Yicheng Zhang 0004

dblp:186/7504-4 · DBLP profile ↗
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9ranked-venue papers
3as first author
8since 2021 · last 2025
0000-0002-5058-0547ORCID · conflict

Domains — the database's venue-derived domains; a paper can count in several

Security and privacy · 7 · 2 first-author · 6 since 2021Systems, architecture and hardware · 2 · 1 first-author · 1 since 2021Graphics, computer vision, multimedia, augmented reality and games · 1 · 1 since 2021Human-computer interaction and ubiquitous computing · 1 · 1 since 2021
YearPublicationVenuePosition
2025 Siren Song: Acoustic Attacks on Pose Estimation in XR Headsets
abstract
Extended Reality (XR) experiences involve interactions between users, the real world, and virtual content. A key step to enable these experiences is the XR headset sensing and estimating the user's pose in order to accurately place and render virtual content in the real world. XR headsets use multiple sensors (e.g., cameras, inertial measurement unit) to perform pose estimation and improve its robustness, but this provides an attack surface for adversaries to interfere with the pose estimation process. In this paper, we create and study the effects of acoustic attacks that create false signals in the inertial measurement unit (IMU) on XR headsets, leading to adverse downstream effects on XR applications. We generate resonant acoustic signals on a HoloLens 2 and measure the resulting perturbations in the IMU readings, and also demonstrate both finegrained and coarse attacks on the ORB-SLAM3 and an open-source XR system (ILLIXR). With the knowledge gleaned from attacking these open-source frameworks, we demonstrate four end-to-end proof-of-concept attacks on a HoloLens 2: manipulating user input, clickjacking, zone invasion, and denial of user interaction. Our experiments show that current commercial XR headsets are susceptible to acoustic attacks, raising concerns for their security.
Zijian Huang 0015, Yicheng Zhang 0004, Sophie Chen, Nael B. Abu-Ghazaleh, Jiasi Chen
ISMAR2
2025 I know What You Sync: Covert and Side Channel Attacks on File Systems via syncfs
abstract
Operating Systems enforce logical isolation using abstractions such as processes, containers, and isolation tech-nologies to protect a system from malicious or buggy code. In this paper, we show new types of side channels through the file system that break this logical isolation. The file system plays a critical role in the operating system, managing all I/O activities between the application layer and the physical storage device. We observe that the file system implementation is shared, leading to timing leakage when using common I/O system calls. Specifically, we found that modern operating systems take advantage of any flush operation (which saves cached blocks in memory to the SSD or disk) to flush all of the I/O buffers, even those used by other isolation domains. Thus, by measuring the delay of syncfs, the attacker can infer the I/O behavior of victim programs. We then demonstrate a syncfs covert channel attack on multiple file systems, including both Linux native file systems and the Windows file system, achieving a maximum bandwidth of 5 Kbps with an error rate of 0.15% on Linux and 7.6 Kbps with an error rate of 1.9% on Windows. In addition, we construct three side-channel attacks targeting both Linux and Android devices. On Linux devices, we implement a website fingerprinting attack and a video fingerprinting attack by tracking the write patterns of temporary buffering files. On Android devices, we design an application fingerprinting attack that leaks application write patterns during boot-up. The attacks achieve over 90% F1 score, precision, and recall. Finally, we demonstrate that these attacks can be exploited across containers implementing a container detection technique and a cross-container covert channel attack.
Yicheng Zhang 0004, Nael B. Abu-Ghazaleh
SP2
2025 Not so Refreshing: Attacking GPUs using RFM Rowhammer Mitigation
Ravan Nazaraliyev, Yicheng Zhang 0004, Sankha Baran Dutta, Andrés Márquez 0001, Kevin J. Barker, Nael B. Abu-Ghazaleh
USENIX Security Symposium2
2024 That Doesn't Go There: Attacks on Shared State in Multi-User Augmented Reality Applications
Carter Slocum, Yicheng Zhang 0004, Erfan Shayegani, Pedram Zaree, Nael B. Abu-Ghazaleh, Jiasi Chen
USENIX Security Symposium2
2023 Going through the motions: AR/VR keylogging from user head motions
Carter Slocum, Yicheng Zhang 0004, Nael B. Abu-Ghazaleh, Jiasi Chen
USENIX Security Symposium2
2023 It's all in your head(set): Side-channel attacks on AR/VR systems
Yicheng Zhang 0004, Carter Slocum, Jiasi Chen, Nael B. Abu-Ghazaleh
USENIX Security Symposium1
2021 Stealing Neural Network Structure through Remote FPGA Side-channel Analysis
abstract
Deep Neural Network (DNN) models have been extensively developed by companies for a wide range of applications. The development of a customized DNN model with great performance requires costly investments, and its structure (layers and hyper-parameters) is considered intellectual property and holds immense value. However, in this paper, we found the model secret is vulnerable when a cloud-based FPGA accelerator executes it. We demonstrate an end-to-end attack based on remote power side-channel analysis and machine-learning-based secret inference against different DNN models. The evaluation result shows that an attacker can reconstruct the layer and hyper-parameter sequence at over 90% accuracy using our method, which can significantly reduce her model development workload. We believe the threat presented by our attack is tangible, and new defense mechanisms should be developed against this threat.
Yicheng Zhang 0004, Rozhin Yasaei, Zhou Li 0001, Mohammad Abdullah Al Faruque
FPGA1
2021 Stealing Neural Network Structure Through Remote FPGA Side-Channel Analysis
abstract
Deep Neural Network (DNN) models have been extensively developed by companies for a wide range of applications. The development of a customized DNN model with great performance requires costly investments, and its structure (layers and hyper-parameters) is considered intellectual property and holds immense value. However, in this paper, we found the model secret is vulnerable when a cloud-based FPGA accelerator executes it. We demonstrate an end-to-end attack based on remote power side-channel analysis and machine-learning-based secret inference against different DNN models. The evaluation result shows that an attacker can reconstruct the layer and hyper-parameter sequence at over 90% accuracy using our method, which can significantly reduce her model development workload. We believe the threat presented by our attack is tangible, and new defense mechanisms should be developed against this threat.
Yicheng Zhang 0004, Rozhin Yasaei, Zhou Li 0001, Mohammad Abdullah Al Faruque
IEEE Trans. Inf. Forensics Secur.1
2020 Leaky DNN: Stealing Deep-Learning Model Secret with GPU Context-Switching Side-Channel
abstract
Machine learning has been attracting strong interests in recent years. Numerous companies have invested great efforts and resources to develop customized deep-learning models, which are their key intellectual properties. In this work, we investigate to what extent the secret of deep-learning models can be inferred by attackers. In particular, we focus on the scenario that a model developer and an adversary share the same GPU when training a Deep Neural Network (DNN) model. We exploit the GPU side-channel based on context-switching penalties. This side-channel allows us to extract the fine-grained structural secret of a DNN model, including its layer composition and hyper-parameters. Leveraging this side-channel, we developed an attack prototype named MosConS, which applies LSTM-based inference models to identify the structural secret. Our evaluation of MosConS shows the structural information can be accurately recovered. Therefore, we believe new defense mechanisms should be developed to protect training against the GPU side-channel.
Yicheng Zhang 0004, Zhe Zhou 0001, Zhou Li 0001, Mohammad Abdullah Al Faruque
DSN2