[p 5] His work at Stanford University included the first cryptanalysis of the inner workings of Microsoft's DPAPI (Data Protection Application Programming Interface),[p 6] the first evaluation of the effectiveness of private browsing,[p 7][r 2] and many advances to CAPTCHA security[p 8][p 9][p 10] and usability.

[p 11] Bursztein has discovered, reported, and helped fix hundreds of vulnerabilities, including securing Twitter's frame-busting code,[r 3] exploiting Microsoft's location service to track the position of mobile devices,[r 4] and exploiting the lack of proper encryption in the Apple App Store to steal user passwords and install unwanted applications.

Bursztein's contributions at Google include: In 2023 Elie founded the Etteilla Foundation[r 25] dedicated to preserving and promoting the rich heritage of playing cards and donated his extensive collection of historical playing cards decks and tarots to it.

Bursztein is an accomplished magician and he posted magic tricks weekly on Instagram during the 2019 pandemic.

[r 26] In 2014, following his talk on hacking Hearthstone using machine learning,[p 27] he decided not to make his prediction tool open source at Blizzard Entertainment’s request.