Recruitement
We have Ph.D. opennings for self-motivated and talented students to join our group [link].
Please share your thoughts on my recent papers before sending an email.
News
Sep 2024: Research on blockchain security is accepted to IEEE S&P 25. Congrats to Wanning and Yibo!
Aug 2024: Blockchain security research is funded by Ethereum Foundation. Thank you, EF!
Aug 2024: My student Yibo receives USENIX Security’24 Travel grant. Congrats to Yibo!
July 2024: Serve NDSS 25 program committee. Please submit your best work.
June 2024: Invited to talk about our blockchain research at NTU Blockhain Symposium in Singapore [website].
June 2024: Invited to talk about our blockchain research at SBC 2024 in NYC [website].
May 2024: Serve Euro S&P 25 program committee. Please submit your best work.
May 2024: Research on blockchain mempool fuzzing accepted to USENIX Security 24. Congrats to Yibo!
May 2024: Serve IEEE S&P 25 program committee. Please submit your best work.
May 2024: Host an educational workshop for using our [BADD labs] in CS, FinTech courses: [workshop webpage]
March 2024: Research on Ethereum key leakage and misuse accepted to WWW 24 (short paper). Congrats to Yuxuan and Jiaqi!
Feb 2024: Serve ACSAC 24 program committee. Please submit your best work.
Feb 2024: Serve RAID 24 program committee. Please submit your best work [CFP].
Jan 2024: Joint research on upgradable smart contracts accepted to WWW 24. Congrats to Xiaofan and Jin!
Oct 2023: Serve Euro S&P 24 PC and WWW 24 Security Area Chair. Please submit your best work.
Aug 2023: Presented blockchain-security work at the Stanford Blockchain Conference [SBC 2023].
Apr 2023: The security patch we developed is merged to Geth 1.11.4 [release notes]. Congrats to Wanning, Yibo and Yuxuan!
Apr 2023: Grateful to receive an academic grant from Ethereum Foundation on blockchain security research [news].
Mar 2023: Grateful to receive cloud funds from [CloudBank].
Mar 2023: Serve NDSS 24 program committee. Please submit your best work: [CFP].
Mar 2023: Serve ACSAC 23 program committee. Please submit your best work: [CFP].
Feb 2023: DeFi security work is conditionally accepted to Euro S&P 23. Congrats to Jiaqi!
Feb 2023: Joint research on Blockchain Data Explorer is accepted to IEEE Transactions on Computers (TC)!
Jan 2023: Research on Blockchain Ethics is accepted to EthiCS 23!
Jan 2023: The extension of our iBatch work (FSE’21) is accepted to TSE 23. Congrats to Yibo and Jiaqi!
Oct 2022: My student Wanning Ding received Ethereum Protocol Fellowship. Congrats to Wanning!
Aug 2022: Serve Euro S&P 23 program committee. Please submit your best work: [CFP].
Aug 2022: Blockchain paper accepted to ConsensusDay 2022. Congrats to Yibo and Kai!
July 2022: Grateful to receive an NSF CNS grant (Single PI) on blockchain systems research.
June 2022: Grateful to receive an academic grant (Single PI) from Ethereum Foundation on blockchain security research.
June 2022: Invited talk on blockchain applications at DBSec 2022 [link].
Apr. 2022: My Ph.D. student [Kai Li] is joining [the Computer Science Dept. at San Diego State Univ.] as a tenure-track Assistant Professor. Godspeed to Kai!!
Feb. 2022: Invited talk on our blockchain research in [UK Security seminar] and at [NUS].
Feb. 2022: Invited talk in [NSF blockchain-education workshop]: [slides].
Sep. 2021: Research on blockchain system security accepted to ACM CCS 2021. Congrats to Kai and Yibo!
Aug. 2021: Research on blockchain network measurement accepted to ACM IMC 2021. Congrats to Kai!
Aug. 2021: SGX/TEE research accepted to ACM Middleware 2021 (Industrial track).
Aug. 2021: Serve a blockchain panel in VLDB’21 [link].
June 2021: Grateful to receive an NSF SaTC education grant. We will be developing blockchain labs [link].
June 2021: Research on blockchain cost optimization accepted to ESEC/FSE 2021. Congrats to Yibo, Kai and Jiaqi!
Oct. 2020: Research on blockchain system security accepted to NDSS 2021. Congrats to Kai, Jiaqi and Xianghong!
Aug. 2020: Research on blockchain cost optimization accepted to Middleware 2020. Congrats to Kai and Zhehu!
Nov. 2019: Chair blockchain workshop BlockDM 2020. Please submit your best work [link].
July 2019: Deliver a public lecture to K-12 in Syracuse City School District.
