Cybersecurity Visionary Xu Honored with Prestigious Bement Award

Cybersecurity Visionary Xu Honored with Prestigious Bement Award

Summary

• Dongyan Xu has been named the 2024 recipient of Purdue University’s Arden L. Bement Jr. Award for his cybersecurity research.
• Xu is a leading authority on cyber-physical system security, covering drones, industrial control systems and IoT networks.
• His work has produced fixes adopted by major technology firms and shaped national cybersecurity efforts.
• He has led more than $28 million in research projects over the past decade.
• The award is Purdue’s most prestigious recognition for contributions in pure and applied science and engineering.

Purdue’s top research honor goes to a security researcher

Purdue University has a long record in cybersecurity research, and its latest top honor adds to it. Dongyan Xu, the Samuel D. Conte Professor of Computer Science and director of the Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security (CERIAS), has been chosen to receive the 2024 Arden L. Bement Jr. Award, Purdue announced on March 31, 2025.

Acknowledging a Pioneer in Cybersecurity

The Bement Award recognizes Purdue faculty whose research has had a major impact on science and engineering. It is named for Arden L. Bement Jr., a Purdue professor and former director of the National Science Foundation. Xu’s research focuses on cyber-physical systems, where software flaws can have physical consequences. He uses a cross-layer method that combines system modeling, vulnerability discovery, attack simulation and system hardening.

Key Contributions to Cybersecurity

Xu’s work on unmanned aerial systems found and fixed vulnerabilities in widely used autopilot software, which benefited both commercial and defense users. His IoT research exposed serious flaws in Bluetooth and in the Controller Area Network (CAN) bus protocols used in vehicles and industrial automation, and it has influenced global standards.

Xu and his colleagues have helped develop security fixes adopted by Apple, Google and Intel. He also served as vice president for secure automation and supply chains at the Department of Energy-sponsored Cybersecurity Manufacturing Innovation Institute (CyManII).

The Global Impact of Xu’s Work

Xu has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed papers and won best paper awards at top security conferences. Beyond research, he has contributed to national efforts through the National Science Foundation’s AI Institute for Cyber Threat Intelligence and Operations (ACTION), and to research strategy at organizations such as MITRE, Sandia National Laboratories and Cisco.

“I am fortunate to work in cybersecurity, an area of long-time excellence at Purdue and an area with ever-changing challenges and opportunities,” Xu said.

Purdue University’s Role in Cybersecurity Advancements

The award also highlights Purdue’s role in security research. CERIAS, which Xu directs, has been a center of cybersecurity research and education for decades, and the university continues to invest in the field.

What comes next

Xu says his goal is “to help realize the fusion of cybersecurity and other science and engineering disciplines to make more real-world systems and infrastructures cyber-secure.” He was scheduled to speak at Purdue’s Excellence in Research Award Lectures in May.

Frank Jones, CISSP

Frank Jones has loved computers from the age of 13. Frank got his hacking career started when he downloaded a war dialing program that he used to detect dial up modems in his hometown of Chicago. Frank Jones now works as a JAVA coder and cyber security researcher.