publications

2026

  1. Trustworthy Data Paths for Sensitive Smartphone Workloads
    Zhihao Yao
    In Accepted to IEEE International Conference on Mobile Data Management (MDM), PhD Dissertation Showcase, 2026
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    Can LLMs be Effective Code Contributors? A Study on Open-source Projects
    Chun Jie Chong, Muyeed Ahmed, Zhihao Yao, and 1 more author
    Accepted to International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering (EASE), 2026
    HTML Software

2025

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    PACE: Policy Adaptation for Cybersecurity Events Through Formal Verification of LLM-Generated Firewall Policies
    Mahya Samdaliri, and Zhihao Yao
    In Proc. IEEE BigData (CyberHunt Workshop), 2025
    HTML
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    Catamaran: User Privacy Violation Detection in Mobile Logging
    Chenxi Hou, Chun Jie Chong, Zhihao Yao, and 1 more author
    In Proc. IEEE SecDev, 2025
    Software
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    NUSGuard: Smart Device Anti-Eavesdropping Protection based on Near-Ultrasonic Interference
    Xiaoxiao Qiao, Man Zhou, Hongwei Li, and 4 more authors
    IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, 2025
    HTML
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    PyPitfall: Dependency Chaos and Software Supply Chain Vulnerabilities in Python
    Jacob Mahon, Chenxi Hou, and Zhihao Yao
    In Proc. IEEE BigData (CyberHunt Workshop), 2025
    HTML
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    Casper: Prompt Sanitization for Protecting User Privacy in Web-Based Large Language Models
    Chun Jie Chong, Chenxi Hou, Zhihao Yao, and 1 more author
    In Proc. IEEE CSCloud, 2025
    HTML Software

2024

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    Formal Trust and Threat Modeling Using Large Language Models
    Zhihao Yao
    In Proc. ACSAC Workshop on AI for Cyber Threat Intelligence (WAITI), 2024
    HTML
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    Artificial-Intelligence Generated Code Considered Harmful: A Road Map for Secure and High-Quality Code Generation
    Chun Jie Chong, Zhihao Yao, and Iulian Neamtiu
    Technical Report 2024-09-27, NJIT, 2024
    HTML PDF
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    Hora: High Assurance Periodic Availability Guarantee for Life-Critical Applications on Smartphones
    Dylan Zueck, Nathaniel Atallah, Ian Do, and 2 more authors
    In Proc. ACM APSys, 2024
    HTML PDF
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    ProvCam: A Camera Module with Self-Contained TCB for Producing Verifiable Videos
    Yuxin Liu, Zhihao Yao, Mingyi Chen, and 3 more authors
    In Proc. ACM MobiCom, 2024
    HTML PDF Software Hardware
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    Poster: StreamGuard: Enabling Secure and Uncensored Video Calls on Mobile Devices
    Chenxi Hou, Zhihao Yao, and Hui Peng
    In Proc. ACM MobiSys Poster, 2024
    HTML PDF

2023

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    Minimizing a Smartphone’s TCB for Security-Critical Programs with Exclusively-Used, Physically-Isolated, Statically-Partitioned Hardware
    Zhihao Yao, Seyed Mohammadjavad Seyed Talebi, Mingyi Chen, and 2 more authors
    In Proc. ACM MobiSys, 2023 🏆Best Artifact Award
    HTML PDF Artifact Archive Technical Manual Software Hardware
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    GLeeFuzz: Fuzzing WebGL Through Error Message Guided Mutation
    Hui Peng, Zhihao Yao, Ardalan Amiri Sani, and 2 more authors
    In Proc. USENIX Security Symposium, 2023
    HTML PDF Code Slides
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    A real-time electrical load forecasting and unsupervised anomaly detection framework
    Xinlin Wang, Zhihao Yao, and Marios Papaefthymiou
    Applied Energy, 2023
    HTML
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    Building secure systems across all layers
    Zhihao Yao
    Doctoral thesis, University of California, Irvine, 2023
    HTML PDF

2021

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    Undo Workarounds for Kernel Bugs
    Seyed Mohammadjavad Seyed Talebi, Zhihao Yao, Ardalan Amiri Sani, and 2 more authors
    In Proc. USENIX Security Symposium, 2021
    HTML PDF Code Slides

2018

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    Sugar: Secure GPU Acceleration in Web Browsers
    Zhihao Yao, Zongheng Ma, Yingtong Liu, and 2 more authors
    In Proc. ACM ASPLOS, 2018
    HTML PDF Supp Code Slides
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    Milkomeda: Safeguarding the Mobile GPU Interface Using WebGL Security Checks
    Zhihao Yao, Saeed Mirzamohammadi, Ardalan Amiri Sani, and 1 more author
    In Proc. ACM CCS, 2018
    HTML PDF Blog Code