Apr 2019: Honorable mention in Google & Intel 2019 C3 Challenge. Congrats to Kai and Burak! [link]
May 2018: Release blockchain labs and deliver them in the SEED workshop: [link].
Apr. 2018: Release Intel SGX labs: [link].
Research Interests
I am broadly interested in cyber-security and computer systems research. My current research tackles problems in the emerginng/fast-evolving domains like blockchains, web3, and smart contracts from the following angles:
Vulnerability discovery and attack detection
Defensive system designs
Security measurement in the wild
Performance and workloads
Security education
My projects are generously supported by National Science Foundation, Ethereum Foundation, etc.
My research results in patches in popular open-source software, such as Ethereum Go client [Geth 1.11.4]. I also build the [BADD labs] for active learning in Blockchain And Dapp Development.
Selected Publications
Underline: students advised by me.
USENIX Security'24: “Understanding Ethereum Mempool Security under Asymmetric DoS by Symbolized Stateful Fuzzing”, AR=14.5%, Yibo Wang, Yuzhe Tang, Kai Li, Wanning Ding, Zhihua Yang. [pdf]
WWW'24: “Characterizing Ethereum Upgradable Smart Contracts and Their Security Implications”, AR=20.2%, Xiaofan Li, Jin Yang, Jiaqi Chen, Yuzhe Tang, Xing Gao. [preprint], [slides]
WWW'24 (short paper): “Towards Understanding Crypto-Asset Risks on Ethereum Caused by Key Leakage on the Internet”, Yuxuan Zhou*, Jiaqi Chen*, Yibo Wang, Yuzhe Tang and G. Gu. (* co first authors).
Euro S&P'23: “Understanding the Security Risks of Decentralized Exchanges by Uncovering Unfair Trades in the Wild”, AR=35.7%, Jiaqi Chen, Yibo Wang, Yuxuan Zhou, Wanning Ding , Yuzhe Tang, X. Wang, Kai Li. [preprint], [slides], [2-page slides]
CCS'21: “DETER: Denial of Ethereum Txpool sERvices”, AR=22%, Kai Li, Yibo Wang, Yuzhe Tang. [pdf], [slides], [talk], [poster], [Patch@Geth-1.11.4], [CVE-2022-23327], [CVE-2022-23328]
NDSS'21: “As Strong As Its Weakest Link: How to Break (and Fix) Blockchain DApps at RPC Service”, AR=15.2%, Kai Li, Jiaqi Chen, Xianghong Liu, Yuzhe Tang, X. Wang, X. Luo. [pdf], [slides], [demo1], [demo2]
IMC'21: “TopoShot: Uncovering Ethereum's Network Topology Leveraging Replacement Transactions”, AR=28%, Kai Li, Yuzhe Tang, Jiaqi Chen, Yibo Wang, Xianghong Liu. [pdf], [slides], [poster], [open dataset], [talk@IMC’21]
FSE'21: “iBatch: Saving Ethereum Fees via Secure and Cost-Effective Batching of Smart-Contract Invocations”, AR=24.5%, Yibo Wang, Qi Zhang, Kai Li, Yuzhe Tang, Jiaqi Chen, X. Luo, T. Chen. [pdf], [extended version], [html], [slides]
Middleware'21 (Industrial track): “Authenticated Key-Value Stores with Hardware Enclaves”, Yuzhe Tang, Kai Li, Q. Zhang, J. Xu, J. Chen. [pdf], [extended version] [slides]
Middleware'20: “Cost-Effective Data Feeds to Blockchains via Workload-Adaptive Data Replication”, AR=25.2%, Kai Li, Yuzhe Tang, Jiaqi Chen, Zhehu Yuan, C. Xu, J. Xu. [pdf], [extended version], [slides], [talk@Middleware’20], [code]
ICDE'19: “GEM^2-Tree: A Gas-Efficient Structure for Authenticated Range Queries in Blockchain”, Full Paper, AR=26.8%, C. Zhang, C. Xu, J. Xu, Yuzhe Tang, B. Choi. [pdf]
Full list of publications: [link], [DBLP].
Open-source Software
Advising
I am fortunate and grateful to work with the following bright Ph.D. students.
Yibo Wang [link]: Security'24, FSE'21, TSE'23; S&P'25, IMC'21, CCS'21
Jiaqi Chen [link]: WWW'24, WWW'24 (short), Euro S&P'23; NDSS'21, IMC'21, FSE'21, Middleware'20
Wanning Ding [link]: Ethereum Protocol Fellowship’22 awardee, S&P'25; Security’24
Zhihua Yang [link]: Security’24
Jin Yang [link]: WWW'24
Yuxuan Zhou [link]: WWW’24 (short);
Alumni:
[Link] to our FullStack Security Lab (FSSL).
Teaching
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