Daoyuan Wu
Adjunct Assistant Professor

Department of Information Engineering, CUHK

Senior Research Fellow, Nanyang Technological University

Email: dywu [at] ie.cuhk.edu.hk; daoyuan.wu [at] ntu.edu.sg

Gmail: daoyuan0x DBLP | Google Scholar

I am working with Prof. Yang Liu at NTU for Web3 security and AI-enhanced security. I am also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Department of Information Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). Before that, I spent six months at Huawei Hong Kong Research Centre as a Senior Researcher (proposed a new solution for static ransomware detection and explored the GPU acceleration of Fully Homomorphic Encryption) and three years at CUHK IE as a Research Assistant Professor (independent PI, with the duties of research supervision and teaching) from 2019 to 2022. Prior to CUHK, I earned my PhD degree in 2019 from Singapore Management University (SMU) in the School of Computing and Information Systems. My PhD study was generously supported by SMU's Secure Mobile Center (SMC) PhD Scholarship (the only awardee). Before pursuing my PhD in Singapore, I received M.Phil. from Department of Computing at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 2015 and B.E. from Department of Information Security at Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications in 2011.

My research focuses on three areas: (i) Mobile and Software Security at the bytecode/binary level, (ii) FinTech and Data-driven Security at the source code level, and (iii) LLM and AI-enhanced Security at the code text level. In particular, I was one of the pioneers in using non-intrusive app crowdsourcing (e.g., the MopEye app) for security and networking research. I am also an expert in developing practical Android static analysis, for which I am leading a long-term project on using search-based static analysis for Android security. I have published papers in top-tier venues across multiple disciplines, including Security (NDSS*2, RAID*2, TDSC), Systems (USENIX ATC, DSN), Networking (CoNEXT, INFOCOM, TMC), and Software Engineering (FSE, ISSTA, EMSE). My research often makes practical impact by reporting vulnerabilities, including over 60 CVEs for Android and iOS app vulnerabilities, over 10 system issues in Android (e.g., CVE-2014-7224) and one in iOS (CVE-2015-5921), and over 100 vulnerabilities in top blockchains, including Dogecoin (the new CVE-2021-37491) and BNB Chain (a bug bounty).

I am leading the Vulnerability and Privacy Research Lab and MagkNetwork (an Internet-based working group for Crypto).

Research Areas

Publications

Published Papers

P23

Beyond “Protected” and “Private”: An Empirical Security Analysis of Custom Function Modifiers in Smart Contracts ISSTA '23

Yuzhou Fang, Daoyuan Wu*, Xiao Yi, Shuai Wang*, Yufan Chen, Mengjie Chen, Yang Liu, and Lingxiao Jiang
To appear in ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis (ISSTA), Seattle, United States, 2023.

P22

BlockScope: Detecting and Investigating Propagated Vulnerabilities in Forked Blockchain Projects NDSS '23

Xiao Yi, Yuzhou Fang, Daoyuan Wu*, and Lingxiao Jiang
One of the top 13 papers directly accepted over 581 submissions. In this paper, we discovered over 100 vulnerabilities in top blockchains.

P21

An Empirical Study of Blockchain System Vulnerabilities: Modules, Types, and Patterns FSE '22

Xiao Yi, Daoyuan Wu*, Lingxiao Jiang, Yuzhou Fang, Kehuan Zhang, and Wei Zhang
The first systematic study about system-level blockchain vulnerabilities, in which we performed the file-, text-, and code-level analysis.

P20

LiCA: A Fine-grained and Path-sensitive Linux Capability Analysis Framework RAID '22

Menghan Sun, Zirui Song, Xiaoxi Ren, Daoyuan Wu, and Kehuan Zhang
In the 25th International Symposium on Research in Attacks, Intrusions and Defenses (RAID), Limassol, Cyprus, 2022.

