Luke James Farchione

PhD in Computer Science — Cybersecurity, Xu Lab

GPA: 4.0 · Advisor: Dr. Shouhuai Xu · Focus: Large Language Models in Cybersecurity

B.S. Computer Science, Minor in Mathematics

GPA: 3.8

University of Colorado Colorado Springs, Xu Lab

• Built CASSANDRA, the new state-of-the-art model for CTI NLP and automated TTP extraction from cyber threat intelligence reports; outperforms the USENIX Security 2025 benchmark. Submitted to ACM CCS.
• Designed Aegis, a cybersecurity visualization tool with an 18-attribute competency framework benchmarked against 12 open-source tools. Submitted to IEEE VIS 2026.
• Building vulnerability scoring system to address limitations in CVSS methodology.
• Built CVE-LLM using data from NIST NVD, MITRE, and Exploit-DB with vector retrieval for real-time vulnerability querying.

MSU Denver (NSF Funded)

• Built Bili, an open-source framework for evaluating LLMs across cybersecurity and sustainability domains.
• Created AI interface for querying security and environmental datasets using vector databases.
• Evaluated PHI-2, Gemini-Pro, Llama 2, and Mixtral architectures for domain-specific tasks.
• Coordinated data validation across 1,243 community organizations.

• Discovered cross-user IDOR vulnerability (CVSS 7.5) in Meta AI allowing anonymous read access to private Facebook-authenticated conversations via GraphQL. Awarded $5,000 through Meta Bug Bounty.

Devil Dog Cyber Security, Denver, CO

• Performed penetration testing for oil and gas clients targeting SOC 2 and ISO 27001 compliance.
• Developed custom payloads and exploit chains for internal red-team engagements.
• Conducted post-exploitation analysis and delivered executive and technical reports.
• Built Python/Bash automation for reconnaissance, credential testing, and report generation.

Itasca Lakewood (Contractor), Lakewood, CO

• Manage 70+ TB across Synology NAS devices using SMB, NFS, and rsync workflows.
• Administer all endpoints, Entra ID, Active Directory, Group Policy, and VPN infrastructure.
• Implement backup and recovery pipelines using Backblaze B2 and AWS S3.
• Deploy PowerShell and Bash scripts for patching, system audits, and uptime monitoring.

UCCS, Xu Lab

• Coach and mentor undergraduate VICEROY Fellows in offensive and defensive cybersecurity.
• Teams placed top 5 in every competition over the past year; qualified for the in-person competition at the 2026 VICEROY Symposium in Washington, DC.

MSU Denver

• Founded and grew cybersecurity club to 100+ members, the largest at MSU Denver.
• Organized industry speaker events, technical workshops, and hands-on CTF training.

• Aegis: Cybersecurity visualization tool and competency framework. Submitted to IEEE VIS 2026.
• CASSANDRA: State-of-the-art CTI NLP model for automated TTP extraction from CTI reports. Submitted to ACM CCS 2026.

NSA CodeBreaker Challenge 2023 Finalist (8/9 tasks) · NAIRR Pilot (Feb 2025, Washington DC) · Mountain West Cyber Consortium (April 2025)