Affiliations

• Computer Science

Research Interests

Dr. Ni’s research interests focus on cybersecurity and digital trust, aiming to build secure, reliable and efficient cyber-physical systems (CPS) to achieve trustworthy computing and confidential sensing in mobile devices and critical infrastructures. His work emphasizes identifying side-channel vulnerabilities and protecting sensing-involved computation in diverse CPS, including mobile computing platforms and machine learning-powered systems via the integration of hardware-software co-design and cutting-edge AI techniques. Dr Ni's team is dedicated to exploring cyberattacks in emerging technologies (e.g., IoT, extended reality, medical devices, humanoid robots), and developing low-cost and software-defined defence mechanisms.

Selected Publications

• Tao Ni, Yuefeng Du, Qingchuan Zhao, Cong Wang. Non-intrusive and Unconstrained Keystroke Inference in VR Platforms via Infrared Side Channel. In Proceedings of the 32nd Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS), 2025.

• Tao Ni, Xiaokuan Zhang, Qingchuan Zhao. Recovering Fingerprints from In-Display Fingerprint Sensors via Electromagnetic Side Channel. In Proceedings of the 30th ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS), 2023.

• Tao Ni, Xiaokuan Zhang, Chaoshun Zuo, Jianfeng Li, Zhenyu Yan, Wubing Wang, Weitao Xu, Xiapu Luo, Qingchuan Zhao. Uncovering User Interactions on Smartphones via Contactless Wireless Charging Side Channels. In Proceedings of the 44th IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (S&P), 2023.

• Tao Ni, Guohao Lan, Jia Wang, Qingchuan Zhao, Weitao Xu. Eavesdropping Mobile App Activity via Radio-Frequency Energy Harvesting. In Proceedings of the 32nd USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security), 2023.

• Tao Ni, Jianfeng Li, Xiaokuan Zhang, Chaoshun Zuo, Wubing Wang, Weitao Xu, Xiapu Luo, Qingchuan Zhao. Exploiting Contactless Side Channels in Wireless Charging Power Banks for User Privacy Inference via Few-Shot Learning. In Proceedings of the 29th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking (MobiCom), 2023.

• Tao Ni, Yongliang Chen, Weitao Xu, Lei Xue, Qingchuan Zhao. XPorter: A Study of the Multi-Port Charger Security on Privacy Leakage and Voice Injection. In Proceedings of the 29th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking (MobiCom), 2023.