Hongxin Hu
Associate Professor

Department of Computer Science and Engineering
University at Buffalo
The State University of New York (SUNY)

Office: 311 Davis Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260
Phone: (716) 645-4733
Email: hongxinh@buffalo.edu
Photo: Hongxin Hu
Quick Links: [ Research | Publications | Teams | Teaching | Awards | Services ]
Short Bio (CV)

I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at University at Buffalo, SUNY. Previously, I was an Associate Professor in the School of Computing and the Director of Cybersecurity Center at Clemson University. I am a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award for 2019. My research spans security, networking, and machine learning. Given the interdisciplinary nature of my work, I have published across a wide range of well-recognized conferences, including security (CCS, USENIX Security, NDSS, ACSAC, and ASIACCS), networking (SIGCOMM, INFOCOM, ICNP, and IWQoS), machine learning (ICML), human-computer interaction (CHI and CSCW), and computer science education (SIGCSE). My research has been funded by NSF (SaTC, CNS, IIS, OAC, SOC, and DGE), USDOT, VMware, Google, Amazon, Dell, etc. I am the recipient of the Best Paper Awards from ACSAC 2020, IEEE ICC 2020, ACM SIGCSE 2018, and ACM CODASPY 2014, and the Best Paper Award Honorable Mentions from ACM SACMAT 2016, IEEE ICNP 2015, and ACM SACMAT 2011. My research has won the First Place Award in ACM SIGCOMM 2018 SRC. My research has also been featured by the IEEE Special Technical Community on Social Networking and received wide press coverage including ACM TechNews, InformationWeek, Slashdot, NetworkWorld, etc.

