Pietro Colombo

Assistant Professor of Computer Science
STRICT SociaLab
Department of Theoretical and Applied Science,
University of Insubria
Via Mazzini 5, 21100 Varese - Italy
Phone: (+39) 0332 218934
pietro.colombo@uninsubria.it

About

Pietro Colombo is an assistant professor of Computer Science at the University of Insubria (Italy), where he works within the STRICT SociaLab of the Department of Theoretical and Applied Sciences. Dr. Colombo holds a BS, MS and PhD degrees in Computer Science from the University of Insubria, and a 2nd Level Master in Information Technology from CEFRIEL-Politecnico di Milano (Italy). Dr. Colombo’s most recent research activities are in the field of access control within NoSQL datastores, privacy aware data management, and data privacy within the Internet of Things ecosystems, however he has also worked in the field of service availability and model driven engineering. On all these topics he has been author of more than 30 scientific papers which have been published in international journals and conference proceedings. Dr. Colombo is also coinventor of 2 US patents.

Latest updates

  • Italian National Scientific Qualification (ASN 2016) as Associate Professor of Computer Science (01/B1 - Informatica, Seconda fascia), August 2018
  • The paper Access Control Enforcement within MQTT-based Internet of Things Ecosystems authored by me and Elena Ferrari has been accepted ACM SACMAT 2018
  • The paper Access Control in the Era of Big Data: State of the Art and Research Directions authored by me and Elena Ferrari has been accepted ACM SACMAT 2018
  • Member of the program committee of the 16th IEEE International Conference on Services Computing (IEEE SCC 2019)
  • Member of the program committee of the 2018 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining (ASONAM 2018)
  • Member of the program committee of the 15th IEEE International Conference on Services Computing (IEEE SCC 2018)
  • The paper Towards a unifying Attribute Based Access Control approach for NoSQL datastores authored by me and Elena Ferrari has been presented at ICDE 2017
  • Italian National Scientific Qualification (ASN 2016) as Associate Professor of Information Processing Systems (09/H1 - Sistemi di elaborazione delle informazioni, Seconda fascia), April 2017

Services

Program committee member

  • IEEE Int. Conf. on Web Services (IEEE ICWS 2016)
  • IEEE Int. Conf. on Services Computing (IEEE SCC 2018, 2016, 2015 and 2014)
  • IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining (ASONAM 2018, 2017)
  • IEEE Int. Conf. on Big Data (IEEE BigData Congress 2015 and 2014)
  • International Conference on Cryptology And Network Security (CANS 2017)
  • IEEE Int. Conf. on Cloud Computing Technology and Science (IEEE CloudCom 2014)
  • IEEE Int. Conf. on Big Data Computing Service and Applications (IEEE BigDataService 2018, 2017, 2016 and 2015)
  • Int. Conf. on Big Data Innovations and Applications (Innovate-Data 2017)
  • Int. Work. on Privacy and Security in Big Data EcoSystem (PSBD 2017)
  • International Symposium on Big Data Management and Analytics (BIDMA 2017 and 2016)
  • ACM Work. on Privacy and Security for Big Data (ACM PSBD 2016, 2015 and 2014)
  • Int. Work. on Machine learning, Optimization and big Data (MOD 2017, 2016 and 2015)
  • Int. Symp. on Foundations and Applications of Big Data Analytics (FAB 2017, 2016 and 2015)
  • Int. Conf. on Open and Big Data (OBD 2016)
  • Int. Work. on Quality of Service Assurance in the Cloud (QAC 2016 and 2015)

External referee

  • ACM Conf. on Computer and Communications Security (ACM CCS)
  • IEEE Int. Conf. on Data Engineering (IEEE ICDE)
  • Int. Conf. on Extending Database Technology (EDBT)
  • ACM Symp. on Access Control Models and Technologies (ACM SACMAT)
  • ACM Conf. on Data and Application Security and Privacy (ACM CODASPY)
  • IEEE Int. Conf. on Information Privacy, Security, Risk and Trust (IEEE PASSAT)
  • Int. Conf. on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS)
  • IEEE Int. Conf. on Information Reuse and Integration (IEEE IRI),
  • IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (IEEE TKDE)
  • IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing (IEEE TDSC)
  • IEEE Transactions on Services Computing (IEEE TSC)
  • Elsevier Journal of Information Security and Applications
  • Elsevier Journal on Simulation Modelling Practice and Theory
  • Elsevier Journal Computer Science Review

