System Security

Software Availability Protection in Cyber-Physical Systems
A. Li, J. Wang, N. Zhang
USENIX Security Symposium, 2025

Secure Information Embedding in Forensic 3D Fingerprinting
C. Wang, J. Wang, M. Zhou, V. Pham, S. Hao, C. Zhou, N. Zhang, N. Raviv
USENIX Security Symposium, 2025

Optimal Priority Assignment for Synchronous Harmonic Tasks With Dynamic Self-Suspension
M. Guenzel, M. Sudvarg, M. Deppert, A. Li, N. Zhang, J. Chen
IEEE Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium (RTAS), 2025

IsolateGPT: An Execution Isolation Architecture for LLM-Based Agentic Systems
Y. Wu, F. Roesner, T. Kohno, N. Zhang, U. Iqbal
Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), 2025

TZ-DataShield: Automated Data Protection for Embedded Systems via Data-Flow-Based Compartmentalization
Z. Kong, M. Park, L. Guan, N. Zhang, C. Kim
Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), 2025

Preference Poisoning Attacks on Reward Model Learning
J. Wu, J. Wang, C. Xiao, C. Wang, N. Zhang, Y. Vorobeychik
IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (Oakland), 2025

Sequential LLM Framework for Fashion Recommendation
H. Liu, X. Tang, T. Chen, J. Liu, I. Indu, H. Zou, P. Dai, R. Galan, M. Porter, D. Jia, N. Zhang, L. Xiong
Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP), 2024

PhySense: Defending Physically Realizable Attacks for Autonomous Systems via Consistency Reasoning
Z. Yu, A. Li, R. Wen, Y. Chen, N. Zhang
ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), 2024

Partial Context-Sensitive Pointer Integrity for Real-time Embedded Systems
Y. Wang, K. Mack, T. Chantem, S. Baruah, N. Zhang and B. Ward
IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium (RTSS), 2024

Don’t Listen To Me: Understanding and Exploring Jailbreak Prompts of Large Language Models
Z. Yu, X. Liu, S. Liang, Z. Cameron, C. Xiao, N. Zhang
USENIX Security Symposium, 2024
Distinguished Paper Award

Opportunistic Data Flow Integrity for Real-time Cyber-physical Systems Using Worst Case Execution Time Reservation
Y. Wang, A. Li, J. Wang, S. Baruah, N. Zhang
USENIX Security Symposium, 2024

Your Firmware Has Arrived: A Study of Firmware Update Vulnerabilities
Y. Wu, J. Wang, Y. Wang, S. Zhai, Z. Li, Y. He, K. Sun, Q. Li, N. Zhang
USENIX Security Symposium, 2024

Data-flow Availability: Achieving Timing Assurance in Autonomous Systems
A. Li, N. Zhang
USENIX Symposium on Operating Systems Design and Implementation (OSDI), 2024

An Empirical Study of Performance Interference: Timing Violation Patterns and Impacts [PDF] [Website]
A. Li, J. Wang, S. Baruah, B. Sinopoli, N. Zhang
IEEE Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium (RTAS), 2024

Elastic Scheduling for Harmonic Task Systems
M. Sudvarg, A. Wang, D. Wang, S. Baruah, J. Buhler, P. Ekberg, C, Gill, N. Zhang
IEEE Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium (RTAS), 2024

InsectACIDE: Debugger-Based Holistic Asynchronous CFI for Embedded System
Y. Wang, C. Mack, X. Tan, N. Zhang, Z. Zhao, S. Baruah, B. Ward
IEEE Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium (RTAS), 2024

Please Tell Me More: Privacy Impact of Explainability through the Lens of Membership Inference Attack
H. Liu, Y. Wu, Z. Yu, N. Zhang
IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (Oakland), 2024

Planning, Fast and Slow: Online Reinforcement Learning with Action-Free Offline Data via Multiscale Planners
C. Wu, H. Hu, Y. Yang, N. Zhang, C. Zhang
International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), 2024

Who’s Afraid of Butterflies? A Close Examination of the Butterfly Attack
S.Baruah, P. Ekberg, M. Hosseinzadeh, A. Li, B. Ward and N. Zhang
IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium (RTSS), 2023
Outstanding Paper Award

Secure and Timely GPU Execution in Cyber-physical Systems [PDF]
J. Wang, Y. Wang, N. Zhang
ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), 2023

AntiFake: Using Adversarial Audio to Prevent Unauthorized Speech Synthesis [PDF] [Website]
Z. Yu, S. Zhai, N. Zhang
ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), 2023

Devils in Your Apps: Vulnerabilities and User Privacy Exposure in Mobile Notification Systems [PDF]
J. Lou, X. Zhang, Y. Zhang, X. Li, X. Yuan, N. Zhang
IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN), 2023
Best Paper Award, Distinguished Paper Award

