Yixin Sun
 |
Assistant Professor at University of Virginia, Department of Computer Science Email: yixins [at] virginia [dot] edu |
Bio
I am an assistant professor in the department of Computer Science (w/ secondary appointment in Electrical Engineering) at the University of Virginia. My research primarily focuses on network measurement, security, and privacy. Before UVA, I graduated with PhD in Computer Science from Princeton University in Dec. 2019, coadvised by Prateek Mittal and Mung Chiang.
Research
My research involves measuring and analyzing Internet protocols, with a focus on security and privacy. We collect Internet data, analyze protocol specifications, and test protocol implementations. We examine Internet applications for security and privacy properties. Example topics include DNS, TLS/PKI, BGP, Tor, attack monitoring and detection, etc..
Check our group research website.
Education
Ph.D. Computer Science, Princeton University, Sep. 2014 - Dec. 2019
B.A. Computer Science and Mathematics, University of Virginia, Aug. 2009 - May. 2013
Work Experience
Assistant Professor, University of Virginia, Jan. 2020 - Present
Research Intern, International Computer Science Institute (ICSI), Jun. 2017 - Aug. 2017
Research Intern, NEC Labs, May. 2016 - Aug. 2016
Research Intern, Verisign Labs, Jun. 2015 - Aug. 2015
Web Developer, ICF International, Jun. 2012 - Aug. 2012 and Jul. 2013 - Jun. 2014
Teaching
CS4501: Privacy in the Internet Age, Fall 2020,Fall 2021,Fall 2022,Fall 2023,Fall 2024
CS6501: Network Security and Privacy, Spring 2021,Spring 2022,Spring 2023,Spring 2024,Spring 2025,Spring 2026
CS6501: Computer Networks, Spring 2020
Publications
Mrigank Pawagi, Lize Shao, Hyeonmin Lee, Yixin Sun, Wenxi Wang
RFCScope: Detecting Logical Ambiguities in Internet Protocol Specifications
ASE, 2025Hongying Dong, Yizhe Zhang, Hyeonmin Lee, Yixin Sun
Inside Certificate Chains Involving Private Issuers: Structure and Usage Analysis from a Campus Network
IMC, 2025François Wirz, Marten Gartner, Jelte van Bommel, Elham Ehsani Moghadam, Grace Cimaszewski, Anxiao He, Yizhe Zhang, Henry Birge-Lee, Flix Kottmann, Cyrill Krähenbühl, Jonghoon Kwon, Kyveli Mavromati, Liang Wang, Daniel Bertolo, Marco Canini, Buseung Cho, Ronaldo Ferreira, Simon Green, David Hausheer, Junbeom Hur, Xiaohua Jia, Heejo Lee, Prateek Mittal, Omo Oaiya, Chanjin Park, Adrian Perrig, Jerry Sobieski, Yixin Sun, Cong Wang, Klaas Wierenga
Scaling SCIERA: A Journey Through the Deployment of a Next-Generation Network
SIGCOMM, 2025Zhifan Lu, Siyang Sun, Yixin Sun
RPKI-based Location-Unaware Tor Guard Relay Selection Algorithms
PETS, 2025Hongying Dong, Yizhe Zhang, Hyeonmin Lee, Shumon Huque, Yixin Sun
Exploring the Ecosystem of DNS HTTPS Resource Records: An End-to-End Perspective
— >Dataset
IMC, 2024Hongying Dong, Yizhe Zhang, Hyeonmin Lee, Kevin Du, Guancheng Tu, Yixin Sun
Mutual TLS in Practice: A Deep Dive into Certificate Configurations and Privacy Issues
IMC, 2024Qi Liu, Yizhe Zhang, Yixin Sun
Intercepting Bluetooth Traffic from Wearable Health Devices
IEEE/ACM Workshop on the Internet of Safe Things (co-located with Oakland), 2024Hongying Dong, Hao Shu, Vijay Prakash, Yizhe Zhang, Muhammad Talha Paracha, David Choffnes, Santiago Torres-Arias, Danny Yuxing Huang, Yixin Sun
Behind the Scenes: Uncovering TLS and Server Certificate Practice of IoT Device Vendors in the Wild
IMC, 2023Yizhe Zhang, Hongying Dong, Alastair Nottingham, Molly Buchanan, Donald Brown, Yixin Sun
Global Analysis with Aggregation-based Beaconing Detection across Large Campus Networks
ACSAC, 2023Yushan Liu, Xiaokui Shu, Yixin Sun, Jiyong Jang, Prateek Mittal
RAPID: Real-Time Alert Investigation with Context-aware Prioritization for Efficient Threat Discovery
ACSAC, 2022Henry Birge-Lee, Joel Wanner, Grace Cimaszewski, Jonghoon Kwon, Liang Wang, François Wirz, Prateek Mittal, Adrian Perrig, Yixin Sun
Creating a Secure Underlay for the Internet
USENIX Security, 2022Yixin Sun, Maria Apostolaki, Henry Birge-Lee, Laurent Vanbever, Jennifer Rexford, Mung Chiang, Prateek Mittal
Securing Internet Applications from Routing Attacks
Communications of the ACM, 2021Yixin Sun, Kangkook Jee, Suphannee Sivakorn, Zhichun Li, Cristian Lumezanu, Lauri Korts-Parn, Zhenyu Wu, Junghwan Rhee, Chung Hwan Kim, Mung Chiang, Prateek Mittal
Detecting Malware Injection with Program-DNS Behavior
EuroS&P, 2020Hans Hanley, Yixin Sun, Sameer Wagh, Prateek Mittal
DPSelect: A Differential Privacy Based Guard Relay Selection Algorithm for Tor
PETS, 2019Suphannee Sivakorn, Kangkook Jee, Yixin Sun, Lauri Korts-Parn, Zhichun Li, Cristian Lumezanu, Lu-An Tang, Ding Li
Countering Malicious Processes with Process-DNS Association
NDSS, 2019Henry Birge-Lee, Yixin Sun, Anne Edmundson, Jennifer Rexford, Prateek Mittal
Bamboozling Certificate Authorities with BGP
USENIX Security, 2018Ryan Wails, Yixin Sun, Aaron Johnson, Mung Chiang, Prateek Mittal
Tempest: Temporal Dynamics in Anonymity Systems
PETS, 2018Henry Birge-Lee, Yixin Sun, Anne Edmundson, Jennifer Rexford, Prateek Mittal
Using BGP to Acquire Bogus TLS Certificates
HotPETS, 2017Yixin Sun, Anne Edmundson, Nick Feamster, Mung Chiang, Prateek Mittal
Counter-RAPTOR: Safeguarding Tor Against Active Routing Attacks
IEEE S&P, 2017Yixin Sun, Anne Edmundson, Laurent Vanbever, Oscar Li, Jennifer Rexford, Mung Chiang, Prateek Mittal
RAPTOR: Routing Attacks on Privacy in Tor
USENIX Security, 2015Yixin Sun, Kevin Skadron
Prefix Scan and Minimum Spanning Tree with OpenCL
University of Virginia Dept. of Computer Science Tech Report, CS-2013-02Peng Su, Byungkyu (Brian) Park, Joyoung Lee, Yixin Sun
Proof-of-Concept Study for a Roadway Reservation System
Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 2381.1 (2013): 1-8.
Misc
I have a minor in Philosophy, here is my paper Qualia in Possible Worlds.