Wenyuan Xu      徐文渊

 

Assistant Professor

Department of Computer Science and Engineering

University of South Carolina

315 Main St.
Columbia, SC 29208

 

Associate Faculty

Environment and Sustainability Program

 

 Office: 3A61 Swearingen
Email: wyxucse.sc.edu
Phone: +1-803-777-6853
Fax: +1-803-777-3767

Mailing address:
Dept. of CSE
315 Main St.
Columbia, SC 29208   

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Research News

 

Neighborhood Watch through AMR Meters
Our research on Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) is covered by MIT Technology Review,  WISTV, and many other online media outlets.
Channel-Aware Biomimetic Sensor Networks for Intertidal Zones
We are designing channel-aware sensor networks that can survive the harsh radio environment in intertidal zones.  Our first deployment in the Oregon intertidal zones has been covered in local news.
Wireless Privacy and Security of TPMS
Our research on Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems (TPMS) of modern automobiles is mentioned in an article in Communications of the ACM (November 2011), "Hacking Cars", and has received wide press coverage in many media outlets, including a segment on CNN, web stories in the MIT Technology Review, etc.

Research

My research interests are  wireless networking, and its security and privacy. I have a particular interest in building reliable wireless networks and securing commodity wireless devices.

Current Projects

 Channel-Aware Biomimetic Sensor Networks for Intertidal Zones. The intertidal zone – the region between the low and high tide lines along the coasts of the world’s oceans – serves as a key test bed for exploring the effects of global climate change on species distributions and abundances. We are designing and deploying wireless “biomimetic” sensor networks (WSN) that monitor environmental parameters pertaining to climate change impacts (e.g., temperature). Monitoring the intertidal zone using WSNs remains challenging, because periodic changes in sea level cause communication channel quality to oscillate and make the intertidal zone an unstable environment for radio communication. The wireless sensor networks have to self-diagnose the communication capability and adapt network protocols accordingly.
 

Securing In-Car Sensor Networks. Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems (TPMS) monitor air pressure inside tires and trigger dashboard warnings wirelessly if a tire's pressure drops. Through our reverse-engineering effort, we have shown that TPMS wireless transmissions lack security protection common in basic computer networking, such as input validation, data encryption, or authentication. TPMS wireless signals can be intercepted 40 meters away using a simple receiver, which makes it feasible to track drivers' locations . We also demonstrated that a transmitter that  "spoofs" the sensor signal can easily send false readings and trigger a car's dashboard warning display. We are working on hardware and software solutions to secure TPMS and other in-car sensor networks.
 

Security and Privacy Study of AMR meters. To understand the security and privacy implication of automatic meter reading (AMR), we are analyzing existing residential AMR meters, including electricity and gas meters.  The privacy issues associated with smart meters have attracted much attention; what has not attracted attention (but is already deployed widely) is AMR systems. AMR meters allow one-way wireless communication from meters to utility “drive-by” receivers, and share similar characteristics with smart meters, which enable two-way wireless communication between meters and utility companies.
 

Anti-jamming. Wireless networks are susceptible to simple forms of jamming attacks and unintentional radio interference that can prevent other wireless devices from being able to transmit or receive. We are working on jamming-resistant protocols on the network and application layer, and on strategies to identify the physical location of one or multiple jammers.

 

News

Teaching

About me

I received my Ph.D in computer engineering from the Wireless Information Network Laboratory (WINLAB) of Rutgers University. I hold a MS degree in computer science and engineering from Zhejiang University and a BS degree in electrical engineering from Zhejiang University, China.

Publications

Book
 

Yingying Chen, Wenyuan Xu, Wade Trappe  and Yanyong Zhang, 
Securing Emerging Wireless Systems, 
ISBN: 978-0-387-88490-5, Springer, 2009

Journal Papers

  1. Zhenhua Liu, Hongbo Liu, Wenyuan Xu, and Yingying Chen
    An Error Minimizing Framework for Localizing Jammers in Wireless Networks
    IEEE Transaction on Parallel and Distributed Systems (TPDS), 2013. [PDF | bibtex] (to appear)

  2. Hossen Mustafa, Xin Zhang, Zhenhua Liu, Wenyuan Xu, and Adrian Perrig
    Jamming-Resilient Multipath Routing
    Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing (TDSC), Vol. 9(6), pp. 852-864, December 2012. [PDF | bibtex]

  3. Jason M. O'Kane and Wenyuan Xu
    Energy-efficient information routing in sensor networks for robotic target tracking
    Wireless Networks, Vol. 18 (6), pp. 713-733, August 2012. [PDF | bibtex]

  4. Guofei Chai, Miao Xu, Wenyuan Xu, and Zhiyun Lin
    Enhancing Sink-Location Privacy in Wireless Sensor Networks through k-Anonymity
    International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks, Vol. 2012 (2012), January 2012. [ PDF | bibtex]

  5. Zhenhua Liu and Wenyuan Xu
    Determining Sink Location through Zeroing-In Attackers in Wireless Sensor Networks
    Wireless Networks, Vol. 18 (3), pp. 335-349, April 2012. [PDF | bibtex]

