Thang Hoang

Thang Hoang

Assistant Professor

About

I am an Assistant Professor in the department of Computer Science @ Virginia Tech and a CCI Researcher. Prior to joining VT, I was a Postdoctoral Fellow @ Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) hosted by Prof. Elaine Shi and a Research Associate @ University of South Florida (USF) hosted by Prof. Attila A. Yavuz. I received my PhD degree from USF in August 2020. My Vietnamese name is Hoàng Minh Thắng.

My research spans the domains of cybersecurity and applied cryptography. I am interested in privacy, secure and verifiable computation, zero-knowledge proof, fuzzy cryptography, and trustworthy machine learning.

Interests

  • Applied Cryptograhy
  • Security and Privacy
  • Biometrics

Education

  • PhD in Computer Science, 2020

    University of South Florida

  • MS in Computer Science, 2014

    Chonnam National University

  • BS in Computer Science, 2010

    University of Science, VNU-HCMC

Recent News

Mar 10, 2025
Two papers accepted to IEEE S&P 2025: one on encrypted search and one on certifcate revocation. Congratulations to Tung and, especially, Munshi for his first lead author paper!
Feb 24, 2025
Paper on private information retrieval accepted to PETS 2025. Congratulations to Hoang-Dung for his first lead author paper!
Oct 15, 2024
Congratulations to Arman for getting the 2024 ACSAC Student Conferenceship Award!
Aug 20, 2024
Two papers accepted to ACSAC 2024: one on verifiable and privacy preserving machine learning and one (conditionally) on secure aggregation in federated learning (Updated 09/16/24: status changed to accepted). Congrats Arman for his first lead author paper!
Jul 15, 2024
Got an NSF SaTC CORE MEDIUM Grant for the project on distributed network security. Thanks for your support!
Jun 25, 2024
Paper on attacking heterogeneous federated learning conditionally accepted to RAID 2024. This work is part of Atharva’s MS thesis, which he just successfully defended. Congrats Atharva! (Updated 07/16/24: status changed to accepted)
Jun 19, 2024
Paper on zero-knowledge machine learning accepted to IEEE TDSC. Congrats Haodi!
May 06, 2024
Paper on encrypted search accepted to USENIX Security 2024. Congrats Tung!
May 01, 2024
Paper on privacy-preserving machine learning with lightweight secure hardware accepted to PETS 2024.
Feb 29, 2024
Paper on attack on searchable encryption accepted to ACM CODASPY 2024. This work is part of Jacob’s MS thesis, which he just successfully defended. Congrats Jacob!

Publication

underlined are my advisees during the project lifespan
25
PETS
Client-Efficient Online-Offline Private Information Retrieval (to appear)

Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium 2025

PDF Code

S&P
AccuRevoke: Enhancing Certificate Revocation with Distributed Cryptographic Accumulators (to appear)

IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy 2025

S&P
Hermes: Efficient and Secure Multi-Writer Encrypted Database (to appear)

IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy 2025

24
ACSAC
Efficient Secure Aggregation for Privacy-Preserving Federated Machine Learning

The Annual Computer Security Applications Conference 2024

PDF Code Slides DOI

ACSAC
Privacy-Preserving Verifiable Neural Network Inference Service

The Annual Computer Security Applications Conference 2024

PDF Code Slides DOI

RAID
Breaking Privacy in Model-Heterogeneous Federated Learning

International Symposium on Research in Attacks, Intrusions and Defenses 2024

PDF Code Slides DOI

TDSC
An Efficient and Zero-Knowledge Classical Machine Learning Inference Pipeline

IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing 2024

PDF Code DOI

USENIX
MUSES: Efficient Multi-User Searchable Encrypted Database

USENIX Security Symposium 2024

PDF Code Slides

PETS
Efficient Privacy-Preserving Machine Learning with Lightweight Trusted Hardware

Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium 2024

PDF Code Slides DOI

CODASPY
Exploiting Update Leakage in Searchable Symmetric Encryption

ACM Conference on Data and Application Security and Privacy 2024

PDF Code Slides DOI

23
ICCCN
VTBC: Privatizing the Volume and Timing of Transactions for Blockchain Applications

International Conference on Computer Communications and Networks 2023

PDF DOI

PETS
ezDPS: An Efficient and Zero-Knowledge Machine Learning Inference Pipeline

Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium 2023

PDF Code Slides DOI

NDSS
Efficient Dynamic Proof of Retrievability for Cold Storage

Annual Network and Distributed System Security Symposium 2023

PDF Code Slides DOI

22
TIFS
AVET: A Novel Transform Function to Improve Cancellable Biometrics Security

IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security 2022

PDF DOI

TPS
Harpocrates: Privacy-Preserving and Immutable Audit Log for Sensitive Data Operations

IEEE International Conference on Trust, Privacy and Security in Intelligent Systems, and Applications 2022

PDF DOI

TPS
Distributed Cyber-infrastructures and Artificial Intelligence in Hybrid Post-Quantum Era