Conference organization

  • Proceedings chair of The Second Italian Conference on Cyber Security (ITASEC 2018), Milan (Italy)
  • Web chair of the First International ICST Conference on Sensor Systems and Software (S-Cube 2009), Pisa (Italy)
  • Local chair of the First International Workshop On Dependable Services and Systems (IWODSS 2010), Montreal (Canada)

Research

Research topics

  • Access control within NoSQL datastores
  • Privacy and Security for Big Data platforms
  • Privacy-aware Data Management Systems
  • Access control within online social networks
  • Security and privacy for Internet of Things ecosystems
  • Next generation access control models and systems

Research projects

  • ISocial, Marie Curie Initial Training Network (ITN), 2014
  • MI-FIDO (Made in Italy Fashion IDentity and Originality), Italian Ministry of Economic Development, 2012-2013
  • MS4A (Mobile Services for Agrofood), Lombardy Region, 2011
  • MAGIC, NSERC/ERICSSON, 2009-2010

Recent talks

Publications

Journal papers

  • P. Colombo, E. Ferrari. Enhancing MongoDB with Purpose based Access Control. IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, Volume 14, Issue 6, Nov.-Dec. 2017, pages 591 - 604, ISSN 1545-5971.
  • P. Colombo, E. Ferrari. Enhancing NoSQL datastores with fine-grained context-aware access control: a preliminary study on MongoDB. International Journal of Cloud Computing, 6(4), 2017. ISSN online: 2043-9997
  • P. Colombo, E. Ferrari. Fine-Grained Access Control Within NoSQL Document-Oriented Datastores. Data Science and Engineering, Springer September 2016, Vol. 1, Issue 3, pp 127-138.
  • P. Colombo, E. Ferrari. Privacy Aware Access Control for Big Data: A Research Roadmap. Big Data Research, Volume 2, Issue 4, December 2015, Pages 145-154, ISSN 2214-5796, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bdr.2015.08.001
  • P. Colombo, E. Ferrari. Efficient Enforcement of Action-aware Purpose-based Access Control within Relational Database Management Systems. IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (TKDE), vol.27, no.8, pp.2134-2147, Aug. 1 2015, ISSN:1558-2191, 03/2015; DOI:10.1109/TKDE.2015.2411595
  • P. Colombo, E. Ferrari. Enforcement of Purpose Based Access Control within Relational Database Management Systems. IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (TKDE), ISSN:1558-2191, DOI:10.1109/TKDE.2014.2312112
  • P. Colombo, E. Ferrari. Enforcing Obligations within Relational Database Management Systems. IEEE Transaction on Dependable and Secure Computing (TDSC), 11 (4), 2014. IEEE computer Society Digital Library. ISSN:1545-5971,
  • P. Colombo, E. Ferrari. A framework for privacy aware data management in relational databases. International Journal of Information Privacy, Security and Integrity (IJIPSI). 2(1), 2014. Inderscience DOI: 10.1504/IJIPSI.2014.062886
  • P. Colombo, F. Khendek, L. Lavazza. Bridging the gap between requirements and design: An approach based on Problem Frames and SysML. The Journal of Systems and Software, 85 (3), 2012, Elsevier, ISSN:0164-1212
  • P. Colombo, V. del Bianco, L. Lavazza, A. Coen-Porisini. A Meta-model for Problem Frames: Conceptual Issues and Tool Building Support. International Journal On Advances in Software, Vol 3, Num 2, 2010 ISSN: 1942-2628.