XCheck: Integrity Verification for 3D Printed Patient-Specific Devices via Computing Tomography
Z. Yu, Y. Chang, S. Zhai, N. Deily, T. Ju, XF. Wang, U. Jammalamadaka, N. Zhang
USENIX Security Symposium, 2023
Distinguished Artifact Award

ARI: Attestation of Real-time Mission Execution Integrity
J. Wang, Y. Wang, A. Li, Y. Xiao, R. Zhang, W. Lou, Y. Hou, N. Zhang
USENIX Security Symposium, 2023

SMACK: Semantically Meaningful Adversarial Audio Attack
Z. Yu, Y. Chang, N. Zhang, C. Xiao
USENIX Security Symposium, 2023

CodeIPPrompt: Intellectual Property Infringement Assessment of Code Language Models
Z. Yu, Y. Wu, N. Zhang, C. Wang, Y. Vorobeychik, C. Xiao
International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), 2023

SlowLiDAR: Increasing the Latency of LiDAR-Based Detection Using Adversarial Examples
H. Liu, Y. Wu, Z. Yu, Y. Vorobeychik, N. Zhang
IEEE / CVF Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Conference (CVPR), 2023

RIATIG: Reliable and Imperceptible Adversarial Text-to-Image Generation with Natural Prompts
H. Liu, Y. Wu, S. Zhai, B. Yuan, N. Zhang
IEEE / CVF Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Conference (CVPR), 2023

IP Protection in TinyML
J. Wang, Y. Wu, H. Liu, B. Yuan, R. Chamberlain, N. Zhang
ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conference(DAC), 2023

Return-to-Non-Secure Vulnerabilities on ARM Cortex-M TrustZone: Attack and Defense
Z. Ma, X. Tan, L. Ziarek, N. Zhang, H. Hu and Z. Zhao
ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conference (DAC), 2023

RT-TEE: Real-time System Availability for Cyber-physical Systems [PDF] [code]
J. Wang, A. Li, H. Li, C. Lu, N. Zhang
IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (Oakland), 2022

PolyRhythm: Adaptive Tuning of a Multi-Channel Attack Template for Timing Interference [PDF] [code]
A. Li, M. Sudvarg, H. Liu, Z. Yu, C. Gill, N. Zhang
IEEE Real-Time Systems Symposium (RTSS), 2022

From Timing Variations to Performance Degradation: Understanding and Mitigating the Impact of Software Execution Timing in SLAM [PDF] [code]
A. Li, H. Liu, J. Wang, N. Zhang
IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2022

When Evil Calls: Targeted Adversarial Voice over IP Network [PDF] [code]
H. Liu, Z. Yu, M. Zha, X. Wang, W. Yeoh, Y. Vorobeychik, N. Zhang
ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), 2022

HeatDeCam: Detecting Hidden Spy Cameras via Thermal Emissions [PDF]
Z. Yu, Z. Li, Y. Chang, S. Fong, J. Liu, N. Zhang
ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), 2022

PowerTouch: A Security Objective-Guided Automation Framework for Generating Wired Ghost Touch Attacks on Touchscreens
H. Zhu, Z. Yu, W. Cao, N. Zhang, X. Zhang
IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer-Aided Design (ICCAD), 2022

HARM: Hardware-assisted Continuous Re-randomization for Microcontrollers [PDF]
J. Shi, L. Guan, W. Li, D. Zhang, P. Chen, N. Zhang
IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy (EuroS&P), 2022

Towards Automated Computational Auditing of mHealth Security and Privacy Regulations [Poster PDF]
B. Tung, Z. Yu, N. Zhang
ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), 2021

Chronos: Timing Interference as a New Attack Vector on Autonomous Cyber-physical Systems [Poster PDF]
A. Li, J. Wang, N. Zhang
ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), 2021

Messy States of Wiring: Vulnerabilities in Emerging Personal Payment Systems [PDF]
J. Lou, X. Yuan, and N. Zhang
USENIX Security Symposium, 2021

SurfingAttack: Interactive Hidden Attack on Voice Assistants Using Ultrasonic Guided Waves [Website] [PDF]
Q. Yan, K. Liu, Q. Zhou, H.Guo, N. Zhang
Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), 2020

Finding Needles in a Moving Haystack: Prioritizing Alerts with Adversarial Reinforcement Learning [PDF]
L. Tong, A. Laszka, C. Yan, N. Zhang, Y. Vorobeychik
34th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), 2020

RusTEE: Developing Memory-Safe ARM TrustZone Application [PDF]
S. Wan, M. Sun, K. Sun, N. Zhang, X. He
Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC), 2020

