Biography

I am on the job market. Please contact me if you are interested (email: zfl20@tsinghua.org.cn)

I am a 4th-year Ph.D. candidate at the Institute of Network Science and Cyberspace, Tsinghua University, advised by Prof. Haixin Duan. I was a visiting scholar at University of California, Irvine, working with Prof. Zhou Li.

My research interests include Internet Infrastructure, Network Protocol, Internet Measurement, and AI-support Software Test with five academic papers. Four of them are first-author publications. Four papers were published at top-tier venues (CCS, NDSS, IMC, and TDSC). One first-author paper won ACM CCS Distinguished Paper Award, and one first-author paper was nominated for IRTF ANRP. I am active in participating events of Internet communities. I was invited to present my research on community events including IETF, ICANN APAC DNS Forum and ICANN DNS Symposium & DNS-ORAC.

As a core member of Redbud / Bluelotus / Tea Deliverers, I won several Capture the Flag (CTF) awards, including 3rd place at DEFCON Final, championships at Digital China Innovation Contest 2021 (Cyberspace Security Track) and WCTF 2020 Campus. My main skills are Web and Misc.

I also got multiple awards, including National Scholarship, 1st-class Scholarship of Tsinghua University, and CCF Elite Collegiate Student Award. I was also selected by ICANN NextGen project.

Interests
  • Internet Infrastructure
  • Network Protocol
  • Internet Measurement
  • AI-support Software Test
Education
  • Ph.D. Candidate

    Tsinghua University, 2020 -- plan to graduate on June 2025

  • Visiting Scholar

    University of California, Irvine, 2024

  • B.Sc.

    Sun Yat-Sen University, 2016 -- 2020

Publications

Published 5 academic papers

  • 4 being first-author publications
  • 4 papers were published at top-tier venues (CCS, NDSS, IMC, and TDSC)

Awards

  • One first-author paper won ACM CCS Distinguished Paper Award
  • One first-author paper was nominated for IRTF ANRP

Community contributions

  • IETF meeting * 1
  • ICANN APAC DNS Forum * 2
  • ICANN DNS Symposium & DNS-ORAC * 2
  • APNIC blog
(2024). Investigating Deployment Issues of DNS Root Server Instances from a China-wide View. IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing.

Cite PDF Code and Data URL

(2023). Silence is not Golden: Disrupting the Load Balancing of Authoritative DNS Servers. Proceedings of the 2023 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security.
* ACM CCS Distinguished Paper Award.
* Community event contribution: OARC 41 and ICANN APAC DNS Forum 2023.

Cite PDF Slides URL

(2023). Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: Evaluating Security Risks of the Undelegated Record on DNS Hosting Services. Proceedings of the 2023 ACM on Internet Measurement Conference.
* Nomination of IRTF Applied Networking Research Prize (ANRP).

Cite PDF Slides Code and Data URL

(2022). Measuring the Practical Effect of DNS Root Server Instances: A China-Wide Case Study. Passive and Active Measurement.
* Community event contribution: ICANN APAC DNS Forum 2022 and APNIC blog.

Cite PDF Slides Video URL

(2021). From WHOIS to WHOWAS: A Large-Scale Measurement Study of Domain Registration Privacy under the GDPR. Proceedings 2021 Network and Distributed System Security Symposium.
* Coverage by Cybercrime Digest of Cybercrime Programme Office of the Council of Europe (2021-02-25).
* Coverage by Weekly letter of CERT-SE (2021-02-26).

Cite PDF Slides Video URL

Misc

🏅 Awards

  • Selected by ICANN NextGen project 2024
  • ACM CCS Distinguished Paper Award 2023
  • LONGFOR Scholarship 2023
  • 1st-class Scholarship of Tsinghua University 2022 & 2021
  • Graduate Award of Sun Yat-Sen University 2020
  • Graduate Award of National Program for Top-notch Undergraduate in Basic Sciences 2020
  • Chinese National Scholarship 2019 & 2018
  • CCF Elite Collegiate Student Award 2019

📃 Patents and IETF Drafts

  • Fenglu Zhang, B. Liu, H. Duan, et al. A Method and System for Phishing Email Detection. Chinese Patent (2021105481898). Under examination.
  • Fenglu Zhang, B. Liu, H. Duan, et al. Method, Electronic Device, and Medium for Determining Authorized DNS Root Instances. Chinese Patent (2023112803842). Under examination.
  • Fenglu Zhang, et al. Secure Implementation for Selecting DNS Nameservers. IETF Draft. appeared in IETF 120.

🚩 CTF games

As the core member of Redbud, Bluelotus, Tea Deliverers, Waterdrop, some prizes I won:

  • 🥉 3rd place DEFCON Final 2021
  • 🏆 1st place Digital China Innovation Contest (Cyberspace Security Track) 2021
  • 🥇 1st prize XCTF Final 2021
  • 🏆 1st place WCTF Campus 2020
  • 🥇 1st prize National College Student Information Security Contest 2019

Projects

Secpaper
An useful tool to search everything from the full text of top-tier papers!
* 13,816 papers are included.
* Covering USENIX Security, S&P, NDSS, CCS, DSN, RAID, ASIA CCS, ACSAC, SIGCOMM, IMC, and PAM.
Secpaper

Activities

My presentation at IETF 120
My presentation at IETF 120
Two presentations at Oakland S&P 2024
Two presentations at Oakland S&P 2024

Our paper is published at ACM CCS 2023
Our paper is published at ACM CCS 2023

Our paper is published at ACM IMC 2023
Our paper is published at ACM IMC 2023
My two presentations at ICANN DNS Symposium & DNS-ORAC 41
My two presentations at ICANN DNS Symposium & DNS-ORAC 41

Contact & Info