News
  • 09/2021 [Paper]: Our paper "SkillDetective: Automated Policy-Violation Detection of Voice Assistant Applications in the Wild" has been accepted to USENIX Security 2022.
  • 08/2021 [Paper]: Our paper "Switches are Scanners Too! A Fast and Scalable In-Network Scanner with Programmable Switches" has been accepted to HotNets 2021.
  • 08/2021 [Competition]: Our team Cacti placed 5th in Baidu AutoDriving CTF 2021.
  • 05/2021 [Paper]: Our paper "CARTL: Cooperative Adversarially-Robust Transfer Learning" has been accepted to ICML 2021 for long presentation (top 3%).
  • 12/2020 [Paper]: Two papers have been accepted to NDSS 2021. One paper introduces our soluton for understanding and detecting cyberbullying in real-world images. The other paper proposes IoTSafe for safety and security policy enforcement with real IoT physical interaction discovery. Both papers are first-authored by my Ph.D. students.
  • 12/2020 [Distinguished Paper Award]: Our paper "Measuring the Effectiveness of Privacy Policies for Voice Assistant Applications" won the Distinguished Paper Award at ACSAC 2020.
  • 09/2020 [Paper]: Our paper "Dangerous Skills Got Certified: Measuring the Trustworthiness of Skill Certification in Voice Personal Assistant Platforms" has been accepted to CCS 2020.
  • 09/2020 [PC Member]: I was invited to serve on the program committees of AAAI 2021.
  • 08/2020 [Paper]: Our paper "Measuring the Effectiveness of Privacy Policies for Voice Assistant Applications" has been accepted to ACSAC 2020.
  • 07/2020 [News]: Our work on the trustworthiness measurement of Alexa's skills certification has been featured on The Register, Washington Internet Daily, and ZDNet, etc.
  • 07/2020 [PC Member]: I was invited to serve on the program committees of WWW 2021.
  • 05/2020 [Paper]: Our paper "Interpreting Deep Learning-Based Networking Systems" has been accepted to SIGCOMM 2020.
  • 05/2020 [Best Paper Award]: Our paper "SmartChain: Enabling High-Performance Service Chain Partition between SmartNIC and CPU" won the Best Paper Award at ICC 2020.
  • 01/2020 [Paper]: Our paper "Poseidon: Mitigating Volumetric DDoS Attacks with Programmable Switches" has been accepted to NDSS 2020.
  • 12/2019 [Paper]: Our paper "Towards A Taxonomy of Content Sensitivity and Sharing Preferences for Photos" has been accepted to CHI 2020.
  • 10/2019 [Report]: I contributed to an NSF technical report "Programmable System Security in a Software-Defined World: Research Challenges and Opportunities".
  • 07/2019 [Paper]: Our paper "PiTree: Practical Implementation of ABR Algorithms Using Decision Trees" has been accepted to Multimedia 2019 as an oral paper (9.4%).
  • 03/2019 [Award]: Congrats to my Ph.D. student Hongda Li for receiving an award for Outstanding Ph.D. Student in Computer Science.
  • 02/2019 [Award]: I have received a prestigious NSF CAREER Award for our work on network security function virtualization. This research has been featured on Clemson CECAS News.
  • 10/2018 [Workshop]: Please consider submitting your work on SDN and NFV security to SDN-NFV Security 2019.
  • 08/2018 [Competition]: Our work PAM won the First Place in SIGCOMM 2018 Student Research Competition (SRC).
  • 07/2018 [Paper]: Two papers have been accepted to CCS 2018. One paper presents IoTMon to support the safe control of IoT device interactions. The other paper proposes vNIDS to enable the safe and efficient virtualization of NIDSes. Both papers are first-authored by my Ph.D. students. They have been featured on Clemson CECAS News.
  • 07/2018 [PC Member]: I was invited to serve on the program committee of  WWW 2019.
  • 01/2018 [Best Paper Award]: Our paper "Enhancing Security Education Through Designing SDN Security Labs in CloudLab" was selected as one of the best papers for SIGCSE 2018.
  • 05/2017 [Paper]: Our paper "NFP: Enabling Network Function Parallelism in NFV" has been accepted to SIGCOMM 2017.
  • 01/2017 [Award]: I received CECAS Dean's Faculty Fellows Award.
  • 10/2016 [Paper]: Our paper "On the Safety and Efficiency of Virtual Firewall Elasticity Control" has been accepted to NDSS 2017. This research has been featured on Clemson CECAS News.
Research Interests
Selected and Recent Publications [Google Scholar] [All Publications]
  • CARTL: Cooperative Adversarially-Robust Transfer Learning [PDF]
    Dian Chen, Hongxin Hu, Qian Wang, Yinli Li, Cong Wang, Chao Shen and Qi Li
    In Proceedings of the 38th International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML 2021), July 18-24, 2021.
    Long presentation, top 3% (166/5513)
  • Towards Understanding and Detecting Cyberbullying in Real-world Images [PDF]
    Nishant Vishwamitra, Hongxin Hu, Feng Luo and Long Cheng
    In Proceedings of the 28th Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS 2021), February 21-24, 2021.
    Acceptance rate: 87/573 = 15.2%
  • IoTSafe: Enforcing Safety and Security Policy with Real IoT Physical Interaction Discovery [PDF]
    Wenbo Ding, Hongxin Hu and Long Cheng
    In Proceedings of the 28th Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS 2021), February 21-24, 2021.
    Acceptance rate: 87/573 = 15.2%
  • Dangerous Skills Got Certified: Measuring the Trustworthiness of Skill Certification in Voice Personal Assistant Platforms [PDF]
    Long Cheng, Christin Wilson, Song Liao, Jeffrey Young, Daniel Dong and Hongxin Hu
    In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS 2020), November 9-13, 2020.
    Acceptance rate: 121/715 = 16.9%
  • Measuring the Effectiveness of Privacy Policies for Voice Assistant Applications [PDF]
    Song Liao, Christin Wilson, Long Cheng, Hongxin Hu and Huixing Deng
    In Proceedings of the 2020 Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (ACSAC 2020), December 7-11, 2020
    Acceptance rate: 70/302 = 23.2%
    Distinguished Paper Award
  • Interpreting Deep Learning-Based Networking Systems [PDF]
    Zili Meng, Minhu Wang, Jiasong Bai, Mingwei Xu, Hongzi Mao and Hongxin Hu
    In Proceedings of the ACM SIGCOMM Conference (SIGCOMM 2020), August 10-14, 2020.
    Acceptance rate: 54/250 = 21.6%
  • Poseidon: Mitigating Volumetric DDoS Attacks with Programmable Switches [PDF]
    Menghao Zhang, Guanyu Li, Shicheng Wang, Chang Liu, Ang Chen, Hongxin Hu, Guofei Gu, Qi Li, Mingwei Xu and Jianping Wu
    In Proceedings of the 27th Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS 2020), San Diego, CA, USA, February 23-26, 2020.
    Acceptance rate: 88/506 = 17.4%
  • Towards A Taxonomy of Content Sensitivity and Sharing Preferences for Photos [PDF]
    Yifang Li, Nishant Vishwamitra, Hongxin Hu and Kelly Caine
    In Proceedings of the 2020 ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2020), Honolulu, Hawaii, USA, April 25-30, 2020.
    Acceptance rate: 760/3126 = 24.3%
