Mingxuan Liu

Associate Research Professor at ZGC Laboratory

📍 Beijing ZGC Laboratory, Beijing 100084, P.R.China

✉ liumx [AT] mail [DOT] zgclab.edu.cn

Me and My Research

I am an Assistant Researcher at Zhongguancun Laboratory, working with Haixin Duan and Baojun Liu. I received my Ph.D. degree from the Institute for Network Sciences and Cyberspace at Tsinghua University in 2023, and my Bachelor's degree in Communication Engineering from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (BUPT) in 2018.

My research focuses on discovering and understanding critical security issues in real-world Internet infrastructure through data-driven security analysis, as well as designing practical defense and governance solutions. My research interests include network security, AI security, data-driven security analysis, cybercrime detection and mitigation, and LLM-related security.

My work has been published in top-tier international conferences and journals, including ACM CCS, NDSS, USENIX Security, IEEE S&P, IEEE TDSC, ACSAC, RAID, and ESORICS. I have published more than 25 papers, including over 10 papers in the four major security conferences. My research has received the NDSS 2026 Distinguished Paper Award and the EthiCS 2022 Best Student Paper Award, and has contributed to the development of an IETF Internet-Draft. It has also uncovered multiple high-severity security issues in real-world Internet systems, resulting in more than 10 vulnerability identifiers from CNVD, CNNVD, and CVE. Several of my findings have been acknowledged, rewarded, or adopted by leading companies such as Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, Huawei, and Qi An Xin.

📢 Hiring: Our group is continuously looking for highly motivated PhD/Master/undergraduate students and research interns. Please feel free to reach out via my email.

Publications

Google Scholar | DBLP

* Co-first authors with equal contribution. # Corresponding author.

2026 6 papers

Shielding QR Codes: Unveiling the Real-World Illicit Promotion Behind Adversarial QR CodesUSENIX Security'26

USENIX Security Symposium (CCF-A, Big4)

Lijie Wu, Xiaoping Zhang, # Mingxuan Liu, Yue Qin, Baojun Liu, Geng Hong, Zhenrui Zhang, Chenghui Wu, Hui Jiang

Acceptance rate: x%
Breaking Free from Ivory Tower: Evaluating and Enhancing Real-world Chinese Underground Adversarial Jargon DetectionS&P'26

IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (CCF-A, Big4)

* Zhifan Jiang, * Mingxuan Liu, Yue Qin, Baojun Liu

Acceptance rate: 13.0%
Characterizing Iran's Phased National Internet Shutdown in 2025: A Progressive and Distributed ActionWWW'26

The ACM Web Conference (CCF-A)

Shibo Cui, # Mingxuan Liu, Baojun Liu, Haixin Duan, Ruixuan Li, Chaoyi Lu, Jin Zhang, Zhicheng Wang and Jinghua Bai

Acceptance rate: x%
Unveiling the Resilience of LLM-Enhanced Search Engines Against Black-Hat SEO ManipulationWWW'26

The ACM Web Conference (CCF-A)

Pei Chen, Geng Hong, Xinyi Wu, Mengying Wu, Zixuan Zhu, Mingxuan Liu, Baojun Liu, Mi Zhang and Min Yang

Acceptance rate: x%
One Email, Many Faces: A Deep Dive into Identity Confusion in Email AliasesNDSS'26

🏆 Distinguished PaperNetwork and Distributed System Security Symposium (CCF-A, Big4)

Mengying Wu, Geng Hong, Jiatao Chen, Baojun Liu, Mingxuan Liu, Min Yang

Acceptance rate: x%
Earning in Secrecy: Understanding the Revenue-Per-Traffic Services in PCDN NetworkENSE'26

Kehong Liu, Yunyi Zhang, Liu, Mingxuan Liu, Bin Wang, Xiangyu Tian, Yu Zhang

2025 4 papers

Email Cloaking: Deceiving Users and Spam EmailDetectors with Invisible ITML SettingsESORICS'25

