A meeting of the SEMTL community will be held on Thursday, Dec 04th, 2025, 09:30 AM - 12:30 PM . It will take place at UQÀM, J-2805.
Please note that this room is at the “Berry-UQAM” location, not as last time “Place-des-arts”.
Registration
Please RSVP using this form.
Program
Philippe Pépos Petitclerc: Blackbox Identification of Software Antivirus Features for Evasion with Software Probing
Red teaming and penetration testing are core practices of the cybersecurity audit landscape. Both of these practices frequently rely on the ability to execute offensive software tools that usually are detected as malicious by antivirus software. To achieve the execution of these tools on systems where antivirus software are installed, operators rely on several techniques to evade detection. In practice, detection evasion is usually ill-informed guesswork. A better methodology for evasion would allow for more efficient, and therefore more affordable campaigns and thus contribute towards more cyberresilient organisations. This presentation will discuss our ongoing research into methodologies for deducing information about antivirus engines present in software solutions as well as remaining complexities and the hurdles to obtaining informative data. Our approach relies on mapping the detection features of a given antivirus with different software probes, then deducing the required evasion techniques to apply in order to deliver and execute a payload. Correct identification of antivirus engine components would allow evasion techniques to be applied intently and minimally, reducing chances of unexpected detections and decreasing time spent on evading antivirus software.
Jules Chateau-Fleurie & Paul Jean-Willy: Structural REST reasoning for developers
Jules and Paul have kicked off their first research project and are ready to walk us through their hunt for a genuinely developer-oriented approach to tackling structural REST API flaws. They’ll explain why common scanners often miss the point for everyday backend developers—treating symptoms instead of addressing the real causes.
This hands-on talk introduces a promising research idea, a proposed methodology, and early prototype findings. Come listen to two driven undergrads diving deep into an unsolved problem — and don’t hesitate to share thoughts, questions, or feedback as they join our community.
Coffee break
A 30–40 minute micro-symposium for colleague bonding, the exchange of partially formed and/or proposterous hypotheses, including but not limited to the voluntary administration of a psychoactive aqueous extract derived from finely comminuted plant matter.
Mikkel Schmidt Andersen: Probabilistic Update Scheduling for Digital Twins: A Semi-Markov Approach
Digital Twins (DTs) often require maintenance throughout their life cycles, as their Physical Twin (PT) counterparts undergo maintenance and evolution. This necessitates software updates to the DT, but when should these updates be done? Updating the DT at the wrong time can lead to inconsistencies between the DT and PT, as well as failures and increased downtime.
This study investigates the practicality and usability of applying Semi-Markov Processes (SMPs) to represent the connections and state transitions of the DT-enabled system. SMPs can be used to calculate the probability that all components in the system are collectively in a safe state, that is, in a state where updating the DT would result in minimal disruption to the DT-enabled system’s operation.
We also discuss the limitations of the approach and the future work required to make it robust. Lastly, we present how SMPs can be used for an industrial concrete mixer as our case study, to remove the need for fixed maintenance intervals, which are costly.
Maximilian Schiedermeier: ECR lessons learned (the good, the bad, and the ugly)
The jump from PhD to professor life has plenty of moving parts, and in this session the speaker dishes out hard-earned lessons from year one on the faculty roller coaster — think joyful highs, chaotic lows, and a few surprises that absolutely no handbook ever mentioned.
The stories are, of course, anecdotal, and everyone’s path through academia has its own quirks. Still, the speaker offers a short list of practical strategies picked up while navigating early-career life from the driver’s seat. We’ll wrap with an open discussion for audience anecdotes, survival tips, and any hard-earned prof-life wisdom worth passing along.
Localisation
This room is located in the “(J) Judith Jasmin” building (red), right next to the Berri-UQAM station:
Address:
Pavillion Judith-Jasmin
405 Rue Sainte-Catherine Est
Montréal (QC), H2X 3X6
Canada