About me

I am currently working as post-doctoral researcher in the Computer Architecture and Systems Research (CASR) Lab at UCF. I have received my Ph.D. degree in Computer Engineering from University of Central Florida where I was advised by Dr. Fan Yao.
My research interest is at the area of computer architecture and security, focusing on the development of secure and high-performance microarchitectural systems and emerging memory architectures. My work has led to the identification of new vulnerabilities in modern CPU microarchitecture and secure processors. I have also designed secure and high-performance architecture for memory and storage subsystems. I have published as first author in many prestigious venues, including all three top-tier architecture conferences (ISCA, MICRO, and HPCA) and the Systems Security Conference (S&P).

I am currently on the job market for tenure-track faculty positions and research scientist positions in the industry.

News

Phantom is accepted in USENIX Security’25! (2025)
IvLeague is accepted in MICRO’24! (July 2024)
I have successfully defended my PhD dissertation. (July 2024)
MetaLeak is accepted in ISCA’24! (March 2024)
PowSpectre is accepted in AsiaCCS’24! (March 2024)
DeepVenom is accepted in IEEE S&P’24. (March 2024)
BeKnight is accepted in ICCAD’23. (July 2023)
Our work on PCM side channels is accepted in IEEE Micro. (Jan. 2023)
D-Shield is accepted in HPCA’23. (Oct. 2022)
DeepSteal is accepted in IEEE S&P ’22. (March 2022)
Our work BranchSpectre is accepted in IEEE Transactions on Computers. (October 2021)
LADDER is accepted in MICRO’21. (July 2021)
BranchSpec work is accepted in ICCD ’20. (August 2020)

Publications

USENIX'25

Phantom: Privacy-Preserving Deep Neural Network Model Obfuscation in Heterogeneous TEE and GPU System

Juyang Bai, Md Hafizul Islam Chowdhuryy, Jingtao Li, Fan Yao, Chaitali Chakrabarti, Deliang Fan

USENIX Security Symposium (USENIX Security), 2025

[Paper]

MICRO '24

IvLeague: Side Channel-resistant Secure Architectures Using Isolated Domains of Dynamic Integrity Trees

Md Hafizul Islam Chowdhuryy, Fan Yao

IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Microarchitecture (MICRO), 2024

[Paper] [Slides]

ISCA'24

MetaLeak: Uncovering Side Channels in Secure Processor Architectures Exploiting Metadata

Md Hafizul Islam Chowdhuryy, Hao Zheng, Fan Yao

IEEE/ACM Annual International Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA), 2024

[Paper] [Slides]

SP'24

DeepVenom: Persistent DNN Backdoors Exploiting Transient Weight Perturbations in Memories

Kunbei Cai, Md Hafizul Islam Chowdhuryy, Zhenkai Zhang, Fan Yao

IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (SP), 2024

[Paper] [Slides]

ASIACCS '24

PowSpectre: Powering Up Speculation Attacks with TSX-based Replay

Md Hafizul Islam Chowdhuryy, Zhenkai Zhang, Fan Yao

ACM Asia Conference on Computer and Communications Security (ASIACCS), 2024

[Paper] [Slides]

HPCA'23

D-Shield: Enabling Processor-side Encryption and Integrity Verification for Secure NVMe Drives

Md Hafizul Islam Chowdhuryy, Myoungsoo Jung, Fan Yao, Amro Awad

IEEE International Symposium on High-Performance Computer Architecture (HPCA), 2023

[Paper] [Slides]

ICCAD'23

BeKnight: Guarding Against Information Leakage in Speculatively Updated Branch Predictors

Md Hafizul Islam Chowdhuryy, Zhenkai Zhang, Fan Yao

IEEE/ACM International Conference on Computer Aided Design (ICCAD), 2023

[Paper] [Slides]

IEEE Micro'23

Understanding and Characterizing Side Channels Exploiting Phase-Change Memories

Md Hafizul Islam Chowdhuryy, Rickard Ewetz, Amro Awad, Fan Yao

IEEE Micro, 2023

[Paper]

SP'22

DeepSteal: Advanced Model Extractions Leveraging Efficient Weight Stealing in Memories

Md Hafizul Islam Chowdhuryy, Adnan Siraj Rakin, Fan Yao, Deliang Fan

IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (SP), 2022

[Paper] [Slides]

MICRO '22

LADDER: Architecting Content and Location-aware Writes for Crossbar Resistive Memories

Md Hafizul Islam Chowdhuryy, Muhammad Rashedul Haq Rashed, Amro Awad, Rickard Ewetz, Fan Yao

IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Microarchitecture (MICRO), 2022

[Paper] [Slides]

TC'21

Leaking Secrets Through Modern Branch Predictors in the Speculative World

Md Hafizul Islam Chowdhuryy, Fan Yao

IEEE Transactions on Computers (TC), 2021

[Paper]

SEED'21

R-SAW: New Side Channels Exploiting Read Asymmetry in MLC Phase Change Memories

Md Hafizul Islam Chowdhuryy, Rickard Ewetz, Amro Awad, Fan Yao

International Symposium on Secure and Private Execution Environment Design (SEED), 2021

[Paper] [Slides]

SEED'21

NMT-Stroke: Diverting Neural Machine Translation through Hardware-based Faults

Kunbei Cai, Md Hafizul Islam Chowdhuryy, Zhenkai Zhang, Fan Yao

International Symposium on Secure and Private Execution Environment Design (SEED), 2021

[Paper]

ICCD'20

BranchSpec: Information Leakage Attacks Exploiting Speculative Branch Instruction Executions

Md Hafizul Islam Chowdhuryy, Hang Liu, Fan Yao

IEEE International Conference on Computer Design (ICCD), 2020

[Paper] [Slides]