  • SmartChain: Enabling High-Performance Service Chain Partition between SmartNIC and CPU [PDF]
    Shuhe Wang, Zili Meng, Chen Sun, Minhu Wang, Mingwei Xu, Jun Bi, Tong Yang, Qun Huang and Hongxin Hu
    In Proceedings of 2020 IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC 2020), Dublin, Ireland, June 7-11, 2020.
    Best Paper Award
  • On the Safety of IoT Device Physical Interaction Control [PDF]
    Wenbo Ding and Hongxin Hu
    In Proceedings of the 25th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS 2018), Toronto, Canada, October 15-19, 2018.
    Acceptance rate: 134/809 = 16.6%
  • vNIDS: Towards Elastic Security with Safe and Efficient Virtualization of Network Intrusion Detection Systems [PDF] [PPT]
    Hongda Li, Hongxin Hu, Guofei Gu, Gail-Joon Ahn and Fuqiang Zhang
    In Proceedings of the 25th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS 2018), Toronto, Canada, October 15-19, 2018.
    Acceptance rate: 134/809 = 16.6%
  • Effectiveness and Users' Experience of Obfuscation as a Privacy-Enhancing Technology for Sharing Photos [PDF]
    Yifang Li, Nishant Vishwamitra, Bart P. Knijnenburg, Hongxin Hu and Kelly Caine
    In Proceedings of the 21st ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW 2018), Jersey City, NJ, USA, November 3-7, 2018.
    Acceptance rate: 105/384 = 27.3%
  • PAM: When Overloaded, Push Your Neighbor Aside! [PDF]
    Zili Meng, Jun Bi, Chen Sun, Shuhe Wang, Minhu Wang and Hongxin Hu
    In Proceedings of the ACM SIGCOMM 2018 Conference on Posters and Demos, Budapest, Hungary, August 20-25, 2018.
    First Place in SIGCOMM 2018 SRC
  • Enhancing Security Education Through Designing SDN Security Labs in CloudLab [PDF]
    Younghee Park, Hongxin Hu, Xiaohong Yuan and Hongda Li
    In Proceedings of the 49th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE 2018), Baltimore, Maryland, USA, February 21-24, 2018.
    Best Paper Award
  • NFP: Enabling Network Function Parallelism in NFV [PDF] [PPT]
    Chen Sun, Jun Bi, Zhilong Zheng, Heng Yu and Hongxin Hu
    In Proceedings of the ACM SIGCOMM Conference (SIGCOMM 2017), Los Angeles, CA, USA, August 21-25, 2017.
    Acceptance rate: 36/250 = 14.4%
  • On the Safety and Efficiency of Virtual Firewall Elasticity Control [PDF]
    Juan Deng*, Hongda Li*, Hongxin Hu, Kuang-Ching Wang, Gail-Joon Ahn, Ziming Zhao and Wonkyu Han
    In Proceedings of the 24th Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS 2017), San Diego, CA, USA, February 26 - March 1, 2017 (*co-first author)
    Acceptance rate: 68/423 = 16.1%
  • SDPA: Enhancing Stateful Forwarding for Software-Defined Networking [PDF]
    Shuyong Zhu, Jun Bi, Chen Sun, Chenghui Wu and Hongxin Hu
    In Proceedings of the 23rd IEEE International Conference on Network Protocols (ICNP 2015), San Francisco, CA, USA, November 10-13, 2015.
    Acceptance rate: 38/187 = 20.3%
    Best Paper Nominee
  • Morpheus: Automatically Generating Heuristics to Detect Android Emulators [PDF] [Dataset]
    Yiming Jing, Ziming Zhao, Gail-Joon Ahn and Hongxin Hu
    In Proceedings of the 30th Annual Computer Security Applications Conference(ACSAC 2014), New Orleans, LA, USA, December 8-12, 2014.
    Acceptance rate: 47/236 = 19.9%
    Finalist for CSAW 2015 Best Applied Security Paper Award
  • FlowGuard: Building Robust Firewalls for Software-Defined Networks [PDF]
    Hongxin Hu, Wonkyu Han, Gail-Joon Ahn and Ziming Zhao
    In Proceedings of ACM SIGCOMM Workshop on Hot Topics in Software Defined Networking (HotSDN 2014), Chicago, IL, USA, August 22, 2014.
    Acceptance rate (full paper with long presentation): 16/114 = 14.0%
    Winer of Extreme SDN Innovation Challenge (Extreme Blog)
  • RiskMon: Continuous and Automated Risk Assessment of Mobile Applications [PDF]
    Yiming Jing, Gail-Joon Ahn, Ziming Zhao and Hongxin Hu
    In Proceedings of the 4th ACM Conference on Data and Application Security and Privacy (CODASPY 2014), San Antonio, Texas, USA, March 3-5, 2014.
    Acceptance rate (full paper): 19/119 = 16.0%
    Best Paper Award
  • On the Security of Picture Gesture Authentication [PDF]
    Ziming Zhao, Gail-Joon Ahn, Jeong-Jin Seo and Hongxin Hu
    In Proceedings of the 22nd USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security 2013), Washington DC, August 14-16, 2013.
    Acceptance rate: 44/277 = 15.9%
    Media coverage: ACM TechNews, InformationWeek, WeLiveSecurity, NetworkWorld, SlashDot, TechEYE, ThreatPost, SoftPedia, TechRadar, TechJournal, TechDigest, ParityNews, NeoWin, WebRoot, NakedSecurity, SignalNetworks, MyPRGenie, TheRegister, cnBeta, Delaware Business Daily, The State Press, DSU News, etc
Teaching
  • Fall 2021: CSE 489/589: Modern Network Concepts
  • Spring 2021: CSE 707 - Seminar: Security in Emerging Computing and Networking Systems
  • Fall 2020: CPSC 8580 - Security in Emerging Computing and Networking Systems
  • Spring 2020: CPSC 8570 - Security in Advanced Networking Technologies
  • Fall 2019: CPSC 8580 - Security in Emerging Computing and Networking Systems
  • Spring 2019: CPSC 8570 - Security in Advanced Networking Technologies
  • Fall 2018: CPSC 8580 - Security in Emerging Computing and Networking Systems
  • Fall 2018: CPSC-4200/6200 - Computer Security Principles
  • Spring 2018: CPSC 8580 - Security in Emerging Computing and Networking Systems
  • Fall 2017: CPSC-4200/6200 - Computer Security Principles
  • Spring 2017: CPSC 8570 - Security in Advanced Networking Technologies
  • Fall 2016: CPSC-4200/6200 - Computer Security Principles
  • Fall 2016: CPSC 8580 - Security in Emerging Computing and Networking Systems
  • Spring 2016: CPSC 8810 - Advanced Networking and Security
  • Fall 2015: CPSC-4200/6200 - Computer Security Principles
  • Spring 2015: CPSC 8810 - Advanced Networking and Security
  • Fall 2014: CPSC 8810 - Security in Emerging Computing and Networking Systems
Awards and Recognition
  • Distinguished Paper Award, ACSAC, 2020
  • Best Paper Award, IEEE ICC, 2020
  • NSF CAREER Award, 2019
  • First Place, ACM SIGCOMM SRC, 2018
  • Best Paper Award, ACM SIGCSE, 2018
  • Dean's Faculty Fellows Award, CECAS, Clemson University, 2017
  • Best Paper Award Honorable Mention, ACM SACMAT, 2016
  • Best Paper Award Nominee, IEEE ICNP, 2015
  • Best Applied Security Paper Award TOP-10 Finalist, SCAW, 2015
  • Front Page News, Post and Courier, 2015
  • Third Place, Extreme SDN Innovation Challenge, 2015
  • Best Paper Award, ACM CODASPY, 2014
  • Featured Article, IEEE Special Technical Community on Social Networking (STCSN), 2013
  • NSF Travel Grant, NSF CAREER Workshop, 2013
  • Outstanding Ph.D. Student Finalist in Compter Science, ASU, 2012
  • ACSAC Conferenceship Award, ACSAC, 2011
  • Best Paper Award Nominee, ACM SACMAT, 2011
  • Applied Security Research Best Paper Award Nominee, CSAW AT&T, 2011
  • IBM PhD Fellowship Nominee, UNCC, 2008
Professional Activities

