About Me

Hi, I am Jiahao Liu (刘家豪). I received my Ph.D. degree (advised by Prof. Zhenkai Liang) at School of Computing of National University of Singapore (NUS). I received my B.E. degree in Computer Science at Chu Kochen Honors College of Zhejiang University (ZJU). Apart from Computer Science, I am also interested in Economic and Finance, earning a minor degree in Finance.

My research interests lie primarily in AI for security, with a focus on designing and adapting emerging machine learning techniques (e.g., graph neural networks and large language models) to address real-world security challenges such as malware analysis, program analysis, and vulnerability assessment. More recently, I have been working on AI security, with particular emphasis on agent security. My research investigates inherent threats in agent-based systems, including risks of data leakage between the agent's core reasoning module (“brain”) and external tools, as well as inconsistencies across different agent layers, ranging from design principles to action planning and execution sequences.

Publications

# co-first authors

[TOSEM 2026] Unraveling the Key of Machine Learning-based Android Malware Detection

Jiahao Liu, Jun Zeng, Fabio Pierazzi, Ziqi Yang, Lorenzo Cavallaro, Zhenkai Liang

Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology

PDFCODE

[ICSE 2026] Towards Scalable and Interpretable Mobile App Risk Analysis via Large Language Models

Yu Yang, Zhenyuan Li, Xiandong Ran, Jiahao Liu, Jiahui Wang, Bo Yu, Shouling Ji

48th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering

PDF

[ACL 2026] Inverting the Shield: Systematically Generating Safety Tests from Policy Specifications

Xiaoyue Lu, Xianglin Yang, Haijun Liu, Jiahao Liu, Kuntai Cai, Yan Xiao, Jin Song Dong

64th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics, Main Conference

PDF

[ASE 2025] Propagation-Based Vulnerability Impact Assessment for Software Supply Chains

Bonan Ruan, Zhiwei Lin, Jiahao Liu*, Chuqi Zhang, Kaihang Ji, Zhenkai Liang

40th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering

PDFCODESLIDES

[Security 2025] Fuzzing the PHP Interpreter via Dataflow Fusion

Yuancheng Jiang, Chuqi Zhang, Bonan Ruan, Jiahao Liu, Roland Yap, Zhenkai Liang, Manuel Rigger

34th Usenix Security Symposium

🏆 Distinguished Paper Award

PDFCODESLIDES

[NDSS 2025] UI-CTX: Understanding UI Behaviors with Code Contexts for Mobile Applications

Jiawei Li#, Jiahao Liu#, Jian Mao, Jun Zeng, Zhenkai Liang

32nd Network and Distributed System Security Symposium

PDFCODESLIDES

[NDSS 2025] ProvGuard: Detecting SDN Control Policy Manipulation via Contextual Semantics of Provenance Graphs

Ziwen Liu, Jian Mao, Jun Zeng, Jiawei Li, Qixiao Lin, Jiahao Liu, Jianwei Zhuge, Zhenkai Liang

32nd Network and Distributed System Security Symposium

PDF

[ASE 2024] MaskDroid: Robust Android Malware Detection with Masked Graph Representations

Jingnan Zheng#, Jiahao Liu#, An Zhang, Jun Zeng, Ziqi Yang, Zhenkai Liang, Tat-Seng Chua

39th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering

PDFCODESLIDES

[RAID 2024] KernJC: Automated Vulnerable Environment Generation for Linux Kernel Vulnerabilities

Bonan Ruan, Jiahao Liu*, Chuqi Zhang, Zhenkai Liang

27th International Symposium on Research in Attacks, Intrusions and Defenses

🏆 Best Practical Paper Award🎯 Black Hat Asia 2025

PDFCODESLIDES

[ICSE 2024] Detecting Logic Bugs in Graph Database Management Systems via Injective and Surjective Graph Pattern Transformation

Yuancheng Jiang, Jiahao Liu, Jinsheng Ba, Roland YAP Hock Chuan, Zhenkai Liang, Manuel Rigger

46th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering

PDFCODESLIDES

[ICSE 2023] Learning Graph-based Code Representations for Source-level Functional Similarity Detection

Jiahao Liu#, Jun Zeng#, Xiang Wang, Zhenkai Liang

45th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering

PDFCODESLIDES

[S&P 2022] ShadeWatcher: Recommendation-guided Cyber Threat Analysis using System Audit Records

Jun Zeng, Xiang Wang, Jiahao Liu, Yinfang Chen, Zhenkai Liang, Tat-Seng Chua, Zheng Leong Chua

43rd IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy

PDFCODESLIDES

[ISSTA 2022] TeLL: Log Level Suggestions via Modeling Multi-level Code Block Information

Jiahao Liu, Jun Zeng, Xiang Wang, Kaihang Ji, Zhenkai Liang

31st ACM International Symposium on Software Testing and Analysis

PDFCODESLIDES

Dataset & Benchmark

[EMNLP 2025] PsyScam: A Benchmark for Psychological Techniques in Real-World Scams

Shang Ma, Tianyi Ma, Jiahao Liu, Wei Song, Zhenkai Liang, Xusheng Xiao, Yanfang Ye

30th Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing, Findings

PDFCODE

[ASE 2025] A Large-Scale Evolvable Dataset for Model Context Protocol Ecosystem and Security Analysis

Zhiwei Lin, Bonan Ruan, Jiahao Liu*, Weibo Zhao

40th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering, Tool Demonstrations

PDFCODE

[ASE 2024] VulZoo: A Comprehensive Vulnerability Intelligence Dataset

Bonan Ruan, Jiahao Liu*, Weibo Zhao, Zhenkai Liang

39th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering, Tool Demonstrations

PDFCODESLIDES

Experience

Work Experience

[07/2025 ~ 11/2025] Security Engineering Intern, Ant Group, Beijing, China

[07/2019 ~ 10/2019] Research Intern, National Cybersecurity R&D Laboratories, Singapore

Education

[08/2020 ~ 12/2025] Ph.D. in Computer Science, National University of Singapore

[09/2016 ~ 06/2020] B.E. in Computer Science (Minor in Finance), Zhejiang University

Awards

[08/2025] Distinguished Paper Award, USENIX Security 2025

[10/2024] Best Practical Paper Award, RAID 2024

[01/2023] Research Achievement Award

[08/2020] NUS Research Scholarship

[09/2018] Shu Ping Prize Scholarship

Invited Talks

[12/2025] Representing and Understanding Programs from Multiple Views for Security Analysis
  • Beihang University Vision Forum, Beijing, China
  • Nanjing University Chengyao Young Scholars Forum, Nanjing, China

[04/2025] Automated Vulnerable Environment Generation for Linux Kernel Vulnerabilities, Singapore

[02/2025] UI-CTX: Understanding UI Behaviors with Code Contexts for Mobile Applications, San Diego

[10/2024] MaskDroid: Robust Android Malware Detection with Masked Graph Representations, Sacramento

[05/2023] Learning Graph-based Code Representations for Source-level Functional Similarity Detection, Melbourne

[07/2022] TeLL: Log Level Suggestions via Modeling Multi-level Code Block Information, Virtually

Teaching Assistant

[12/2023 ~ 05/2024] Web Security (TIC4304)

[06/2022 ~ 12/2023] Computer Security (CS3235)

[12/2020 ~ 05/2021] Web Security (CS5331)

[07/2020 ~ 12/2020] Computer Security Practice (CS4238)