Professor Yoshi Kohno Receives His Fifth Test of Time Award at USENIX Security Symposium

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Professor Yoshi Kohno, the McDevitt Chair in Computer Science, Ethics, and Society and professor in the Department of Computer Science and the Center for Digital Ethics at Georgetown University has been awarded the Test of Time Award at the 34th USENIX Security Symposium in Seattle. The award recognizes research that has a lasting impact on the security field.

Kohno was a graduate student at the University of Washington in 2011 when he co-authored ‘Comprehensive Experimental Analyses of Automotive Attack Surfaces’ as part of a research team from the University of California at San Diego and the University of Washington, describing how 2009 Chevy Impalas could be remotely hacked through various methods. By targeting parts of the car such as the CD player, cellular radio, and Bluetooth, the hackers were able to gain access to different vehicular functions, like the brakes and windshield wipers.

Kohno says, “This research had a transformative impact on the automotive industry as a whole, with millions of cars on the road now safer and more secure as a result of our work.”

As a result of this paper, over the last 14 years car manufacturers around the world have hired security teams, guidelines for original equipment manufacturers have been developed, and the Electronic Systems Safety Research Division at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration was created.

This is Kohno’s 5th Test of Time Award (IEEE S&P 2019, ACSAC 2019, IEEE S&P 2020, and NSDI 2023 before this), reflecting the significance of his work  on security, and computer science more broadly.