In February 2026, the NSF-funded Security and Privacy Heterogeneous Environment for Reproducible Experimentation (SPHERE) project hosted a week-long cybersecurity residency with Trusted CI, the National Science Foundation’s Cybersecurity Center of Excellence. The residency marked an important milestone in SPHERE’s transition from construction toward sustained operations, strengthening an already robust security posture through formal alignment with…

The SPHERE team recently participated in the Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC), held two weeks ago in Honolulu, Hawaii. ACSAC is one of the premier international forums for applied cybersecurity research and practice, bringing together researchers, practitioners, and industry and government stakeholders to advance the state of computer security. SPHERE was represented by Jelena…

The SPHERE team is excited to be featured in the USC Information Sciences Institute 2024 Year in Review! Our article, “Cybersecurity Through Real-World Experimentation” (pages 34–35), highlights how SPHERE enables cutting-edge research by providing modular, real-world testbeds that replicate complex cyber systems. “SPHERE’s flexible design and user-friendly tools ensure that everyone, from students to experts,…

Are you a cybersecurity or privacy researcher with reusable, impactful artifacts? SPHERE is offering funded virtual internships ($5,000/month for up to three months) to port your work to our open research infrastructure! Your research could reach a wider audience while advancing reproducibility in our field. Selected REEs will become part of a community-wide infrastructure designed…

SPHERE Research Infrastructure is heading to the Internet Society Network and Distributed System Security (NDSS) Symposium 2025 in San Diego, California on February 24-28, 2025. NDSS is a leading security forum that fosters information exchange among researchers and practitioners of network and distributed system security. Principal Investigator, Jelena Mirkovic, and Community Outreach Director, David Balenson,…

We are honored to have our article, “Enabling Reproducibility through the SPHERE Research Infrastructure,” published in USENIX ;login: Online, a digital magazine of the USENIX Association. This publication serves as a platform for technical articles, case studies, and research reports on system administration, security, networking, and software development. Our article is one of five recently…

As we step into 2025, we’re excited to continue our community outreach, participating in top cybersecurity conferences, workshops, and NSF events. Upcoming highlights include the Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS) in February and the National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Infrastructure Workshop (RIW) in March. This year, we will host specialized workshops on Cyber-Physical…

We’re proud to announce that our PI, Dr. Jelena Mirkovic, is featured as one of 23 visionary researchers in the Fall 2024 USC Viterbi Magazine! She’s highlighted among USC’s leading innovators who are reimagining computing through a human-centered lens. “For the last decade, Jelena Mirkovic, USC Viterbi research associate professor of computer science, has studied…

SPHERE joins forces with FABRIC and Chameleon Cloud at SACNAS NDiSTEM! Our Lead PI, Dr. Jelena Mirkovic, alongside Paul Ruth (FABRIC) and Marc Richardson (Chameleon Cloud), introduced three powerful NSF-funded research testbeds that are transforming computing research and education. SPHERE, FABRIC, and Chameleon Cloud each offer unique capabilities for researchers: SPHERE focuses on cybersecurity and…

SPHERE Research Infrastructure made a significant impact at ACM CCS 2024 in Salt Lake City last week. David Balenson presented our research infrastructure through an engaging poster session, generating substantial interest from the cybersecurity research community. We were delighted to see our advisory board member, Dr. Patrick Traynor, at the conference. Dr. Traynor, who co-directs…