Biography

Xiang Li is a 4th-year Ph.D. candidate at the Institute of Network Science and Cyberspace, Tsinghua University, advised by Professors Qi Li and Haixin Duan. He belongs to the Network and Information Security Lab (NISL). He is a visiting scholar at UC Irvine as a project specialist, working with Professor Zhou Li. He is also working as a security research intern at Qi-An-Xin Technology Company. Additionally, he is the author of the fast IPv6 network device scanner XMap, open-sourced on GitHub. His research interests include network security, protocol security, IPv6 security, DNS security, Internet measurement, and network & protocol fuzzing. As the first author, he has published many research papers at top security conferences like USENIX Security, NDSS, and DSN. As the co-author, he also published multiple papers in top conferences like USENIX Security and SIGMETRICS. He also gets his presentations accepted by top industry security conferences like Black Hat. He likes to attend talks and workshops like IDS, OARC, and VehicleSec to share his research. He has obtained over 140 CVE/CNVD vulnerability numbers for a variety of influential IPv6 and DNS vulnerabilities, which have impacted over 20 home router vendors and all DNS implementations and resolver vendors. He received acknowledgements and more than $10,600 rewards from those vendors, like Google, Microsoft, Cloudflare, and Akamai, and is working for the improvement of DNS protocols (related work has been referenced in RFC).

Recent News

  • [02/2023](Presentation) Phoenix Domain attack accepted by Black Hat Asia 2023.
  • [02/2023](Activity) I’ll attend OARC 40 in person. Let’s talk!
  • [01/2023](Paper) One paper accepted by Security ‘23. Congrats, Run.
  • [01/2023](Talk) One talk accepted by OARC 40.
  • [12/2022](Prize) got rejected by ANRP ‘23 (6/65=9.2%). not that easy, keep working!
  • [12/2022](Paper) One paper accepted by SIGMETRICS ‘23. Congratulations, Mingming!
  • [12/2022](Competition) We got the 1st and 3rd prizes of IPv6 Technology Application Innovation Competition 2022. Congratulations, zhenrui and everyone!
  • [11/2022](Activity) I presented my NDSS ‘23 paper Phoenix Domain in IDS 2022.
  • [11/2022](Activity) I’ll attend CCS ‘22 in person. Let’s meet!
  • [11/2022](Career) I’m working with Professor Zhou Li at UCI as a visiting scholar from this month. Find me at Engineering Hall cubicle 335.
Interests
  • Network Security
  • Protocol Security
  • IPv6 Security
  • DNS Security
  • Internet Measurement
  • Network & Protocol Fuzzing
  • Network Vulnerability Discovery & Attack
Education
  • Visiting Scholar

    11/01/2022 -- Present, University of California, Irvine

  • Ph.D. in Cyberspace Security

    2019 -- Present, Tsinghua University

  • B.E. in Information Security / LL.B. (Double Major)

    2015 -- 2019, Nankai University

Publications

(2023). Temporal CDN-Convex Lens: A CDN-Assisted Practical Pulsing DDoS Attack. In USENIX Security ‘23. Anaheim, California, August 9–11, 2023. (Acceptance rate: ??%, Acceptance rate in summer: 82/402=20.4%, Acceptance rate in fall: 89/569=15.6%), Acceptance rate in winter: ??%).

Cite

(2023). The Maginot Line: Attacking the Boundary of DNS Caching Protection. In USENIX Security ‘23. Anaheim, California, August 9–11, 2023. (Acceptance rate: ??%, Acceptance rate in summer: 82/402=20.4%, Acceptance rate in fall: 89/569=15.6%), Acceptance rate in winter: ??%).

Cite Code Project Source Document

(2023). DareShark: Detecting and Measuring Security Risks of Hosting-Based Dangling Domains. In SIGMETRICS ‘23. Orlando, Florida, June 19-23, 2023. (Acceptance rate: ??%, Acceptance rate in summer: 17/93=18.3%), Acceptance rate in fall: 26/119=21.9%), Acceptance rate in winter: ??%).
* Presented in OARC 40.