Book chapters

  • A. Coen Porisini, P. Colombo, S. Sicari. Privacy aware systems: from models to patterns. In H. Mouratidis, Software Engineering for Secure Systems: Industrial and Research Perspectives, IGI Global Press, 2011. ISBN/ISSN:9781615208371

Conference papers

  • P. Colombo, E. Ferrari. Access Control Enforcement within MQTT-based Internet of Things Ecosystems. ACM Symposium on Access Control Models and Technologies - ACM SACMAT 2018, June 13-15, 2018, Indianapolis (USA) - in press
  • P. Colombo, E. Ferrari. Access Control in the Era of Big Data: State of the Art and Research Directions. ACM Symposium on Access Control Models and Technologies - ACM SACMAT 2018, June 13-15, 2018, Indianapolis (USA) - in press
  • P. Colombo, E. Ferrari. Towards a unifying Attribute Based Access Control approach for NoSQL datastores. 33rd IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering - IEEE ICDE 2017, April 19-22, 2017, San Diego (USA) - in press
  • B. Carminati, P. Colombo, E. Ferrari, and G. Sagirlar. Enhancing user control on personal data usage in Internet of Things ecosystems IEEE International Conference on Services Computing, IEEE SCC 2016, June 27 - July 2, 2016, San Francisco (USA).
  • P. Colombo, E. Ferrari. Towards Virtual Private NoSQL Datastores. 32nd IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering - IEEE ICDE 2016, May 16-20, 2016 · Helsinki (Finland).
  • P. Colombo, E. Ferrari. Efficient Enforcement of Action-aware Purpose-based Access Control within Relational Database Management Systems - Extended Abstract. TKDE Poster Track. 32nd IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering - IEEE ICDE 2016, May 16-20, 2016 · Helsinki (Finland).
  • H. Ulusoy, P. Colombo, E. Ferrari, M. Kantarcioglu, E. Pattuk. GuardMR: Fine-grained Security Policy Enforcement for MapReduce Systems. 10th ACM Symposium on Information, Computer and Communications Security - ACM ASIACCS'15, Singapore; 04/2015
  • P. Colombo, E. Ferrari. Enhancing MongoDB with fine-grained context-aware access control. 3rd International IBM Cloud Academy Conference ICACON 2015, May 21-23, 2015, Budapest (Hungary).
  • P. Colombo, E. Ferrari. Complementing MongoDB with Advanced Access Control Features: Concepts and Research Challenges. 23rd Italian Symposium on Advanced Database Systems - SEBD 2015. June 14-17, 2015 Gaeta (IT)
  • K. Kveler, K. Bock, P. Colombo, T. Domany, E. Ferrari, A. Hartman. Conceptual Framework and Architecture for Privacy Audit. 1st Annual Privacy Forum (APF 2012), Limassol (Cyprus), 2012 - in LNCS 8319, Springer. ISBN/ISSN: 978-3-642-54069-1
  • P. Colombo, E. Ferrari. Towards a Modeling and Analysis Framework for Privacy-aware Systems. 4th IEEE International Conference on Information Privacy, Security, Risk and Trust (IEEE PASSAT 2012), Amsterdam (NL), 2012. ISBN:978-1-4673-5638-1
  • P. Colombo, P. Salehi, F. Khendek, M. Toeroe. Bridging the gap between user requirements and configuration requirements. 17th IEEE International Conference on Engineering of Complex Computer Systems (IEEE ICECCS 2012) Paris (France), July 18 - 20, 2012. ISBN/ISSN:978-1-4673-2156-3
  • P. Colombo, E. Ferrari. Towards a Framework to Handle Privacy since the Early Phases of the Development: Strategies and Open Challenges. 6th IEEE Int. Conf. on Digital Ecosystems and Technologies for Complex Environment Engineering (IEEE DEST-CEE 2012). Campione d'Italia (IT), 2012. ISBN/ISSN:978-1-4673-1701-6
  • D. Barbagallo, C. Cappiello, A. Coen-Porisini, P. Colombo, M. Comerio, F. De Paoli, C. Francalanci, S. Sicari. Towards the Definition of a Framework for Service Development in the Agrofood Domain - A Conceptual Model. 8th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies (WEBIST 2012), Porto (Portugal), 2012. ISBN/ISSN:9789898565082
  • P. Colombo, F. Khendek, L.Lavazza. Generating Early Design Models from Requirements Analysis Artifacts using Problem Frames and SysML. 7th European Conference on Modelling Foundations and Applications (ECMFA 2011), Birmingham (UK), 6-9th of June, 2011, LNCS 6698, Springer. 978-3-642-21470-7
  • P. Salehi, P. Colombo, A. Hamou-Lhadj, F. Khendek. A Model Driven Approach for AMF Configuration Generation. 6th Workshop on System Analysis and Modelling (SAM 2010) October 4-5 2010, Oslo, Norway. An extended version of this work has been published in F. A. Kraemer, P. Herrmann (Eds.) ``System Analysis and Modeling: About Models'', Revised Selected Papers of the 6th International Workshop. LNCS Vol. 6598, Springer, 2011. ISBN/ISSN: 978-3-642-21652-7
  • P. Salehi, A. Hamou-Lhadj, P. Colombo, M. Toeroe, F. Khendek. A UML-Based Domain Specific Modeling Language for the Availability Management Framework. 12th IEEE International High Assurance Systems Engineering Symposium (IEEE HASE 2010), San Jose, CA. HASE 2010. ISBN/ISSN:978-0-7695-4292-8
