Intérêts de recherche en sécurité Web, confidentialité Web ou mesures Web.

Responsibilities

• PhD axé sur des problématiques de sécurité et de vie privée sur le Web.
• Travailler au sein des équipes de recherche à Sophia Antipolis/Nice/Montpellier.

Skills

Python programmation

Anglais (C1)

Connaissances ML (basique)

Education

Master en Informatique

Job description

Fonction : Doctorant

Inria is the French National Institute for Research in Digital Science, of which the Inria Côte d'Azur University Center is a part. With strong expertise in computer science and applied mathematics, the research projects of the Inria Côte d'Azur University Center cover all aspects of digital science and technology and generate innovation. Based mainly in Sophia Antipolis, but also in Nice and Montpellier, it brings together 47 research teams and nine support services. It is active in the fields of artificial intelligence, data science, IT system security, robotics, network engineering, natural risk prevention, ecological transition, digital biology, computational neuroscience, health data, and more. The Inria Center at Université Côte d'Azur is a major player in terms of scientific excellence, thanks to the results it has achieved and its collaborations at both European and international level.

Limitations of existing work Abundant prior work attempted to detect some classes of dangerous extensions [9], e.g., malicious [10], vulnerable [3], or fingerprintable extensions [11]. However, related works have major limitations. Existing works analyze only hundreds of extensions [12], are outdated (e.g., 2012–2015 [8,13, 14, 15]), have limited scalability and necessitate significant manual effort [16, 4], lack a clear characterization of what a dangerous behavior is [14]; and finally, only a small minority thereof is open source, as we have highlighted in [1 0 ]. Besides, existing machine learning-based detectors are opaque, they lack interpretability and explainability.

[10] Ben Rosenzweig, Valentino Dalla Valle, Giovanni Apruzzese, and Aurore Fass. It's not easy: Applying supervised machine learning to detect malicious extensions in the chrome web store. In ACM Transactions on the Web (TWEB), 2026. Code repository: https://github.com/its-not-easy/tweb25/tree/main

[12] Nicholas Carlini, Adrienne Porter Felt, and David Wagner. An evaluation of the google chrome extension security architecture. In USENIX Security, 2012.

[13] Nav Jagpal, Eric Dingle, Jean-Philippe Gravel, Panayiotis Mavrommatis, Niels Provos, Moheeb Abu Rajab, and Kurt Thomas. Trends and lessons from three years fighting malicious extensions. In USENIX Security, 2015.

[15] Kurt Thomas, Elie Bursztein, Chris Grier, Grant Ho, Nav Jagpal, Alexandros Kapravelos, Damon Mccoy, Antonio Nappa, Vern Paxson, Paul Pearce, Niels Provos, and Moheeb Abu Rajab. Ad injection at scale: Assessing deceptive advertisement modifications. In IEEE S&P, 2015.

Skills:

A successful candidate for a PhD:

• should have a strong background in Computer Science (Master degree or equivalent);
• with a major ideally in Cybersecurity;
• their research interests should be in Web Security, Web Privacy, orWeb Measurements.

We are looking for a motivated student with:

• solid programming skills in python;
• some basic knowledge of Machine Learning is a plus;
• proficiency in spoken and written English is a must (C1 level or higher); French knowledge is not necessary (note that English is the default language in the team);
• we expect the student to be curious, creative, and have a strong willingness to learn and improve.

Avantages

• Partial reimbursement of public transport costs
• Leave: 7 weeks of annual leave + 10 extra days off due to RTT (statutory reduction in working hours) + possibility of exceptional leave (sick children, moving home, etc.)
• Possibility of teleworking and flexible organization of working hours
• Professional equipment available (videoconferencing, loan of computer equipment, etc.)
• Social, cultural and sports events and activities
• Access to vocational trainingEmployer-sponsored health insurance plan