Levente Csikor PhD

Education

Levente Csikor earned his Master’s and Ph.D. degrees from the High Speed Networks Laboratory within the Department of Telecommunications and Media Informatics at Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Hungary.

Research

Levente Csikor is a dedicated academic researcher specializing in computer networks, network security, and privacy, with a keen focus on staying attuned to industry needs and requirements. While his primary expertise encompasses various facets of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV), his recent shift has led him to explore the intricate dimensions of security and privacy in next-generation networks.

Engineering

Outside of his research endeavors, Levente Csikor enjoys allowing his engineering instincts to flourish by engaging in side projects that capture his interest. He find satisfaction in exploring open-source projects, crafting customized secure smart home solutions, maximizing the capabilities of Raspberry Pi, and delving into the intricacies of Web3 technologies.

Blogging

Levente Csikor has a penchant for documenting his discoveries while navigating the realms of new technologies, whether they pertain to his research or align with his side interests. Rather than keeping these experiences to himself, Levente occasionally translate them into insightful blog posts to share with others.

Recent notable achievements

Levente’s recent accomplishments include uncovering an algorithmic complexity attack on Open vSwitch, the de-facto standard for virtual switching in software-defined networks, prevalent in most private and public cloud infrastructures. He demonstrated that a carefully crafted, low-rate packet sequence could disrupt Open vSwitch’s internal data structures, effectively causing the switch instance to crash. The work has several sequels, all featured in publications and presented on the annual OVS+OVN conferences (from 2018-2020).

Additionally, Levente, along with his colleagues, made a breakthrough by identifying a time-agnostic replay attack on automotive Remote Keyless Entry (RKE) systems. Despite the use of rolling code technology, which should prevent the reuse of old signals, they discovered that specific sequences of outdated signals could trigger a rollback mechanism in certain car manufacturers’ RKE systems. This mechanism resets the valid signal to an older one and, in some cases, unlocks the vehicle. This work has been presented at Black Hat USA 2022.