European Symposium on Research in Computer Security (CCF-B)

* Bingyang Guo, * Mingxuan Liu, Yihui Ma, Ruixuan Li, Fan Shi, Min Zhang, Baojun Liu, Chengxi Xu, Haixin Duan, Geng Hong, Min Yang, Qingfeng Pan

Acceptance rate: x% · Tool website: CSEMiner
Beyond Exploit Scanning: A Functional Change-Driven Approach to Remote Software Version IdentificationUSENIX Security'25

USENIX Security Symposium (CCF-A, Big4)

Jinsong Chen, Mengying Wu, Geng Hong, Baichao An, Mingxuan Liu, Lei Zhang, Baojun Liu, Haixin Duan, Min Yang

Acceptance rate: 19%
NOKEScam: Understanding and Rectifying Non-Sense Keywords Spear Scam in Search EnginesUSENIX Security'25

USENIX Security Symposium (CCF-A, Big4)

Mingxuan Liu, Yunyi Zhang, Lijie Wu, Baojun Liu, Geng Hong, Yiming Zhang, Hui Jiang, Jia Zhang, Haixin Duan, Min Zhang, Wei Guan, Fan Shi, Min Yang

Acceptance rate: 19% · Tool website: NOKEScam Website
Dive into the cloud: Unveiling the (Ab)usage of Serverless Cloud Function in the WildIMC'25

ACM Internet Measurement Conference (CCF-B)

*Yijing Liu, *Mingxuan Liu, Yiming Zhang, Baojun Liu, Jia Zhang, Geng Hong, Haixin Duan, Min Yang

Acceptance rate: x%

2024 4 papers

Into the Dark: Unveiling Internal Site Search Abused for BlackHat SEOUSENIX Security'24

USENIX Security Symposium (CCF-A, Big4)

Yunyi Zhang, Mingxuan Liu, Baojun Liu, Yiming Zhang, Haixin Duan, Min Zhang, Hui Jiang, Yanzhe Li, Fan Shi

Acceptance rate: 18.3% · Tool website: ISAP Checker
Tickets or Privacy? Understand the Ecosystem of Chinese Ticket Grabbing AppsUSENIX Security'24

USENIX Security Symposium (CCF-A, Big4)

Yijing Liu, Yiming Zhang, Baojun Liu, Haixin Duan, Qiang Li, Mingxuan Liu, Ruixuan Li, Jia Yao

Acceptance rate: 18.3%
ChatScam: Unveiling the Rising Impact of ChatGPT on Domain Name AbuseDSN'24

IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (CCF-B)

Mingxuan Liu, Zhenglong Jin, Jiahai Yang, Baojun Liu, Haixin Duan, Ying Liu, Ximeng Liu, Shujun Tang

Acceptance rate: 20.0% · Open-Source: Sampled ChatScam domains are available on Github.
Understanding the Implementation and Security Implications of Protective DNS ServicesNDSS'24

Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (CCF-A, Big4)

Mingxuan Liu, Yiming Zhang, Xiang Li, Chaoyi Lu, Baojun Liu, Haixin Duan, Xiaofeng Zheng

Acceptance rate: 13.0% · Open-Source: Github · APNIC post: Exploring the implementation and security implications of Protective DNS

2023 1 paper

Under the Dark: A Systematical Study of Stealthy Mining Pools (Ab)use in the WildCCS'23

ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCF-A, Big4)

*Zhenrui Zhang, *Geng Hong, Xiang Li, Zhuoqun Fu, Jia Zhang, Mingxuan Liu, Chuhan Wang, Jianjun Chen, Baojun Liu, Haixin Duan, Chao Zhang, Min Yang

Acceptance rate: 19.15%

2022 5 papers

Exploring the Characteristics and Security Risks of Emerging Emoji Domain NamesESORICS'22

European Symposium on Research in Computer Security (CCF-B)

