Dr. Rebecca Balebako
Dr. Rebecca Balebako
ZHAW
School of Engineering
Forschungsschwerpunkt Information Security
Steinberggasse 13
8400 Winterthur
Work at ZHAW
Position
Lecturerer
Focus
- Privacy Engineering
- Secure AI
- Evaluating Secure Code Created by LLMs
Teaching
Information Security
Experience
- Privacy Engineer
Google
08 / 2018 - 05 / 2023 - Information Scientist
RAND
01 / 2014 - 05 / 2018 - Adjunct Professor of Privacy Engineering
Carnegie Mellon University
2015 - 2018 - Information Technology Specialist
Peace Corps Togo
06 / 2007 - 2010 - Software Developer
Stanford University
2004 - 2007 - Software Developer
Harvard University
2001 - 2004
Education and Continuing education
Education
- PhD / Engineering and Public Policy
Carnegie Mellon University
2010 - 2014 - Masters in Liberal Arts / Software Engineering
Harvard University
2000 - 2004 - Bachelors of Arts / Math and Asian Studies
Mount Holyoke College
1993 - 1997
Continuing Education
CAS
AI Engineering
06 / 2025
Network
ORCID digital identifier
Recommendations
Social media
Projects
Selected publications
Egli, J. and Balebako, R. (2026) 'How to compare the security of code written by humans to LLM-generated code', in Joint Proceedings of the STAF 2026 Workshop, LLM4SE. CEUR Workshop Proceedings. doi: 10.21256/zhaw-36877.
Publications
Written conference contributions, peer-reviewed
- Wolf, L. et al. (2026) 'Towards an automated security consultant', in 2026 18th International Conference on Security of Information and Networks (SIN). IEEE.
- Lampart, C., Montero, R. and Balebako, R. (2026) 'Attacking LLMs with low-resource languages : a multilingual evaluation of small open-weight models', in 31st European Symposium on Research in Computer Security (ESORICS) Workshops, Rome, Italy, 17-18 September 2026. Winterthur: ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences.
- Willi, L. and Balebako, R. (2026) 'The state of human (un) centered AI security research', in Workshop on Designing Human-AI Teaming for Security (HATS) @ Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS), Hannover, Germany, 23 August 2026. ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences. doi: 10.21256/zhaw-37151.
- Egli, J. and Balebako, R. (2026) 'How to compare the security of code written by humans to LLM-generated code', in Joint Proceedings of the STAF 2026 Workshop, LLM4SE. CEUR Workshop Proceedings. doi: 10.21256/zhaw-36877.
Publications before appointment at the ZHAW
- Face recognition technologies: Designing systems that protect privacy and prevent bias”
- Nudges for Privacy and Security: Understanding and Assisting Users’ Choices Online” Acquisti, A., Adjerid, I., Balebako, R., Brandimarte, L., Cranor, L.F., Komanduri, S., Leon, P.G., Sadeh, N., Schaub, F., Sleeper, M. and Wang, Y., ACM Computing Surveys
- Turtles, Locks, and Bathrooms: Understanding Mental Models of Privacy Through Illustration.Oates M, Ahmadullah Y, Marsh A, Swoopes C, Zhang S, Balebako R, Cranor LF. Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies. 2018 Oct 1;2018(4):5-32.
- The Latent Potential of Privacy Technologies: How Our Future Will Be Shaped by Today's Privacy Decisions. William Welser IV, Rebecca Balebako, Cameron Colquhoun, Osonde Osoba Strategic Latency Red, White, and Blue: Managing the National and International Security Consequences of Disruptive Technologies. Lawrence Livermore National Lab.(LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States). Chapter 11 2018
- The Cambridge Handbook of Consumer Privacy Evan Selinger, Jules Polonetsky, Omer Tene 2018 (co-wrote Chapter 21).
- Designing effective privacy notices and controls. Schaub, Florian, Rebecca Balebako, and Lorrie Faith Cranor. IEEE Internet Computing (2017).
- Is Notice Enough: Mitigating the Risks of Smartphone Data Sharing Balebako, R., C. Bravo-Lillo, Cranor, L. I/S: A Journal of Law and Policy for the Information Society. Volume 11, Issue 2, Summer 2015
- Is Your Inseam a Biometric? A Case Study on the Role of Usability Studies in Developing Public Policy Balebako, R., Shay, R., Cranor, L. In NDSS Workshop 2014 Usable Security Experiments (USEC)
- 'Little Brothers Watching You:' Raising Awareness of Data Leaks on Smartphones Balebako, R., Jung, J., Lu, W., Cranor, L., Nguyen, C., In Proceedings of the 2013 Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security
Other publications
- The Privacy and Security Behaviors of Smartphone App Developers Balebako, R., Marsh, A., Lin, J., Hong, J., Cranor, L. NDSS Workshop 2014 Usable Security Experiments (USEC)
- Measuring the Effectiveness of Privacy Tools for Limiting Behavioral Advertising Balebako, R., Leon, P., Shay, R., Ur, B., Wang, W. and L. Cranor In Web 2.0 for Security and Privacy Workshop[ (2012)