Enforcing Private Data Usage Control with Blockchain and Attested Off-chain Contract Execution [PDF]
Y. Xiao, N. Zhang, J. Li, W. Lou, Y.T. Hou
25th European Symposium on Research in Computer Security (ESORICS), 2020

Bit2RNG: Leveraging Bad-page Initialized Table with Bit-error Insertion for True Random Number Generation in Commodity Flash Memory [PDF]
W. Yan, H. Zhu, Z. Yu, F. Tehranipoor, J. Chandy, N. Zhang, X. Zhang
IEEE International Symposium on Hardware Oriented Security and Trust (HOST), 2020

Improving Robustness of ML Classifiers against Realizable Evasion Attacks Using Conserved Features [PDF]
L. Tong, B. Li, C. Hajaj, C. Xiao, N. Zhang, Y. Vorobeychik
USENIX Security Symposium, 2019

SATIN: A Secure and Trustworthy Asynchronous Introspection on Multi-Core ARM Processors [PDF]
S. Wan, J. Sun, K. Sun, N. Zhang, Q. Li
Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN), 2019

CryptMe: Data Leakage Prevention for Unmodified Programs on ARM Devices [PDF]
C. Cao, L. Guan, N. Zhang, N. Gao, J. Lin, B. Luo, P. Liu, J. Xiang and W. Lou
International Symposium on Research in Attacks, Intrusions and Defenses (RAID), 2018

Forensic Challenges under Misused Architectural Features [PDF]
N. Zhang, R. Zhang, K. Sun, W. Lou, Y.T. Hou, Sushil Jajodia
IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security (TIFS) 2018

TruSpy: Cache Side-Channel Information Leakage from the Secure World on ARM Devices [PDF]
N. Zhang, K. Sun, D. Shands, W. Lou, Y.T. Hou
IACR EPrint, 2016

CaSE: Cache-Assisted Secure Execution on ARM Processors [PDF]
N. Zhang, K. Sun, W. Lou, Y.T. Hou
IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (Oakland), 2016

CacheKit: Evading Memory Introspection Using Cache Incoherence [PDF]
N. Zhang, He Sun, K. Sun, W. Lou, Y.T. Hou
IEEE European Symposium on Security and Privacy (EuroS&P), 2016

Now You See Me: Hide and Seek in Physical Address Space [PDF]
N. Zhang, K. Sun, W. Lou, Y.T. Hou, Sushil Jajodia
ACM Symposium on Information, Computer and Communications Security (ASIACCS), 2015

Distributed System Security

Squeezing More Utility via Adaptive Clipping on Deferentially Private Gradients in Federated Meta-Learning
N. Wang, Y. Xiao, Y. Chen, N. Zhang, W. Lou, Y. T. Hou
Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC), 2022.

A Decentralized Truth Discovery Approach to the Blockchain Oracle Problem
Y. Xiao, N. Zhang, W. Lou, Y. T. Hou
IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), 2023.

PROVES: Establishing Image Provenance using Semantic Signatures
M. Xie, M. Kulshrestha, S. Wang, J. Yang, A. Chakrabarti, N. Zhang, Y. Vorobeychik
IEEE/CVF Winter Conference on Applications of Computer Vision (WACV), 2022

Decentralized Spectrum Access System: Vision, Challenges, and a Blockchain Solution
Y. Xiao, S. Shi, W. Lou, C. Wang, X. Li, N. Zhang, YT. Hou, JH. Reed
IEEE Wireless Communications, 2022

Research Challenges for Combined Autonomy, AI, and Real-Time Assurance
T. Abdelzaher, S. Baruah, C. Gill, Y. Vorobeychik, N. Zhang, and X. Zhang
IEEE International Conference on Cognitive Machine Intelligence (CogMI), 2021

Remotely Controlling TrustZone Applications? A Study on Securely and Resiliently Receiving Remote Commands
S. Wan, K. Sun, N. Zhang, and Y Li
ACM Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks (WiSec), 2021

Session Key Distribution Made Practical for CAN and CAN-FD Message Authentication [PDF]
Y. Xiao, S. Shi, N. Zhang, W. Lou, Y. Hou
Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC), 2020

PrivacyScope: Automatic Analysis of Private Data Leakage in TEE-Protected Applications [PDF]
R. Zhang, N. Zhang, A. Moini, W. Lou and Y.T. Hou
40th IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS), 2020

PCBChain: Lightweight Reconfigurable Blockchain Primitives for Secure IoT Applications
W Yan, N Zhang, LL Njilla, X Zhang
IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Systems, 2020

Modeling the Impact of Network Connectivity on Consensus Security of Proof-of-Work Blockchain [PDF]
Y. Xiao, N. Zhang, W. Lou, Y.T. Hou
39th IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), 2020