P19

On the Usability (In)Security of In-App Browsing Interfaces in Mobile Apps RAID '21

Zicheng Zhang, Daoyuan Wu*, Lixiang Li, and Debin Gao
We identified usability security issues in Facebook, Snapchat, and LinkedIn apps.
To appear in the 24th International Symposium on Research in Attacks, Intrusions and Defenses (RAID), San Sebastian, Spain, October, 2021.

P18

When Program Analysis Meets Bytecode Search: Targeted and Efficient Inter-procedural Analysis of Modern Android Apps in BackDroid DSN '21

Daoyuan Wu, Debin Gao, Robert H. Deng, and Rocky K. C. Chang
We started programming BackDroid since December 2015. I will keep leading this search-based static analysis project and make it an impactful work.
Accepted by Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN) with a high review score; The majority of earlier reviews from NDSS/MobiCom were also positive.

P17

Active Warden Attack: On the (In)Effectiveness of Android App Repackage-Proofing TDSC '21

Haoyu Ma, Shijia Li, Debin Gao, Daoyuan Wu, Qiaowen Jia, and Chunfu Jia
In IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing.

P16

Deep-Learning-Based App Sensitive Behavior Surveillance for Android Powered Cyber-Physical Systems TII '21

Haoyu Ma, Jianwen Tian, Kefan Qiu, David Lo, Debin Gao, Daoyuan Wu, Chunfu Jia, and Thar Baker
In IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics.

P15

Scalable Online Vetting of Android Apps for Measuring Declared SDK Versions and Their Consistency with API Calls EMSE '21

Daoyuan Wu, Debin Gao, and David Lo
In Springer Empirical Software Engineering. This article extends our preliminary conference version at WASA'17.

P14

Understanding Android VoIP Security: A System-level Vulnerability Assessment DIMVA '20

En He, Daoyuan Wu*, and Robert H. Deng
We discovered and reported 8 zero-day vulnerabilities in Android VoIP system components. Google acknowledged us with 8 bug bounties.
In Proc. Springer Conference on Detection of Intrusions and Malware & Vulnerability Assessment (DIMVA), Lisboa, Portugal, 2020.

P13

Towards Understanding Android System Vulnerabilities: Techniques and Insights AsiaCCS '19

Daoyuan Wu, Debin Gao, Eric K. T. Cheng, Yichen Cao, Jintao Jiang, and Robert H. Deng
In Proc. ACM Asia Conference on Computer and Communications Security (AsiaCCS), Auckland, New Zealand, 2019. (AR = 58/258 = 22%)

P12

An Empirical Study of Mobile Network Behavior and Application Performance in the Wild IWQoS '19

Shiwei Zhang, Weichao Li, Daoyuan Wu, Bo Jin, Rocky K. C. Chang, Debin Gao, Yi Wang, and Ricky K. P. Mok
In Proc. IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Quality of Service (IWQoS), Phoenix, USA, 2019. (AR = 42/153 = 27.4%)

P11

Understanding Open Ports in Android Applications: Discovery, Diagnosis, and Security Assessment NDSS '19

Daoyuan Wu, Debin Gao, Rocky K. C. Chang, En He, Eric K. T. Cheng, and Robert H. Deng
In Proc. ISOC Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), San Diego, USA, 2019. (AR = 89/521 = 17%)

P10

Towards Dynamically Monitoring Android Applications on Non-rooted Devices in the Wild WiSec '18

Xiaoxiao Tang, Yan Lin, Daoyuan Wu, and Debin Gao
In Proc. ACM Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks (WiSec), Stockholm, Sweden, 2018. (AR = 28/78 = 35.9%)

P9

SCLib: A Practical and Lightweight Defense against Component Hijacking in Android Applications CODASPY '18

Daoyuan Wu, Yao Cheng, Debin Gao, Yingjiu Li, and Robert H. Deng
In Proc. ACM Conference on Data and Applications Security and Privacy (CODASPY), Tempe, Arizona, USA, 2018. (8-page short paper)

P8

MopEye: Opportunistic Monitoring of Per-app Mobile Network Performance USENIX ATC '17

