Biography

I am a third-year Ph.D. student (Ph.D. candidate) at the Institute of Network Science and Cyberspace, Tsinghua University, advised by Prof. Liu Baojun and Duan Haixin.

I received my Bachelor's and Master's degrees from Nankai University in 2020 and 2023 respectively.

My research interests lie in:

  • Cybercrime: understanding underground ecosystems and illicit digital markets.
  • Data-driven Security: measuring security problems in the wild through empirical analysis.
  • Human-centered Security: studying how user practices and expectations shape security outcomes.

Email: liu-yj23(at)mails(dot)tsinghua(dot)edu(dot)cn

I am currently a visiting researcher at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), hosted by Prof. Xiaofeng Wang, starting from Feb 2026.

Research

Publications

Conference Papers

[USENIX Security '26]
Cracks in the Walled Garden: Dissecting the Gray-Market of Unauthorized iOS App Distribution via Ad Hoc Sideloading
Yijing Liu, Yiming Zhang, Baojun Liu, Haixin Duan
PDF / Accepted Paper
[IMC '25]
Dive into the cloud: Unveiling the (Ab)usage of Serverless Cloud Function in the Wild
Yijing Liu, Mingxuan Liu, Yiming Zhang, Baojun Liu, Jia Zhang, Geng Hong, Haixin Duan, Min Yang
PDF / DOI
[USENIX Security '24]
Tickets or Privacy? Understand the Ecosystem of Chinese Ticket Grabbing Apps
Yijing Liu, Yiming Zhang, Baojun Liu, Haixin Duan, Qiang Li, Mingxuan Liu, Ruixuan Li, Jia Yao
PDF / Presentation
[USENIX Security '22]
How Are Your Zombie Accounts? Understanding Users' Practices and Expectations on Mobile App Account Deletion
Yijing Liu, Yan Jia, Qingyin Tan, Zheli Liu, Luyi Xing
PDF / Presentation
[CCS '21]
Who's In Control? On Security Risks of Disjointed IoT Device Management Channels
Yan Jia, Bin Yuan, Luyi Xing, Dongfang Zhao, Yifan Zhang, XiaoFeng Wang, Yijing Liu, Kaimin Zheng, Peyton Crnjak, Yuqing Zhang, Deqing Zou, Hai Jin
PDF / DOI
[VLDB '21]
Frequency-hiding order-preserving encryption with small client storage
Dongjie Li, Siyi Lv, Yanyu Huang, Yijing Liu, Tong Li, Zheli Liu, Liang Guo
PDF / DOI

Background

Education

2023.09 - now Tsinghua University, Beijing, China — Ph.D. of Engineering in Cyberspace Security
2026.02 - 2026.08 Nanyang Technological University, Singapore — Visiting Scholar
2020.09 - 2023.06 Nankai University, Tianjin, China — Master of Engineering in Cyberspace Security
2020.01 - 2020.06 Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium — Visiting Scholar
2016.09 - 2020.06 Nankai University, Tianjin, China — Bachelor of Engineering in Information Security (Minor in Law)

Recognition

Awards

2024.11 The 1st Class Outstanding Scholarship, Tsinghua University
2023.11 Chern Prize for New Scholars, Nankai University
2023.06 Outstanding Graduate of Nankai University
2023.05 Zhou Enlai Scholarship Nomination Award, Nankai University
2022.12 Chinese National Scholarship

Community

Academic Services

2026 Empirical Software Engineering — External Reviewer
2024 The DataCon Big Data Security Analysis Competition — Technical Committee Member
2023, 2024 EAI SecureComm — External Reviewer

Talks

Presentations

2025.11 The 2025 Internet Measurement Conference, Madison, Wisconsin, USA
2024.12 The 7th Academic Forum of the Institute of Network Sciences and Cyberspace, Tsinghua University, China
2024.08 The 33rd USENIX Security Symposium, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
2024.07 The PhD Student Forum in InForSec 2024, Hefei, Anhui, China
2022.08 The 31st USENIX Security Symposium, Boston, Massachusetts, USA (online)

Teaching

Teaching Experience

2025.02 - 2025.06 Network Security Technology, Tsinghua University — Teaching Assistant
2024.09 - 2025.01 Network Protocol Security Design and Analysis, Tsinghua University — Teaching Assistant
2024.09 - 2025.01 Internet Architecture and Its Security Fundamentals, Tsinghua University — Teaching Assistant

Personal

Misc

2004 - now Rhythmic Gymnastics Enthusiast. Proud to have maintained my passion for this beautiful sport.