A Survey of Distributed Consensus Protocols for Blockchain Networks [PDF]
Y. Xiao, N. Zhang, W. Lou, and Y. T. Hou
IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials, 2020

PCBChain: Lightweight Reconfigurable Blockchain Primitives for Secure IoT Applications
W Yan, N Zhang, LL Njilla, X Zhang
IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Systems

Perturbation-Hidden: Enhancement of Vehicular Privacy for Location-Based Services in Internet of Vehicles
X. Li, Y. Ren, L. Yang, N. Zhang, B. Luo, J. Weng, X. Liu
IEEE Transactions on Network Science and Engineering, 2020

PriRoster: Privacy-preserving Radio Context Attestation in Cognitive Radio Network
R. Zhang, N. Wang, N Zhang, Z Yan, W. Lou and T. Hou
IEEE International Symposium on Dynamic Spectrum Access Networks (DySPAN) 2019

[Book Chapter] Distributed Consensus Protocols and Algorithms [PDF]
Y. Xiao, N. Zhang, J. Li, W. Lou, Y.T. Hou
Blockchain for Distributed Systems Security, First Edition. Wiley Sons, 2019

Towards Efficient Fine-grained Access Control and Trustworthy Data Processing for Remote Monitoring Services in IoT
Y. Chen, W. Sun, N. Zhang, Q. Zheng, W. Lou and Y.T. Hou
IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security (TIFS) 2018

[Position Paper] PrivacyGuard: Enforcing Private Data Usage with Blockchain and Attested Execution [PDF]
N. Zhang, J. Li, W. Lou, Y.T. Hou
DPM International Workshop on Data Privacy Management (DPM 18)

TruSense: Information Leakage from TrustZone [PDF]
N. Zhang, K. Sun, Deborah Shands, W. Lou, Y.T. Hou
IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), 2018

Secure Remote Monitoring Framework Supporting Efficient Fine-grained Access Control and Data Processing in IoT
Y. Chen, W. Sun, N. Zhang, Q. Zheng, W. Lou and Y.T. Hou
International Conference on Security and Privacy in Communication Networks (SECURECOMM 2018)

ROSTER: Radio Context Attestation in Cognitive Radio Network [PDF]
N. Zhang, W. Sun, W. Lou, Y.T. Hou, and W. Trappe
IEEE Conference on Communications and Network Security (IEEE CNS 2018)

Efficient Signature Generation for Classifying Cross-Architecture IoT Malware
M. Alhanahnah, Q. Lin, Q. Yan, N. Zhang, and Z. Chen
IEEE Conference on Communications and Network Security (IEEE CNS) 2018

Tapping the Potential: Secure Chunk-based Deduplication of Encrypted Data for Cloud Backup
W. Sun, N. Zhang, W. Lou, and Y.T. Hou
IEEE Conference on Communications and Network Security (IEEE CNS 2018)

Black Penguin: On the Feasibility of Detecting Intrusion with Homogeneous Memory
N. Zhang, R. Zhang, Q. Yan, W. Lou, Y.T. Hou, Danfeng Yao,
Network Forensic Workshop, IEEE Conference on Communications and Network Security (CNS), 2017

When Gene Meets Cloud: Enabling Scalable and Efficient Range Query on Encrypted Genomic Data
W. Sun, N. Zhang, W. Lou, Y.T. Hou
The 36th IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), 2017

From Electromyogram to Password: Exploring the Privacy Impact of Wearables in Augmented Reality
R. Zhang, N. Zhang, Changlai Du, W. Lou, Y.T. Hou, Yuichi Kawamoto
ACM Transactions on Intelligent Systems and Technology (TIST), 2017

AugAuth: Shoulder-Surfing Resistant Authentication for Augmented Reality​
R. Zhang, N. Zhang, Changlai Du, W. Lou, Y.T. Hou, Yuichi Kawamoto
IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), 2017

Looks Good to Me: Authentication for Augmented Reality
Ethan Gaebel, N. Zhang, W. Lou, Y.T. Hou
International Workshop on Trustworthy Embedded Devices, 23rd ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (TRUSTED CCS), 2016

Enabling Trusted Data-Intensive Execution in Cloud Computing
N. Zhang, W. Lou, X. Jiang, Y.T. Hou
IEEE Conference on Communications and Network Security (CNS), 2014

MUSHI: Toward Multiple Level Security Cloud with Strong Hardware Level Isolation
N. Zhang, M. Li, W. Lou, Y.T. Hou
IEEE Military Communications Conference (MILCOM), 2012

​Distributed Data Mining with Differential Privacy
N. Zhang, M. Li, W. Lou
IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), 2011

Technical Report

CrossChain: An Open Platform for Cross-layer Blockchain Research [PDF]
R. Xu, H. Lee, N. Zhang, X. Zhang