  • L. Lavazza, A. Coen-Porisini, P. Colombo, and V. del Bianco. A Meta-model Supporting the Decomposition of Problem Descriptions. 5th International Conference on Software Engineering Advances (ICSEA 2010), Nice (France), August 22-27, 2010. ISBN: 978-0-7695-4144-0
  • P. Colombo, F. Khendek and L. Lavazza. Requirements analysis and modeling with Problem Frames and SysML: A case study. 6th European Conference on Modelling Foundations and Applications (ECMFA 2010). Paris (France), June 15-18, 2010. LNCS Vol. 6138, Springer. ISBN:978-3-642-13595-8
  • A. Coen Porisini, P. Colombo, S. Sicari. Dealing with Anonymity in Wireless Sensor Networks. 25th ACM International Symposium On Applied Computing (ACM SAC 2010), Losan, Svizzera, 22-26 March 2010. ISBN/ISSN:9781605586397
  • A. Grieco, G. Boggia, S. Sicari, P. Colombo. Secure Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks: a Survey. 3rd International Conference on Mobile Ubiquitous Computing, Systems, Services and Technologies (UBICOMM 2009), Sliema (Malta), October 11-16, 2009. ISBN/ISSN:9781424450831
  • P. Colombo, V. del Bianco, L. Lavazza, A. Coen-Porisini. Towards a Meta-model for Problem Frames: Conceptual Issues and Tool Building Support. 4th International Conference on Software Engineering Advances (ICSEA 2009), Porto (Portugal), September 20-25, 2009. ISBN/ISSN: 9780769537771 Best paper award
  • A. Coen-Porisini, P. Colombo, S. Sicari. Dealing with Anonymity: a design pattern for privacy-aware systems. International Conference on Software Technology and Engineering (ICSTE 2009). Chennai (India). July 24-26, 2009. ISBN/ISSN:9789814287241
  • P. Colombo, A. Coen-Porisini. Visualizing the evolution of warehouses. European Simulation and Modelling Conference (ESM 2008). Le Havre (France), October 27-29, 2008, EUROSIS. ISBN:978-90-77381-44-1
  • P. Colombo, V. del Bianco, L. Lavazza. Fine-grained Integrated Management of Software Configurations and Traceability Relations. 3rd International Conference on Software and Data Technologies (ICSOFT 2008). Software Engineering Track, Porto (Portugal), July 5-8, 2008. ISBN/ISSN:9789898111524
  • S. Braghin, A. Coen-Porisini, P. Colombo, S. Sicari, A. Trombetta. Introducing Privacy in a Hospital Information System. 4th International Workshop on Software Engineering for Secure Systems (SESS 2008), a satellite event of the International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2008), Leipzig (Germany), May 17, 2008. ISBN/ISSN:9781605580425
  • P. Colombo, V. del Bianco, L. Lavazza. Using Problem Frames to Model the Requirements of a System for Monitoring Dangerous Goods Transportation. 3rd International Workshop on Advances and Applications of Problem Frames (IWAAPF 2008), a satellite event of the International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2008), Leipzig (Germany), May 10th, 2008. ISBN/ISSN:9781605580203
  • P. Colombo, V. del Bianco, L. Lavazza. Towards the integration of SysML and Problem Frames. 3rd International Workshop on Advances and Applications of Problem Frames (IWAAPF 2008), a satellite event of the International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2008), Leipzig (Germany), May 10th, 2008. ISBN/ISSN:9781605580203
  • A. Coen-Porisini, P. Colombo, S. Sicari, A. Trombetta. A Conceptual Model for Privacy Policies. IASTED International Conference on Sofware Engineering and Applications (SEA 2007), Cambridge (USA), November 19-21, 2007. Acta Press. ISBN/ISSN:9780889867055
  • P. Colombo, V. del Bianco, L. Lavazza, A. Coen-Porisini. A methodological framework for SysML: a Problem Frames-based approach. 14th Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference (APSEC 2007), Nagoya (Japan), December 5-7, 2007. IEEE Computer Society. ISBN/ISSN:9780769530574
  • A. Coen-Porisini, P. Colombo, I. Gallo, A. Zanzi. A Web-based solution to manage distributed discrete event simulations. Eurosis Euromedia 2007, Delft (The Netherlands), April 25-27, 2007. EUROSIS. ISBN/ISSN:9789077381328
  • P. Colombo, E. Grosso, M. Tarini. A Web-based solution supporting the integration of virtual reality environments in logistics applications. Eurosis Euromedia 2007, Delft (The Netherlands), April 25-27, 2007. EUROSIS. ISBN/ISSN:9789077381328
  • P. Colombo, V. del Bianco, L. Lavazza, A. Coen-Porisini. An Experience in Modeling Real-Time Systems with SysML. International Workshop on Modeling and Analysis of Real-Time and Embedded Systems (MARTES), Genova (Italy), October 2, 2006. ISBN/ISSN: 9788273682994
  • P. Colombo, M. Pradella, M. Rossi, G. Sassaroli. A UML 2-compatible language and tool for formal modeling real-time system architectures. 21st Annual ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (ACM SAC 2006), Software Engineering Track, Dijon (France), April 23-27, 2006. ISBN/ISSN:1-59593-108-2