Daoyuan Wu, Rocky K. C. Chang, Weichao Li, Eric K. T. Cheng, and Debin Gao
One of the 21 highly-ranked papers of ATC'17. It has enabled our IWQoS'19 and WiSec'18 papers, as well as an INFOCOM'19 paper from SJTU.
In Proc. USENIX Annual Technical Conference (ATC), Santa Clara, USA, 2017. (An earlier poster version was published on December 1, 2015)

P7

Toward Accurate Network Delay Measurement on Android Phones TMC '17

Weichao Li, Daoyuan Wu, Rocky K. C. Chang, and Ricky K. P. Mok
In IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, Volume: 17, Issue: 3, 2017. This work extends our INFOCOM'15 paper.

P6

Measuring the Declared SDK Versions and Their Consistency with API Calls in Android Apps WASA '17

Daoyuan Wu, Ximing Liu, Jiayun Xu, David Lo, and Debin Gao
It was originally a course project paper done by the first three authors in April 2016. The journal version has been accepted by EMSE.
In Proc. Springer International Conference on Wireless Algorithms, Systems, and Applications (WASA), Guilin, China. (AR = 71/238 = 29.8%)

P5

Demystifying and Puncturing the Inflated Delay in Smartphone-based WiFi Network Measurement CoNEXT '16

Weichao Li, Daoyuan Wu, Rocky K. C. Chang, and Ricky K. P. Mok
In Proc. ACM Conference on emerging Networking EXperiments and Technologies (CoNEXT), Irvine, California, USA. (AR = 36/196 = 18.4%)

P4

Stack Layout Randomization with Minimal Rewriting of Android Binaries ICISC '15

Yu Liang, Xinjie Ma, Daoyuan Wu, Xiaoxiao Tang, Debin Gao, Guojun Peng, Chunfu Jia, and Huanguo Zhang
In Proc. Springer International Conference on Information Security and Cryptology (ICISC), Seoul, Korea. (AR = 23/84 = 27.4%)

P3

On the Accuracy of Smartphone-based Mobile Network Measurement INFOCOM '15

Weichao Li, Ricky K. P. Mok, Daoyuan Wu, and Rocky K. C. Chang
In Proc. IEEE Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), Hong Kong SAR, China. (AR = 316/1,640 = 19.3%)

P2

Indirect File Leaks in Mobile Applications MoST '15

Daoyuan Wu and Rocky K. C. Chang
In Proc. IEEE Mobile Security Technologies (MoST), in conjunction with S&P 2015, San Jose, USA. (AR = 10/33 = 30.3%)

P1

Analyzing Android Browser Apps for file:// Vulnerabilities ISC '14

Daoyuan Wu and Rocky K. C. Chang
Together with the MoST'15 work, we made a pioneer contribution to the Android and iOS WebView security.
In Proc. Springer Information Security Conference (ISC), Hong Kong SAR, China. (Full paper AR = 20/106 = 18.9%)

Technical Reports

R5

On the Feasibility of Specialized Ability Extraction from Large Language Code Models arXiv '23

Zongjie Li, Chaozheng Wang, Pingchuan Ma, Chaowei Liu, Shuai Wang*, Daoyuan Wu*, and Cuiyun Gao

R4

iExam: A Novel Online Exam Monitoring and Analysis System Based on Face Detection and Recognition arXiv '22

Xu Yang, Daoyuan Wu*, Xiao Yi, Jimmy H. M. Lee, and Tan Lee
This is a technical report from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

R3

AGChain: A Blockchain-based Gateway for Permanent, Distributed, and Secure App Delegation from Existing Mobile App Markets arXiv '21

Mengjie Chen, Daoyuan Wu*, Xiao Yi, and Jianliang Xu
We proposed the first decentralized and practical app market called AGChain, which works with existing app markets as well.