  6. Zhenhua Liu, Hongbo Liu, Wenyuan Xu, and Yingying Chen
    Exploiting Jamming-Caused Neighbor Changes for Jammer Localization
    IEEE Transaction on Parallel and Distributed Systems (TPDS), Vol. 23 (3), pp. 547-555, March 2012  [PDF | bibtex]

  7. Hongbo Liu, Zhenhua Liu, Yingying Chen, and Wenyuan Xu
    Determining the Position of a Jammer Using a Virtual-Force Iterative Approach
    Wireless Networks, Vol. 17 (2) pp.  531-547, February 2011.[PDF | bibtex]

  8. Ming Xia, Yabo Dong, Wenyuan Xu, Dongming Lu, and Xiangyang Li
    Multi-mode user-centric design of wireless sensor networks for long-term monitoring
    ACM SIGMOBILE Mobile Computing and Communications Review, Vol. 14 (1), pp. 25-27, July 2010 [PDF | bibtex]

  9. Pandurang Kamat, Wenyuan Xu, Yanyong Zhang, and Wade Trappe
    Temporal Privacy in Wireless Sensor Networks: Theory and Practice
    ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks (TOSN), Vol. 5 (4), November 2009. [PDF | bibtex]

  10. Wenyuan Xu, Wade Trappe, and nd Yanyong Zhang
    Defending Wireless Sensor Networks from Radio Interference through Channel Adaptation
    ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks (TOSN), Vol. 4 (4), August 2008. [PDF | bibtex]

  11. Wenyuan Xu, Ke Ma, Wade Trappe, and Yanyong Zhang
    Jamming Sensor Networks: Attack and Defense Strategies
    IEEE Networks Special Issue on Sensor Networks, Vol.20 (3), pp. 41-47, May/June 2006. (Acceptance ratio: 10.3%) [PDF | bibtex]

Conference Papers

  1. Denis Foo Kune, John Backes, Shane Clark, Dan Kramer, Matthew Reynolds, Kevin Fu, Yongdae Kim, and Wenyuan Xu
    Ghost Talk: Mitigating EMI Signal Injection Attacks against Analog Sensors
    in Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Security & Privacy, 2013  [ PDF | bibtex] (To appear)

  2. Jing Tian, Chengzhang Qu, Wenyuan Xu, and Song Wang
    KinWrite: Handwriting-Based Authentication Using Kinect
    in Proceedings of the 20th Annual Network & Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), San Diego, February 24-27, 2013  [ PDF | bibtex] (To appear)

  3. Ishtiaq Rouf, Hossen Mustafa, Miao Xu, Wenyuan Xu, Rob Miller, and Marco Gruteser
    Neighborhood Watch: Security and Privacy Analysis of Automatic Meter Reading Systems
    in Proceedings of the 19th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (ACM CCS), Raleigh, NC, October 16-18, 2012 [PDF | bibtex]

  4. Zhenhua Liu, Hongbo Liu, Wenyuan Xu, and Yingying Chen,
    Error Minimizing Jammer Localization Through Smart Estimation of Ambient Noise
    in Proceedings of the 9th IEEE International Conference on Mobile Ad-hoc and Sensor Systems (IEEE MASS), 2012 [PDF | bibtex]

  5. Steffen Schulz, Ahmad-Reza Sadeghi, Maria Zhdanova, Hossen Mustafa, Wenyuan Xu, and Vijay Varadharajan
    Tetherway: A Framework for Tethering Camouflage
    in Proceedings of ACM Conference on Wireless Network Security (WiSec), pp. 149-160, 2012 [PDF | bibtex]

  6. Miao Xu, Wenyuan Xu, and Jason M. O'Kane
    Content-Aware Data Dissemination for Enhancing Privacy and Availability in Wireless Sensor Networks
    in Proceedings of  the 8th IEEE International Conference on Mobile Ad-hoc and Sensor Systems (IEEE MASS), pp. 361-370, 2011 [PDF | bibtex]

  7. Hossen Mustafa, Xin Zhang, Zhenhua Liu, Wenyuan Xu, and Adrian Perrig
    Short Paper: Jamming-Resilient Multipath Routing Leveraging Availability-Based Correlation
    in Proceedings of ACM Conference on Wireless Network Security (WiSec), 2011 [PDF | bibtex]

  8. Hongbo Liu, Zhenhua Liu, Yingying Chen, and Wenyuan Xu
    Localizing Multiple Jamming Attackers in Wireless Networks
    in Proceedings of Int'l Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS), 2011  [PDF | bibtex]

  9. Ishtiaq Rouf, Rob Miller, Hossen Mustafa, Travis Taylor, Sangho Oh, Wenyuan Xu, Marco Gruteser, Wade Trappe, and Ivan Seskar
    Security and Privacy Vulnerabilities of In-Car Wireless Networks: A Tire Pressure Monitoring System Case Study
    in Proceedings of the 19th USENIX Security Symposium, Washington DC, August 11-13, 2010 [PDF | Bibtex | Talk slides |Talk video ]