Mingxuan Liu, Yiming Zhang, Baojun Liu, Haixin Duan

Acceptance rate: 18.5%
Encrypted Malware Traffic Detection via Graph-based Network AnalysisRAID'22

International Symposium on Research in Attacks, Intrusions and Defenses (CCF-B)

Zhuoqun Fu, Mingxuan Liu, Yue Qin, Jia Zhang, Yuan Zou, Qilei Yin, Qi Li, Haixin Duan

Acceptance rate: 25%
Ethics in Security Research: Visions, Reality, and Paths ForwardEthiCS'22

🏆 Best Student PaperWorkshop on Ethics in Computer Security, IEEE EuroS&P

Yiming Zhang, Mingxuan Liu, Mingming Zhang, Chaoyi Lu, Haixin Duan
ValCAT: Generating Variable-Length Contextualized Adversarial Transformations using Encoder-DecodeNAACL'22

Annual Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics

Chuyun Deng, Mingxuan Liu, Yue Qin, Jia Zhang, Haixin Duan, Donghong Sun

Acceptance rate: 26%
Automatic Generation of Adversarial Readable Chinese TextsTDSC'22

IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing (CCF-A)

Mingxuan Liu, Zihan Zhang, Chao Zhang, Yiming Zhang, Zhou Li, Qi Li, Haixin Duan and Donghong Sun

2021 1 paper

Detecting and Characterizing SMS Spearphising AttacksACSAC'21

Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (CCF-B)

Mingxuan Liu, Yiming Zhang, Baojun Liu, Zhou Li, Haixin Duan, Donghong Sun

Acceptance rate: 24.5%

2020 2 papers

Argot: Generating Adversarial Readable Chinese TextsIJCAI'20

International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (CCF-B)

*Zihan Zhang, * Mingxuan Liu, Chao Zhang, Yiming Zhang, Zhou Li, Qi Li, Haixin Duan and Donghong Sun

Acceptance rate: 12.6%
Lies in the Air: Characterizing Fake-base-station Spam Ecosystem in ChinaCCS'20

ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCF-A, Big4)

Yiming Zhang, Baojun Liu, Chaoyi Lu, Zhou Li, Haixin Duan, Shuang Hao, Mingxuan Liu, Ying Liu, Dong Wang and Qiang Li

Acceptance rate: 16.9% · Released Dataset

2019 2 papers

Casino Royale: A Deep Exploration of Illegal Online GamblingACSAC'19

Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (CCF-B)

Hao Yang, Kun Du, Yubao Zhang, Shuang Hao, Zhou Li, Mingxuan Liu, Haining Wang, Haixin Duan, Yazhou Shi, Xiaodong Su, Guang Liu and Zhifeng Geng

Acceptance rate: 22.6%
TL;DR Hazard: A Comprehensive Study of Levelsquatting ScamsSecureComm'19

EAI International Conference on Security and Privacy in Communication Networks

Kun Du, Hao Yang, Zhou Li, Haixin Duan, Shuang Hao, Baojun Liu, Yuxiao Ye, Mingxuan Liu, Xiaodong Su, Guang Liu, Zhifeng Geng, Zaifeng Zhang and Jinjin Liang

Acceptance rate: 37.6%

External Reviewer

Community Service

DataCon Competition Preparation — main member for questioning and validation on both domain and traffic tracks across multiple years2019–2022, 2025

Teaching

Security Design and Analysis of Network Protocols (Course No. 74120033)Fall 2021, Fall 2022

Awards

🏆Distinguished Paper, NDSS2026
🏆Best Student Paper, EthiCS Euro S&P2022
🥇1st Prize, Password Intelligence Guessing Competition, the 5th Qiangwangbei in Hebei2021
🥉Third Prize, Stealth Challenge Competition, GeekPwn in Shanghai2019
🎓National Scholarships, Ministry of Education of China (MOE)2015 & 2016