Assistant Professor Department of Computer Science Virginia Tech Email: penggao [at] vt [dot] edu Openings: I’m looking for highly motivated students (including PhDs, Masters, undergraduates), postdocs, and visitors/interns to join my group. If you are interested, please send an email to penggao90 [at] gmail [dot] com with your CV. (To prospective graduate students: Due to the large number of email messages we receive, we cannot respond to each message individually. If you are interested in working with us, we encourage you to read our papers, think about the problems you feel passionate about, and then send us an email on your thoughts on how your interests and experience might align or expand ours.)

Bio

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Virginia Tech. During 2019-2021, I was a Postdoctoral Researcher in Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley (with Dawn Song). I received my Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at Princeton University (with Prateek Mittal and Sanjeev R. Kulkarni) in 2019. I received my B.E. in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in 2013.

I am broadly interested in security, privacy, and systems. My research focuses on creating secure and privacy-preserving systems to solve real-world challenges. My current interests include the domains of threat protection, threat intelligence, blockchain, trustworthy AI, and privacy-enhancing technologies. My research draws on techniques from machine learning, natural language processing, program analysis, and network science.

Selected Awards & Honors

• Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI) Faculty Fellow, 2021 - 2022
• Google Cloud Research Credits Award, 2021
• Amazon Research Awards (ARA), 2020
• Microsoft Security AI Research Award, 2020
• Top-10 Finalist in CSAW Best Applied Research Paper Competition, 2018
• CSAW Travel Award, 2018
• Princeton University SEAS Travel Grant, 2018
• IEEE CNS NSF Student Travel Grant Award, 2018
• Princeton University First Year Fellowship in Natural Sciences and Engineering, 2013
• Outstanding Graduate of Shanghai, 2013
• Li & Fung Scholarship, 2012
• National Scholarship, 2011
• UM-SJTU JI Distinguished Academic Achievement Award, 2011
• National Scholarship, 2010
• UM-SJTU JI Distinguished Academic Achievement Award, 2010
• SJTU First-Class Academic Excellence Scholarship, 2010

Publications

• PrivGuard: Privacy Regulation Compliance Made Easier
  Lun Wang, Usmann Khan, Joseph P. Near, Qi Pang, Jithendaraa Subramanian, Neel Somani, Peng Gao, Andrew Low, Dawn Song
  USENIX Security (conditionally accepted), August 2022
  
• Back-Propagating System Dependency Impact for Attack Investigation   [source]
  Pengcheng Fang*, Peng Gao* (* equal contribution), Changlin Liu, Erman Ayday, Kangkook Jee, Ting Wang, Yanfang (Fanny) Ye, Zhuotao Liu, Xusheng Xiao
  USENIX Security, August 2022
  
• Make Web3.0 Connected
  Zhuotao Liu, Yangxi Xiang, Jian Shi, Peng Gao, Haoyu Wang, Xusheng Xiao, Bihan Wen, Qi Li, Yih-Chun Hu
  IEEE TDSC, 2021
  
• A System for Automated Open-Source Threat Intelligence Gathering and Management   [demo]
  Peng Gao*, Xiaoyuan Liu* (* equal contribution), Edward Choi, Bhavna Soman, Chinmaya Mishra, Kate Farris, Dawn Song
  SIGMOD Demonstrations Track, June 2021
  • 2020 Microsoft Security AI Research Award (Acceptance rate: 3/55 = 5.5%)
• CHAMP: Characterizing Undesired App Behaviors from User Comments based on Market Policies   [source]
  Yangyu Hu, Haoyu Wang, Tiantong Ji, Xusheng Xiao, Xiapu Luo, Peng Gao, Yao Guo
  ICSE, May 2021
  
• Enabling Efficient Cyber Threat Hunting With Cyber Threat Intelligence   [demo] [website]
  Peng Gao, Fei Shao, Xiaoyuan Liu, Xusheng Xiao, Zheng Qin, Fengyuan Xu, Prateek Mittal, Sanjeev R. Kulkarni, Dawn Song
  ICDE, April 2021
  