  10. Jian Hou, Zhiyun Lin, Wenyuan Xu, and Gangfeng Yan
    Distributed Transmit Beamforming with Autonomous and Self-organizing Mobile Antennas
    in Proceedings of IEEE GLOBECOM, 2010 [PDF | bibtex]

  11. Jason M. O'Kane and Wenyuan Xu
    Network-Assisted Target Tracking Via Smart Local Routing
    in Proceedings of IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2010 [PDF | bibtex]

  12. Zhenhua Liu, Hongbo Liu, Wenyuan Xu, and Yingying Chen
    Wireless Jamming Localization by Exploiting Nodes' Hearing Ranges
    in Proceedings of the International Conference on Distributed Computing in Sensor System (DCOSS), Santa Barbara, CA, June 2010 [PDF | bibtex]

  13. Zhenhua Liu and Wenyuan Xu
    Zeroing-In on Network Metric Minima for Sink Location Determination
    in Proceedings of ACM Conference on Wireless Network Security (WiSec), 2010.  (Acceptance ratio: 21%) [PDF | bibtex]

  14. Jason M. O'Kane  and Wenyuan Xu
    Energy-efficient Target Tracking with a Sensorless Robot and a Network of Unreliable One-bit Proximity Sensors
    in Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2009.  [PDF | bibtex]

  15. Hongbo Liu, Wenyuan Xu, Yingying Chen and Zhenhua Liu
    Localizing Jammers in Wireless Networks
    in Proceedings of IEEE PerCom International Workshop on Pervasive Wireless Networking (IEEE PWN) (Held in conjunction with IEEE PerCom), Texas, March 2009. [PDF | bibtex]

  16. Wenyuan Xu, Wade Trappe and Yanyong Zhang
    Anti-Jamming Timing Channels for Wireless Networks 
    in proceedings of the 1st ACM Conference on Wireless Security (WiSec), pg. 203-213, 2008. (Acceptance ratio: 16.7%) [PDF | bibtex]

  17. Wenyuan Xu
    On Adjusting Power to Defend Wireless Networks from Jamming
    in proceedings of the First Workshop on the Security and Privacy of Emerging Ubiquitous Communication Systems (speucs), 2007. [PDF | bibtex]

  18. Pandurang Kamat, Wenyuan Xu, Yanyong Zhang and Wade Trappe
    Temporal Privacy in wireless sensor networks
    in Proceedings of 27th International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS 2007), pg. 23, 2007. (Acceptance ratio: 13.5%) [PDF | bibtex]

  19. Rob Miller, Wenyuan Xu, Pandurang Kamat, and Wade Trappe
    Service Discovery and Device Identification in Cognitive Radio Networks
    in Proceedings of the IEEE Workshop on Networking Technologies for Software Defined Radio (SDR) Networks (Held in Conjunction with IEEE SECON) 2007. [PDF | bibtex]

  20. Wenyuan Xu, Wade Trappe, and Yanyong Zhang
    Channel Surfing: Defending Wireless Sensor Networks from Jamming and Interference
    in Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks (IPSN07), pg.499-508,2007. (Acceptance ratio: 15.3%) [PDF | bibtex]

  21. Wenyuan Xu, Wade Trappe, and Yanyong Zhang
    Poster Abstract: Channel Surfing: Defending Wireless Sensor Networks from Jamming and Interference 
    in Proceedings of the 4th ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems (SenSys), pg. 403-404, 2006.  [PDF | bibtex]

  22. Zang Li, Wenyuan Xu, Rob Miller, and Wade Trappe
    Securing Wireless Systems via Lower Layer Enforcements
    in Proceedings of the 2006 ACM workshop on Wireless security (WiSe), pg. 33-42, 2006. (Acceptance ratio: 19.6%) [PDF | bibtex]

  23. Wenyuan Xu, Pandurang Kamat, and Wade Trappe
    TRIESTE: A Trusted Radio Infrastructure for Enforcing SpecTrum Etiquettes
    in Proceedings of the IEEE Workshop on Networking Technologies for Software Defined Radio (SDR) Networks (Held in Conjunction with IEEE SECON) 2006. [PDF | bibtex]

  24. Wenyuan Xu, Wade Trappe, Yanyong Zhang, and Timothy Wood
    The Feasibility of Launching and Detecting Jamming Attacks in Wireless Networks
    in Proceedings of ACM International Symposium on Mobile Ad Hoc Networking and Computing (Mobihoc), pg. 46-57,2005. (Acceptance ratio: 14.2%) [PDF | bibtex]

  25. Wenyuan Xu, Timothy Wood, Wade Trappe, and Yanyong Zhang
    Channel Surfing and Spatial Retreats: Defenses Against Wireless Denial of Service
    in Proceedings of the 2004 ACM workshop on Wireless security (WiSe), pg. 80 - 89, 2004. (Acceptance ratio: 20%) [PDF | bibtex]

  26. Wenyuan Xu, Wade Trappe, and Sanjoy Paul
    Key Management for 3G MBMS Security
    in Proceeding of IEEE Global Communications Conference(GLOBECOM), Dallas, TX, Nov. 2004 [PDF | bibtex]

Last updated: Sun Dec 12 2011 [validate xhtml]