IEEE International Conference on Trust, Privacy and Security in Intelligent Systems, and Applications 2022

PDF DOI

TPS
ZAC: Efficient Zero-Knowledge Dynamic Universal Accumulator and Application to Zero-Knowledge Elementary Database

IEEE International Conference on Trust, Privacy and Security in Intelligent Systems, and Applications 2022

PDF DOI

USENIX
Polynomial Commitment with a One-to-Many Prover and Applications

USENIX Security Symposium 2022

PDF Code Slides

NDSS
A Metadata-Hiding File-Sharing System with Malicious Security

Annual Network and Distributed System Security Symposium 2022

PDF DOI

21
SECRYPT
Proof-of-Useful-Randomness: Mitigating the Energy Waste in Blockchain Proof-of-Work

International Conference on Security and Cryptography 2021

PDF DOI

Access
Multi-Model Long Short-Term Memory Network for Gait Recognition Using Window-Based Data Segment

IEEE Access 2021

PDF DOI

20
CODASPY
MOSE: Practical Multi-User Oblivious Storage via Secure Enclaves

ACM Conference on Data and Application Security and Privacy 2020

PDF Slides DOI

NDSS
MACAO: A Maliciously-Secure and Client-Efficient Active ORAM Framework

Annual Network and Distributed System Security Symposium 2020

PDF Code Slides Video DOI

TOPS
A Multi-server ORAM Framework with Constant Client Bandwidth Blowup

ACM Transactions on Privacy and Security 2020

PDF Code DOI

19
PETS
Hardware-Supported ORAM in Effect: Practical Oblivious Search and Update on Very Large Dataset

Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium 2019

PDF Code Slides DOI

18
TSC
A Secure Searchable Encryption Framework for PrivacyCritical Cloud Storage Services

IEEE Transactions on Services Computing 2018

PDF Code DOI

TCC
Efficient Oblivious Data Structures for Database Services on the Cloud

IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing 2018

PDF Code DOI

DBSec
Oblivious Dynamic Searchable Encryption on Distributed Cloud Systems

IFIP WG 11.3 COnference on Data and Applications Security and Privacy 2018
*Best Paper Award*

PDF Code DOI

17
CCS
S3ORAM: A Computation-Efficient and Constant Client Bandwidth Blowup ORAM with Shamir Secret Sharing

ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security 2017

PDF Code Slides Video DOI

16
ACSAC
Practical and Secure Dynamic Searchable Encryption via Oblivious Access on Distributed Data Structure

Annual Computer Security Applications Conference 2016

PDF Slides DOI

For a full list of publications, including older ones, click here.

Experience

 
 
 
 
 
Postdoctoral Scholar
08.20 – 12.20
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburg, PA
 
 
 
 
 
Research Assistant & Associate
01.19 – 12.20
University of South Florida
Tampa, FL
 
 
 
 
 
Security Research Intern
06.16 – 08.16 || 06.18 – 08.18
Robert Bosch RTC
Pittsburgh, PA
 
 
 
 
 
Graduate Research Assistant
09.15 – 12.18
Oregon State University
Corvallis, OR
 
 
 
 
 
Lecturer
09.14 – 08.15
Saigon Technology University
Saigon, Vietnam
 
 
 
 
 
Research Scientist
03.14 – 09.14
RedOne Technologies
Gwangju, S. Korea

Teaching

I am teaching the following course at VT
Past courses
  • CS 5594: Blockchain Technologies (Spring 2021, Spring 2023, Spring 2024)
  • CS 4104: Data and Algorithm Analysis (Fall 2022, Fall 2023, Fall 2024)
  • CS 4274: Secure Computing Capstone (Spring 2022)

Group

I am fortunate to work with the following talented students

PhD students

  • Tung Le | Fall 2021 - current
  • Arman Riasi | Fall 2022 - current
  • Hoang Dung Nguyen | Spring 2023 - current
  • Changqi Sun | Fall 2023 - current
  • Edmund Amanor | Fall 2023 - current
  • Munshi Ala Muid | Fall 2023 - current | co-advise w/ Tijay Chung

Visiting students

  • Haodi Wang | Spring 2021 - Spring 2024 (now Postdoc @ CUHK)

Alumni

  • Atharva Haldankar, MS (2024)
    Thesis: Breaking Privacy in Model-Heterogeneous Federated Learning
    (now Software Engineer @ Capital One)
  • Jacob Haltiwanger, MS (2024)
    Thesis: Exploiting Update Leakage in Searchable Symmetric Encryption
    (now confidential position in Federal)
  • Trevor Miller, MS (2023)
    Thesis: Privatizing the Volume and Timing of Transactions for Blockchain Applications
  • Mohit Bhasi, MS (2022)
    Thesis: Privacy-Preserving and Immutable Audit Log for Sensitive Data Operations
    (now Software Engineer @ Robinhood)
I am involved with the following events

2025

Program Committee
SafeThings, PETS, IEEE MASS (S&P track)

2024

Organizing Committee
IEEE S&P (Student Travel Grant Chair)
Program Committee

Contact