Patents

  • P. Colombo, M. Toeroe, P. Salehi, F. Khendek Bridging the gap between high level User Requirements and Availability Management Framework Configurations. US Patent No. US 8,683,424 B2. Mar. 25, 2014
  • P. Salehi, M. Toeroe, A. Hamou-Lhadj, P. Colombo, F. Khendek A Model Driven Approach for Availability Management Framework (AMF) Configuration Generation. US Patent No. US 8,752,003 B2. Jun. 10, 2014

Recent teaching activities

Courses

  • Data management within NoSQL datastores, PhD in Computer Science and Computational Mathematics, University of Insubria, 2017-2018
  • Interdisciplinary Lab A, BS in Computer Science, University of Insubria, 2017-2018
  • Interdisciplinary Lab B, BS in Computer Science, University of Insubria, 2017-2018
  • Database management systems Lab, BS in Computer Science, University of Insubria, 2017-2018
  • Interdisciplinary Lab A, BS in Computer Science, University of Insubria, 2016-2017
  • Interdisciplinary Lab B, BS in Computer Science, University of Insubria, 2016-2017
  • Database management systems Lab, BS in Computer Science, University of Insubria, 2016-2017
  • Programming Lab, BS in Computer Science, University of Insubria, 2016-2017
  • Database management systems Lab, BS in Computer Science, University of Insubria, 2015-2016
  • Privacy and Data Security Lab, MS in Computer Science, University of Insubria
  • Privacy-aware data management, PhD in Computer Science, University of Insubria, 2013-2014