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Computer Science undergraduate honored for cybersecurity research

February 20, 2025

A student in The University of New Mexico Department of Computer Science received honorable mention for the Computer Research Association (CRA) 2024-2025 Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award.

photo: Muhammad Danish
Muhammad Danish

Muhammad Danish, a senior in the Department of Computer Science, was selected from among hundreds of nominations submitted by faculty at universities around the country for his work in cybersecurity research. The CRA award recognizes undergraduates from North American colleges and universities who show great research potential in an area of computing research. The awards are supported by Sandia National Laboratories and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

“I am truly honored and humbled to be acknowledged by the Computing Research Association among undergraduate students across North America for showing outstanding potential in an area of computing research,” Danish said. “Coming from a rural area in Northern Pakistan, where research and technology opportunities are scarce, this award serves as a significant motivational boost. It reminds me—and hopefully others who hear my story—that with determination, resilience, and self-belief, anything is possible despite the challenges we face.”

Danish works on research related to web cybersecurity in the BeyondDefense Lab with Afsah Anwar, assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science. At Anwar’s lab, Danish studied scams and fraud in public online forms hosted by companies, including Microsoft, Google, and SurveyMonkey. The research focused on uncovering methods scammers use to evade conventional security measures that passively remove malicious entries and remain publicly accessible. He also worked with Anwar to study risks associated with using public SMS gateways when sending messages with URLs. The team conducted checks to determine if links contained any security loopholes or were associated with known vulnerabilities and security risks. Researchers found a significant portion of URLs contained at least one security loophole, increasing the risk of cyberattacks for both users and organizations.

The CRA award is a prestigious recognition of a young researcher’s future potential.

“Your potential as a computing researcher is clear, and we are excited to see the contributions you’ll make to the field in the future. We encourage you to pursue opportunities to deepen your research impact, whether through continued studies, a PhD program, or innovative projects,” an announcement from the award selection committee stated.

The work and the award wouldn’t have been possible without the support of mentors and teammates, Danish said. After graduating from UNM, Danish would like to pursue a Ph.D. in Cybersecurity, working to “make the internet a safer place for everyone.” Eventually, he would like to be a research scientist in industry.