• A System for Efficiently Hunting for Cyber Threats in Computer Systems Using Threat Intelligence
  Peng Gao, Fei Shao, Xiaoyuan Liu, Xusheng Xiao, Haoyuan Liu, Zheng Qin, Fengyuan Xu, Prateek Mittal, Sanjeev R. Kulkarni, Dawn Song
  ICDE Demonstrations Track, April 2021
• Querying Streaming System Monitoring Data for Enterprise System Anomaly Detection
  Peng Gao, Xusheng Xiao, Ding Li, Kangkook Jee, Haifeng Chen, Sanjeev R. Kulkarni, Prateek Mittal
  ICDE Demonstrations Track, April 2020
  
• DeepIntent: Deep Icon-Behavior Learning for Detecting Intention-Behavior Discrepancy in Mobile Apps   [source]
  Shengqu Xi, Shao Yang, Xusheng Xiao, Yuan Yao, Yayuan Xiong, Fengyuan Xu, Haoyu Wang, Peng Gao, Zhuotao Liu, Feng Xu, Jian Lu
  ACM CCS, November 2019
  
• HyperService: Interoperability and Programmability Across Heterogeneous Blockchains   [technical report] [source] [website]
  Zhuotao Liu, Yangxi Xiang, Jian Shi, Peng Gao, Haoyu Wang, Xusheng Xiao, Bihan Wen, Yih-Chun Hu
  ACM CCS, November 2019
  
• Data Capsule: A New Paradigm for Automatic Compliance with Data Privacy Regulations
  Lun Wang, Joseph P. Near, Neel Somani, Peng Gao, Andrew Low, David Dao, Dawn Song
  POLY, August 2019
  
• A Query System for Efficiently Investigating Complex Attack Behaviors for Enterprise Security
  Peng Gao, Xusheng Xiao, Zhichun Li, Kangkook Jee, Fengyuan Xu, Sanjeev R. Kulkarni, Prateek Mittal
  VLDB Demonstrations Track, August 2019
  
• IconIntent: Automatic Identification of Sensitive UI Widgets based on Icon Classification for Android Apps
  Xusheng Xiao, Xiaoyin Wang, Zhihao Cao, Hanlin Wang, Peng Gao
  ICSE, May 2019
  
• SAQL: A Stream-based Query System for Real-Time Abnormal System Behavior Detection   [demo] [website]
  Peng Gao, Xusheng Xiao, Ding Li, Zhichun Li, Kangkook Jee, Zenyu Wu, Chung Hwan Kim, Sanjeev R. Kulkarni, Prateek Mittal
  USENIX Security, August 2018
  • Top-10 Finalist in CSAW Best Applied Research Paper Competition, 2018 (Acceptance Rate: 10/74 = 13.5%)
  • Deployed in NEC Laboratories America
  • U.S. patent granted
• AIQL: Enabling Efficient Attack Investigation from System Monitoring Data   [demo] [website]
  Peng Gao, Xusheng Xiao, Zhichun Li, Kangkook Jee, Fengyuan Xu, Sanjeev R. Kulkarni, Prateek Mittal
  USENIX ATC, July 2018
  • Integrated in the NEC Corporation's Automated Security Intelligence solution as its major query system, which won the 1st place in the 2016 CEATEC Town Life and Society Innovation Award and was commercialized
  • Deployed in NEC Laboratories America
  • U.S. patent granted
• SybilFuse: Combining Local Attributes with Global Structure to Perform Robust Sybil Detection   [dataset]
  Peng Gao, Binghui Wang, Neil Zhenqiang Gong, Sanjeev R. Kulkarni, Kurt Thomas, Prateek Mittal
  IEEE CNS, May 2018
  • Shipped to the DARPA’s RADICS program
• SybilFuse: Combining Local Attributes with Global Structure to Perform Robust Sybil Detection
  Peng Gao, Binghui Wang, Neil Zhenqiang Gong, Sanjeev R. Kulkarni, Kurt Thomas, Prateek Mittal
  MIS2, February 2018
  
• Exploiting Temporal Dynamics in Sybil Defenses
  Changchang Liu*, Peng Gao* (* equal contribution), Matthew Wright, Prateek Mittal
  ACM CCS, October 2015
  

Students

I have been fortunate to work with a group of fantastic students.

