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Research

My research studies security, privacy, and trust in decentralized, programmable, and zero-knowledge systems. I focus on the boundaries between layers: where cryptographic guarantees, protocol designs, and authorization rules meet blockchain state, transaction execution, and the way deployed systems actually behave.

That focus has developed across four projects: securing decentralized cyber-physical communication (Secure-BSM), preserving stealth-address privacy when gas is sponsored (PrivGas), authorization and delegation risks in programmable EOAs (EIP-7702), and, in ongoing work, how zero-knowledge proofs are bound to the state and context they authorize.

I approach these problems as both a researcher and an engineer. Before beginning my Ph.D., I spent five years as a software engineer in industry, and I pair analysis with working implementations.

Google Scholar (opens in a new tab)

Publications appear under the name M M Imran.

Research Areas

Blockchain Security

Security of blockchain applications, transaction systems, smart contracts, and decentralized infrastructure, including decentralized and cyber-physical settings such as connected vehicles.

Related: Secure-BSM

Privacy-Preserving Systems

Stealth addresses, private transaction mechanisms, gas sponsorship, and privacy-preserving protocol design.

Related: PrivGas

Programmable Accounts & Authorization

EIP-7702, programmable EOAs, authorization and delegation mechanisms, wallets, and transaction execution.

Related: EIP-7702 Authorization Security

Zero-Knowledge System Security

Security of ZK-enabled applications and the relationship between proven statements, blockchain state, execution context, and application semantics.

Related: Zero-Knowledge Application Security

Research Projects

Current and recent projects. Work that is still in progress is labelled as such.

Secure-BSM

Blockchain-assisted collaborative misbehavior detection in vehicular networks

Published · IEEE MOST 2026
Problem
Connected and autonomous vehicles exchange Basic Safety Messages (BSMs) over V2X networks. Misbehaving vehicles can broadcast false messages or flood the network, so participants need a trustworthy, decentralized way to detect misbehavior and limit its impact.
Approach
A collaborative misbehavior-detection architecture built on blockchain consensus, using dual-layer ledgers and Verifiable Rate-limit Tokens enforced by smart contracts.
Contribution
Designed to reduce false positives in misbehavior detection and to mitigate denial-of-service floods from misbehaving vehicles.
Publication
“Secure-BSM: Blockchain-Assisted Collaborative Misbehavior Detection in Vehicular Networks.” 2026 IEEE 4th International Conference on Mobility, Operations, Services and Technologies (MOST), pp. 160–171, 2026.
  • V2X
  • Blockchain
  • Smart Contracts
  • Cyber-Physical Systems

PrivGas

Funding–spending decoupling for anonymous stealth-address gas sponsorship

Accepted & presented · IEEE AIBThings 2026
Problem
ERC-5564 stealth addresses let a recipient receive funds at a fresh, unlinkable address. Spending from that address still requires gas, and funding the gas in a way that links back to the recipient can undo the privacy the stealth address was meant to provide.
Approach
A privacy-preserving gas-sponsorship protocol built on funding–spending decoupling. It combines ERC-5564 stealth addresses with ERC-4337 account abstraction and uses zero-knowledge techniques in the protocol design.
Publication
“Funding-Spending Decoupling for Anonymous Stealth-Address Gas Sponsorship.” Accepted and presented at IEEE 4th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, and Internet of Things (AIBThings), 2026.
  • ERC-5564
  • ERC-4337
  • Stealth Addresses
  • Zero-Knowledge
  • Privacy

EIP-7702 Authorization Security

Authorization and delegation security of programmable EOAs

Research study
Problem
EIP-7702 allows an externally owned account (EOA) to delegate its execution to smart-contract code through a signed authorization. This brings programmable-account features to existing accounts, but it also changes what a single signature can authorize.
Approach
Studies the authorization and delegation security risks that programmable EOAs introduce under EIP-7702.
  • EIP-7702
  • Programmable EOAs
  • Authorization
  • Delegation

Zero-Knowledge Application Security

Binding proofs to the state and context they authorize

Ongoing research
Problem
A zero-knowledge proof establishes that a specific statement is true, and applications rely on that proof to authorize actions. A proof can be cryptographically valid and still be unsafe to act on if it is not correctly bound to the blockchain state, execution context, or application semantics it is intended to authorize.
Approach
This ongoing work investigates how proof statements are bound to the state, context, and semantics they authorize, and where that binding can fail. No results have been published yet.
  • Zero-Knowledge Proofs
  • Blockchain State
  • Authorization

Publications

Full list on Google Scholar

Security & Decentralized Systems

Earlier Publications

Collaborative work in scientific workflow systems, applied machine learning, and embedded and on-chip networked systems.

Research collaboration

I'm happy to talk about collaborations, co-authorship, and research positions in security and decentralized systems.

mmimran@wayne.edu