Weiteng Chen

Senior Researcher · Microsoft Research

Hi, I’m Weiteng Chen.

I’m a systems security researcher. I build tools that find, assess, and prevent vulnerabilities in low-level software, from kernel fuzzing and automatic exploit generation to formally verified confidential computing. These days I’m building LiteBox, a security-focused library OS.

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Portrait of Weiteng Chen
LiteBoxCurrent focus
Best PaperOSDI ’24
Redmond, WAMicrosoft Research
13papers at top venues
4first-author papers
$41.5Kin bug bounties & prizes
60+kernel bugs found

01 / About

About me

I’m a Senior Researcher at Microsoft Research in Redmond, where I work on confidential computing and AI for security. My current focus is LiteBox, a security-focused library OS in Rust that shrinks the host interface to minimize attack surface. My research sits where operating systems meet security. I build automated tools that uncover vulnerabilities in OS kernels, determine how exploitable they really are, and, more and more, prove that critical low-level software is correct in the first place.

I received my Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of California, Riverside in 2022, where I worked in the Security Lab. My work there covered automatic exploit generation for Linux kernel out-of-bounds writes (KOOBE), interface recovery for fuzzing closed-source macOS drivers (SyzGen), and a timing side channel present in every generation of Wi-Fi, which earned the IRTF Applied Networking Research Prize. Before that, I received my B.S. in Computer Science from Peking University.

I’ve also interned at IBM Research and Facebook. I’ve spoken at USENIX Security, ACM CCS, the Linux Security Summit, and the IRTF Open Meeting.

02 / News

Recent highlights

  1. SymBisect appeared at USENIX Security ’24.

  2. VeriSMo received the Best Paper Award at OSDI ’24 🏆

  3. SyzGen++, on dependency inference for kernel driver fuzzing, appeared at IEEE S&P ’24.

  4. SyzBridge appeared at NDSS ’24.

  5. SyzDescribe appeared at IEEE S&P ’23.

  6. Joined Microsoft Research in Redmond as a Senior Researcher.

  7. Completed my Ph.D. in Computer Science at UC Riverside.

  8. Presented SyzGen at ACM CCS ’21. Bugs it found earned a $26,500 bounty from Apple.

  9. Won the IRTF Applied Networking Research Prize for our off-path TCP exploit work.

  10. Won a $15,000 award at the GeekPwn International Security Geek Contest in Silicon Valley.

03 / Research

Publications

2024
2023
2022
2021
2020
2019
2018

See the full list on Google Scholar

04 / Experience

Where I’ve worked

  1. Senior Researcher

    Microsoft Research · Redmond, WA

    Oct 2022 – Present
    • Building LiteBox, a security-focused library OS for sandboxing in both kernel and user mode
    • Confidential computing and verified systems software
    • AI for security

  2. Security Research Intern

    IBM Research · Yorktown Heights, NY

    Jun – Sep 2022
    • Built a system that infers syscall dependencies to generate kernel fuzzing specifications automatically. It found 30+ unique Linux kernel bugs (later published as SyzGen++).

  3. Security Software Developer Intern

    Facebook · Menlo Park, CA

    Jun – Sep 2021
    • Integrated AFL-QEMU for binary-only fuzzing across a large fleet of remote machines
    • Automated bug triage and exploitability assessment with GDB scripting

  4. Graduate Research Assistant

    Security Lab, UC Riverside · Riverside, CA

    Sep 2017 – Sep 2022
    • Kernel exploit generation, interface recovery for fuzzing, and network side channels
    • Teaching Assistant, CS 165 Computer Security (Winter 2021)

05 / Open source

Selected projects

06 / Contact

Let’s talk

I’m always happy to talk about kernel security, fuzzing, verification, or possible collaborations.

weitengchen@microsoft.com