Associate Editor:

Guest Editor:

Program Chair:

Poster Chair:

Proceedings Chair:

Publicity Chair:

Session Chair:

Web Chair:

Technical Program Committee:

Conference Paper Reviewer:

  • ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), 2005-2007, 2013, 2016, 2017, 2018
  • ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 2018
  • ACM Symposium on Access Control Models And Technologies (SACMAT), 2005- 2013
  • ACM Conference on Data and Application Security and Privacy (CODASPY), 2011 - 2013
  • International World Wide Web Conferences (WWW)--Security and Privacy Track, 2009-2011
  • ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC)--Computer Security Track. 2006-2011
  • ACM Symposium on Information, Computer and Communications Security (AsiaCCS), 2006-2008

Journal Paper Reviewer:

  • ACM Transactions on Privacy and Security
  • ACM Transactions on Information and System Security
  • ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology
  • ACM Transactions on Internet Technology
  • IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing
  • IEEE Transactions on Computers
  • IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering
  • IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking
  • IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security
  • IEEE Transactions on Services Computing
  • IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management
  • IEEE Internet Computing
  • Journal of Computer Security
  • Computers & Security
  • Security and Communication Networks
  • IBM Journal of Research and Development
  • International Journal of Information Security
  • International Journal of Network Management
  • Journal of Systems and Software
  • Journal of Data & Knowledge Engineering
  • Journal of Biomedical Informatics
  • Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce
  • International Journal of Computer Systems Science and Engineering
  • Security and Communication Networks
  • IET Information Security
  • Wireless Networks
  • Cluster Computing
  • Sensors
  • Journal of Network and Computer Applications
  • Journal of Computer Science and Technology