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Zihao Li

PhD Student at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

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Biography

Zihao Li received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, advised by Prof. Ting Chen. He is currently working towards the PhD degree with the Department of Computing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, under the supervision of Prof. Daniel Xiapu Luo. His current research interests include Blockchain, Smart Contracts. He has received several best paper and distinguished paper awards (e.g., DeFi'24, CCS'24, INFOCOM'18, ISPEC'17 etc.) and a best paper nominee from ESEM'19.

Education & Experiences

  • Ph.D Candidate, Department of Computing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
    01/2021 - Present

  • Master Degree in University of Electronic Science and Technology of China
    09/2017 - 06/2020

  • Bachelor Degree in University of Electronic Science and Technology of China
    09/2013 - 06/2017

Awards and Grants

  • Distinguished Paper Awards, awarded by ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), 2024.

  • Best DeFi Papers Awards in 2023, awarded by ACM CCS Workshop on Decentralized Finance and Security, 2024.

  • Ethereum Foundation Academic Grant, awarded by Ethereum Foundation on blockchain security research, 2023.

  • Best Paper Nominee, awarded by 13th International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM), 2019.

  • Best Paper on Blockchain, awarded by China Computer Federation (CCF) Technical Committee on Block Chain, 2018.

  • Best Paper Awards, awarded by IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), 2018.

  • Best Paper Awards, awarded by 13th International Conference on Information Security Practice and Experience (ISPEC), 2017.

Publications

  • Unearthing Gas-Wasting Code Smells in Smart Contracts with Large Language Models

    J. Jiang, Z. Li, H. Qin, M. Jiang, X. Luo, X. Wu, H. Wang, Y. Tang, C. Qian, T. Chen

    IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 2024

  • fAmulet: Finding Finalization Failure Bugs in Polygon zkRollup

    Z. Li, X. Peng, Z. He, X. Luo, T. Chen

    ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), 2024.

    Our full paper version with the appendix. (Link)

  • DoubleUp Roll: Double-spending in Arbitrum by Rolling It Back

    Z. Sun, Z. Li, X. Peng, X. Luo, M. Jiang, H. Zhou, Y. Zhang

    ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), 2024. (Distinguished Paper Awards)

  • Towards Automatic Discovery of Denial of Service Weaknesses in Blockchain Resource Models

    F. Luo, H. Lin, Z. Li, X. Luo, R. Luo, Z. He, S. Song, T. Chen, W. Luo

    ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), 2024.

  • Following the ”Thread”: Toward Finding Manipulatable Bottlenecks In Blockchain Clients

    W. Shuo, Z. Li, H. Zhou, X. Luo, J. Li, H. Wang

    ACM SIGSOFT International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis (ISSTA), 2024.

  • Large Language Models for Blockchain Security: A Systematic Literature Review

    Z. He, Z. Li, S. Yang, A. Qiao, X. Zhang, X. Luo, T. Chen

    arXiv at (Link)

  • NURGLE: Exacerbating Resource Consumption in Blockchain State Storage via MPT Manipulation

    Z. He, Z. Li(Co-first Author), A. Qiao, X. Luo, X. Zhang, T. Chen, S. Song, D. Liu, W. Niu

    IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (S&P), 2024.

  • Are We There Yet? Unraveling the State-of-the-Art Smart Contract Fuzzers

    S. Wu, Z. Li, L. Yan, W. Chen, M. Jiang, C. Wang, X. Luo, H. Zhou

    IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE), 2024.

  • Demystifying DeFi MEV Activities in Flashbots Bundle

    Z. Li, J. Li, Z. He, X. Luo, T. Wang, X. Ni, W. Yang, X. Chen, T. Chen

    ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), 2023. (Best DeFi Papers Awards in 2023)

    Our full paper version with the appendix. (Link)

  • DeepInfer: Deep Type Inference from Smart Contract Bytecode

    K. Zhao, Z. Li, J. Li, H. Ye, X. Luo, T. Chen

    ACM Joint European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software Engineering (ESEC/FSE), 2023.