M.S. Students

• Edward Choi, B.S. UC Berkeley → M.S. UC Berkeley (2019 - Present, co-advised w/ Dawn Song, published in SIGMOD 2021 Demo)

Undergraduate Students

• Shengjing Wang, B.S. Columbia University (2021 - Present)
• Zilin Zhang, B.E. Shanghai Jiao Tong University (2021 - Present)
• Zhengjie Ji, B.E. Shanghai Jiao Tong University (2021 - Present)
• Ziyu Wang, B.S. Huazhong University of Science and Technology (2021 - Present)
• Sibo Ma, B.S. UC Berkeley (2021 - Present)
• Haoyuan Liu, B.S. UC Berkeley (2020 - Present, published in ICDE 2021 Demo)

Teaching

Teaching Assistant, Princeton University

• COS432 Information Security, 02/2016 - 05/2016

Teaching Assistant, Shanghai Jiao Tong University

• VE401 Probabilistic Methods in Eng., 09/2012 - 12/2012
• VE230 Electromagnetics I, 05/2012 - 08/2012
• VV256 Applied Calculus IV, 09/2011 - 12/2011
• VV255 Applied Calculus III, 05/2011 - 08/2011
• VV156 Applied Calculus II, 09/2010 - 12/2010

Work

• Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA, 08/2021 - Present
• Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA, 06/2019 - 04/2021
• Visiting Student Researcher, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA, 01/2019 - 05/2019
• Research Intern, Systems Research Group, Microsoft Research Asia (MSRA), Beijing, China, 06/2018 - 09/2018
• Software Engineering Intern, Site Integrity Team, Facebook, Menlo Park, CA, USA, 06/2017 - 09/2017
• Research Intern, Computer Security Department, NEC Laboratories America, Princeton, NJ, USA, 10/2016 - 12/2016
• Research Intern, Computer Security Department, NEC Laboratories America, Princeton, NJ, USA, 11/2015 - 01/2016
• Research Intern, Security and Privacy Group, Microsoft Research (MSR), Redmond, WA, USA, 06/2015 - 09/2015

Patents

• "System and Method for Detecting Security Risks in a Computer System", Ding Li, Xusheng Xiao, Zhichun Li, Guofei Jiang, and Peng Gao, US10909242B2, granted 02/2021
• "Risky Behavior Query Construction and Execution", Xusheng Xiao, Zhichun Li, Fengyuan Xu, Peng Gao, and Guofei Jiang, US10860582B2, granted 12/2020

Professional Activities

Technical Program Committee

• International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021)
• IEEE Conference on Communications and Network Security (CNS 2019)
• International ACM Conference on Web Science (WebSci 2020, 2021)
• IEEE International Conference on Communications: Next-Generation Networking and Internet Symposium (ICC - NGNI 2021, 2022)
• Conference on Blockchain Research and Applications for Innovative Networks and Services (BRAINS 2020, 2021)
• International Conference on Social Informatics (SocInfo 2019)
• Outlier Detection and Description Workshop (ODD 2021)
• Workshop on Computational Methods in Online Misbehavior (CyberSafety 2019, 2020)
• Conference on Information Sciences and Systems (CISS 2018)

Panelist

• National Science Foundation (NSF 2021)

Reviewer

• ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2021)

Journal Reviewer

• IEEE JSAC Series on Machine Learning for Communications and Networks (JSAC - ML4ComNet 2021)
• IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing (TDSC 2020)
• IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security (TIFS 2017, 2020)
• ACM Transactions on Privacy and Security (TOPS 2020)
• IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking (TON 2018, 2020)
• IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing (TMC 2018)
• ACM Transactions on Data Science (TDS 2018)

Poster Jury

• IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (IEEE S&P 2019)

External Reviewer

• Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PoPETs 2019, 2020, 2021)