R2

MopEye: Monitoring Per-app Network Performance with Zero Measurement Traffic CoNEXT '15 Poster

Daoyuan Wu, Weichao Li, Rocky K. C. Chang, and Debin Gao
In Proc. ACM CoNEXT Student Workshop, in conjunction with CoNEXT 2015, Heidelberg, Germany.

R1

A Sink-driven Approach to Detecting Exposed Component Vulnerabilities in Android Apps arXiv '14

Daoyuan Wu, Xiapu Luo, and Rocky K. C. Chang
An old technical report in 2014. I don't have time to revise it anymore.

Industrial or Seminar Talks

T6

Re-route Your Intent for Privilege Escalation: A Universal Way to Exploit Android PendingIntents in High-profile and System Apps Blackhat Europe '21

En He, Wenbo Chen, and Daoyuan Wu*
In Blackhat Europe, London, UK, 10 November 2021.

T5

Leveraging Automatic Face Recognition for Online Exam Monitoring and Analysis CUHK Expo '21

In CUHK Teaching and Learning Innovation Expo, 29 July 2021.

T4

Boosting Android Security through App-, Network-, and System-level Vulnerability Analysis CUHK Seminar '19

In Department of Information Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China, March 2019.

T3

On-device Crowdsourcing and Bytecode Search for Advancing Android App Analysis HKBU Seminar '19

In Department of Computer Science, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong SAR, China, January 2019.

T2

Cross-Platform Analysis of Indirect File Leaks in Android and iOS Applications HitCon Pacific '17

In Hacks in Taiwan Conference, Taipei, Taiwan, China, December 2017.

T1

On the Feasibility of Automatically Generating Android Component Hijacking Exploits HitCon '14

In Hacks in Taiwan Conference, Taipei, Taiwan, China, August 2014.

Teaching

  • 2022 Fall - IEMS5710 Cryptography, Information Security and Privacy: homepage (only in CUHK) and mirror website (public).

  • 2021 Fall - IERG4130 Introduction to Cyber Security: homepage (only in CUHK) and mirror website (public).

  • Received the Best Teaching Award of the MScIE Programme 2020-2021.

  • 2021 Spring - IEMS5722 Mobile Network Programming and Distributed Server Architecture: homepage and mirror website.

  • 2020 Fall - IEMS5710 Cryptography, Information Security and Privacy: homepage (only in CUHK) and mirror website (public).

  • 2019 Fall - IEMS5710 Cryptography, Information Security and Privacy: homepage (only in CUHK) and mirror website (public).

Students

Current Students:

  • PhD Students: Xiao Yi (at CUHK since 2019; code mining for security) and Zicheng Zhang (at SMU since 2020; Android security).

  • Research Assistants: Yuzhou Fang (since 2021; blockchain and smart contract).

  • Undergraduate Students: Yufan Chen (at Xidian since 2021; CodeQL).

Past Students:

  • Research Assistants: Mengjie Chen (20-21; AGChain and smart contract), Xu Yang (21-22; iExam and DeFi), Eric Cheng (2020: improving BackDroid; 2022: MagicWallet), and Qingdan Zheng (2021; improving MopEye).

  • MSc Students at CUHK (21-22): ZHANG Lu (1st semester: blockchain performance).

  • MSc Students at CUHK (20-21): LI Siqin (on FinTech Privacy) and WU Yan (on Code Mining).

  • MSc Students at CUHK (19-20): CHEN Mengjie (AGChain), FANG Ming, LI Lixiang (IABIs), and XIONG Weiyan.

  • FYP Students at CUHK (20-21): YANG Xu (iExam), CHAU Pak Shing and ZHENG Zeqin (on Flutter-based app development).

  • Master Students: Lingzhi Qiu (at NUPT in 2014 for ICC'15), Lijia Yang (at NUPT 2020-21; HTTPS security) and Zulin Gu (at NUPT 2020-21; Web measurement).

  • Undergraduate Students: Shiwei Zhang (at SUSTech in 2018 for IWQoS'19) and Zixiong Zhang (at NUPT in 2014 for ICC'15).

Collabrators

Useful Links