  • BlockExplorer: Exploring Blockchain Big Data via Parallel Processing

    S. Li, J. Li, Y. Tang, X. Luo, Z. He, Z. Li, X. Chen, Y. Bai, T. Chen, Y. Tang, Z. Liu, X. Zhang

    IEEE Transactions on Computers (TC), 2023.

  • TokenCat: Detect Flaw of Authentication on ERC20 Tokens

    Z. He, Z. Liao, F. Luo, D. Liu, T. Chen, Z. Li

    IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), 2022.

  • Rethinking of Reentrancy on the Ethereum

    Y. Tang, Z. Li, Y. Bai

    DASC/PiCom/CBDCom/CyberSciTech, 2021.

  • SigRec: Automatic Recovery of Function Signatures in Smart Contracts

    T. Chen, Z. Li, X. Luo, X.Wang, T.Wang, Z. He, K. Fang, Y. Zhang, H. Zhu, H Li, Y Cheng, and X. Zhang

    IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (TSE), 2021 (also appear at the Journal First Session of the IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (ASE), 2021, and the Demo and Poster Session of the IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS), 2023).

  • Understanding Ethereum via Graph Analysis

    T. Chen, Z. Li, Y. Zhu, J. Chen, X. Luo, J. Lui, X. Lin, and X. Zhang

    ACM Transactions on Internet Technology (TOIT), 2020.

  • GasChecker: Scalable Analysis for Discovering Gas-Inefficient Smart Contracts

    T. Chen, Y. Feng, Z. Li, H. Zhou, X. Luo, X. Li, X. Xiao, J. Chen and X. Zhang

    IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computing (TETC), 2020.

  • TokenScope: Automatically Detecting Inconsistent Behaviors of Cryptocurrency Tokens in Ethereum

    T. Chen, Y. Zhang, Z. Li, X. Luo, T. Wang, R. Cao, X. Xiao, and X. Zhang

    ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), 2019.

  • A Large-Scale Empirical Study on Control Flow Identification of Smart Contracts

    T. Chen, Z. Li, Y. Zhang, X. Luo, T. Wang, T. Hu, X. Xiao, D. Wang, J. Huang, and X. Zhang

    International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM), 2019. (Best Paper Nominee)

  • DataEther: Data Exploration Framework For Ethereum

    T. Chen, Z. Li, Y. Zhang, X. Luo, A. Chen, K. Yang, B. Hu, T. Zhu, S. Deng, T. Hu, J. Chen, and X. Zhang

    IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS), 2019.

  • Towards Saving Money in Using Smart Contracts

    T. Chen, Z. Li, H. Zhou, J. Chen, X. Luo, X. Li, and X. Zhang

    IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE-NIER), 2018.

  • Understanding Ethereum via Graph Analysis

    T. Chen, Y. Zhu, Z. Li, J. Chen, X. Li, X. Luo, X. Lin, and X. Zhang

    IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), 2018. (Best Paper Awards)

  • An Adaptive Gas Cost Mechanism for Ethereum to Defend Against Under-Priced DoS Attacks

    T. Chen, X. Li, Y. Wang, J. Chen, Z. Li, X. Luo, M. Au, and X. Zhang

    International Conference on Information Security Practice and Experience (ISPEC), 2017. (Best Paper Awards)

Services

  • Conference Program Committee
    • DeFi 2024
    • BlockSys 2023
    • SecureComm 2023
    • KDD 2024
    • BlockSys 2024
  • Artifact Evaluation Committee
    • USENIX Security 2024
    • ACSAC 2022
  • Journal Reviewer
    • IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing (TDSC)
    • IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (TSE)

Talks

  • How to discover unknown MEV activities? (Link)
  • Enhancing Smart Contract Security Analysis in Logical and Financial Aspects. (Line)