LLMs can pass the CCNA certification exam but do they understand networking?
Manocchio, Liam Daly, et al. "LLMs can pass the CCNA Certification Exam But do they understand Networking?." Computer Networks (2026): 112236.
CV
Education
- PhD in Cybersecurity, Institut Polytechnique de Paris & Orange, 2024-2027
- M.Sc. in Cybersecurity, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, 2024
- B.Sc. in Computer Science, University of Luxembourg, 2022
Work experience
- 2024: Research Intern
- The University of Queensland
- Study of Evasion Attacks and corresponding Defenses against Transformer-based Network Intrusion Detection Systems.
- Supervisors: Dr. Priyanka Singh, Assoc. Prof. Marius Portmann, Dr. Siamak Layeghy
- 2023: Research Intern
- Outshift by Cisco
- Novel design and implementation of a realistic and scalable adversary emulation methodology for cloud-native environments. A significant contribution for training threat detection systems relying on eBPF telemetry sensors.
- Supervisors: Dr. Luca Muscariello, Dr. Jacques Samain
- 2022: Research Intern
- University of Luxembourg
- Assisting an ongoing study in the field of HCI and Machine Learning on visual saliency of users on visual designs. Design and implementation of empirical experiments.
- Supervisor: Prof. Luis A. Leiva
Publications
eX-NIDS: A framework for explainable network intrusion detection leveraging Large Language Models
Houssel, Paul RB, et al. "ex-nids: A framework for explainable network intrusion detection leveraging large language models." Computers and Electrical Engineering 129 (2026): 110826.
Towards Provenance for Cybersecurity in Cloud-Native Production Infrastructure
Houssel, P. R., Laniepce, S. & Levillain O. (2025). Towards Provenance for Cybersecurity in Cloud-Native Production Infrastructure. In 2024 54th Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks - Supplemental Volume (DSN-S).
Towards Explainable Network Intrusion Detection using Large Language Models
P. R. B. Houssel, P. Singh, S. Layeghy and M. Portmann, "Towards Explainable Network Intrusion Detection using Large Language Models," 2024 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Big Data Computing, Applications and Technologies (BDCAT), Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, 2024, pp. 67-72, doi: 10.1109/BDCAT63179.2024.00021.
User Re-Authentication via Mouse Movements and Recurrent Neural Networks
Houssel, P. R., & Leiva, L. A. (2024). User Re-Authentication via Mouse Movements and Recurrent Neural Networks. In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Information Systems Security and Privacy (pp. 652-659).
UEyes: An Eye-Tracking Dataset across User Interface Types
Jiang, Y., Leiva, L. A., Rezazadegan Tavakoli, H., RB Houssel, P., Kylmälä, J., & Oulasvirta, A. (2023, April). UEyes: An Eye-Tracking Dataset across User Interface Types. arXiv:2402.05202v1.
UEyes: Understanding visual saliency across user interface types
Jiang, Y., Leiva, L. A., Rezazadegan Tavakoli, H., RB Houssel, P., Kylmälä, J., & Oulasvirta, A. (2023, April). UEyes: Understanding visual saliency across user interface types. In Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-21).