PDF Cite

(2023). Demo: Ransom Vehicle through Charging Pile. In VehicleSec 2023. San Diego, California, Feburary 27, 2023. (Acceptance rate: 32/83=36.0% (overall), 20/49=40.8% (regular), 2/6=33.3% (short), 6/16=37.5% (wpi), and 4/12=33.3% (demos/posters).

PDF Cite Poster Slides

(2023). Ghost Domain Reloaded: Vulnerable Links in Domain Name Delegation and Revocation. In NDSS ‘23. San Diego, California, 27 February – 3 March, 2023. (Acceptance rate: 94/581=16.2%, Acceptance rate in summer: 36/183=19.7%), Acceptance rate in fall: 58/398=14.6%).
* Presented in OARC 39.
* Presented in ICANN DNS Symposium 2022.
* Presented in Black Hat Asia 2023.
* Referenced by RFC Draft: Delegation Revalidation by DNS Resolvers.

PDF Cite Code Project Slides Source Document DOI

(2021). Fast IPv6 Network Periphery Discovery and Security Implications. In DSN ‘21. Taipei, Taiwan, June 21-24, 2021 (Virtually). (Acceptance rate: 48/279=17.2%).

PDF Cite Code Project Slides Video

Projects

Projects and Codes

*
XMap: The Internet Scanner
XMap is a fast network scanner designed for performing Internet-wide IPv6 & IPv4 network research scanning.

Activities

OARC 40 & NANOG 87 Workshop
OARC 40 & NANOG 87 Workshop

In OARC 40 & NANOG 87 Workshop (hybrid in-person and online workshop), I presented a novel hosting-based domain takeover detection framework DareShark to the audiences.

ICANN DNS Symposium | November 2022
ICANN DNS Symposium | November 2022

In the 5th ICANN DNS Symposium (IDS 2022), I presented my NDSS ‘23 paper Phoenix Domain to the audiences. Discussed with so many enthusiastic question askers.

OARC 39 & 47th CENTR Technical Workshop
OARC 39 & 47th CENTR Technical Workshop

In OARC 39 & 47th CENTR Technical Workshop (hybrid in-person and online workshop), I presented a novel Ghost Domain attack named Phoenix Domain to the audiences.

The Tool Box | XMap
The Tool Box | XMap

In @Pentester Academy TV, I presented the IPv6 network scanner XMap with @DamianGoh13. Watch the video at here. New features are coming.

ICANN DNS Symposium | May 2021
ICANN DNS Symposium | May 2021

In the 4th ICANN DNS Symposium (IDS 2021, virtually), I presented a novel DNS cache poisoning attack (introduced by Xiaofeng Zheng from our lab) to the audiences.

Misc

🏅 Awards

  • The 1st Prize in IPv6 Technology Application Innovation Competition, 2022
  • The 3rd Prize in IPv6 Technology Application Innovation Competition, 2022
  • Tsinghua Outstanding 2rd Scholarship, 2022
  • Outstanding Undergraduate, 2019
  • Nankai Gongneng 1st Scholarship, 2018
  • Cyber Security Scholarship of China Internet Development Foundation, 2018
  • The 2nd Prize in National College Student Information Security Contest, 2018
  • The 3rd Prize in National Cryptography Contest, 2017
  • China National Scholarship, 2017
  • China National Scholarship, 2016

🔖 Patents

🐞 CNVD/CNNVD/CVE

🙋‍♂️ Reviewers

  • TDSC ‘23
  • DTRP ‘23
  • SCN ‘22

🙋‍♂️ External Reviewers

  • AsiaCCS ‘23
  • ESF Proposal ‘22
  • NDSS ‘22
  • ICDCS ‘21
  • ESORICS ‘20
  • ICPDAS ‘19

Contact