About me
I will join the School of Computer Science and Technology at Shandong University as an Associate Professor in Summer 2026. I am currently completing my PhD at Peking University, advised by Prof. Qingni Shen. Previously, I was a visiting student at National University of Singapore advised by Prof. Trevor E. Carlson, and was also an intern at Huawei Technologies. I also collaborate closely with Prof. Zhi Zhang from the University of Western Australia.
My research interests are in system security and computer architecture. In particular, I enjoy re-evaluating the rationale behind certain hardware designs and uncovering new side-channel leakages. During my PhD, I identified several interrupt side channels [HPCA’24, DAC’24, TIFS’25, ISCA’26A] and power side channels [DAC’25 x2, TCAD’25, ISCA’26B]. I also enjoy working with inspiring collaborators on interesting problems across computer security and architecture, which has led to more than 10 collaborative publications in top-tier venues.
News!
- [2026/05] I successfully defended my PhD!
- [2026/03] Two papers, “TIDE” and “TimeGaps”, have been accepted by ISCA 2026.
- [2026/01] Our briefing application has been accepted by Black Hat Asia 2026. See you in Singapore!
- [2025/10] My visit at NUS has come to an end. I’m deeply grateful for all the experiences, collaborations, and friendships that made this journey unforgettable.
- [2025/09] Our paper “MUXLeak: Exploiting Multiplexers as a Power Side Channel against Multi-tenant FPGAs” has been published in TCAD.
- [2025/06] “Achilles” has been awarded the “Honorable Mentions” by USENIX Security 2025 (only 25 out of 2385 submissions).
Honors and Awards
- [2025] USENIX SECURITY Honorable Mention Paper Award
- [2025] Presidential Scholarship (Top 2%), Peking University
- [2024] First Prize of Science and Technology Progress Award, Chinese Institute of Electronics
- [2020] Pacemaker to Merit Student (Top 0.2%), Hunan University, China
Service
- Reviewer for Conferences: ASIACCS 2024, ICICS 2025, ICICS 2026
- Reviewer for Artifact Evaluation: CCS 2024, USENIX Security 2025, MICRO 2025, ASPLOS 2026, NDSS 2026, USENIX Security 2026
- Reviewer for Journal: TIFS, TDSC
Open-Source Contributions
- [2025] Mask Linux thermal interrupt info in /proc and /sys for Docker by default [since v28.0.2]
- [2024] CVE-2024-1545 Wolfssl EdDSA Rowhammer vulnerability
- [2024] CVE-2024-2881 Wolfssl RSA Rowhammer vulnerability
Teaching
- Operating System and Virtualization Security – Teaching Assistant, Fall 2023
Working Experience
- [2025.11-2026.01] Internship, 2012 Lab, Huawei Technologies
Educational Background
- [2022-2026] Ph.D Student in Software Engineering, Peking University
- Supervisor: Prof. Qingni Shen
- [2024.10-2025.10] Visiting Ph.D Student, National University of Singapore
- Supervisor: Prof. Trevor E. Carlson
- [2018-2022] B.S. in Information Security, Hunan University
Fun Facts
- I enjoy sports, particularly bodybuilding and playing basketball with friends. I allocate 5-10 hours per week for these activities.
- My name (Xin Zhang) is pronounced similarly to ‘Shin-chan’, a well-known cartoon character.
- My favorite color is green because it typically symbolizes acceptance.