I am currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Bristol, working in the area of hardware security and AI security. I previously held postdoctoral positions in leading security groups in Europe. I was a postdoctoral researcher in the System Security Lab at TU Darmstadt, Germany, working with Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ahmad-Reza Sadeghi. Before that, I was a postdoctoral research fellow at Radboud University, led by Prof. Dr. Joan Daemen and Prof. Dr. Dr. Stjepan Picek. I obtained my Ph.D. from TU Delft, the Netherlands, in 2023, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. ir. Inald Lagendijk and Prof. Dr. Dr. Stjepan Picek.

My research focuses on AI-augmented physical and micro-architectural hardware security, as well as AI security. I have published in top-tier security and cryptography venues, including USENIX Security, NDSS, ASIACRYPT, TCHES, and TDSC, and received the Informatics Best PhD Dissertation Award in 2023 and NDSS Distinguished Paper Award in 2026. Several of my works have been referenced in AIS 46 guidance by the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), and I have contributed as a main or co-applicant to several EU- and industry-funded projects.

Alongside my academic research, I worked as a Principal Security Evaluator at SGS Brightsight, the Netherlands (2017–2024). In this role, I led or was involved in several CC EAL5+ security evaluations from globally leading IC designers, focusing on their hardware and software implementation security. Additionally, I led R&D initiatives and collaborated with universities worldwide on research and innovation.

I am looking for motivated PhD students and postdoctoral researchers to join my group. Check open positions at the end of the page.

Papers

2026

• [arxiv] “NeST: Neuron Selective Tuning for LLM Safety”. Sasha Behrouzi, Lichao Wu, Mohamadreza Rostami, and Ahmad-Reza Sadeghi
• [arxiv] “GoodVibe: Security-by-Vibe for LLM-Based Code Generation”. Maximilian Thang, Lichao Wu, Sasha Behrouzi, Mohamadreza Rostami, Jona te Lintelo, Stjepan Picek, and Ahmad-Reza Sadeghi
• [arxiv] “Large Language Lobotomy: Jailbreaking Mixture-of-Experts via Expert Silencing”. Jona te Lintelo, Lichao Wu, and Stjepan Picek.
• [DAC] “AttackonCTF: Defending Hardware Security Competition Benchmarks in the Age of LLMs” (to appear). Mohamadreza Rostami, Nikhilesh Singh, Stephen Muttathil, Lichao Wu, Chen Chen, Huimin Li, Jeyavijayan Rajendran, and Ahmad-Reza Sadeghi
• [IACR CiC] “I Know What Your Layers Did: Layer-wise Explainability of Deep Learning Side-channel Analysis”. Guilherme Perin, Sengim Karayalçin, Lichao Wu, and Stjepan Picek

2025

• [USENIX Security] “GateBreaker: Gate-Guided Attacks on Mixture-of-Expert LLMs”. Lichao Wu, Sasha Behrouzi, Mohamadreza Rostami, Stjepan Picek, and Ahmad-Reza Sadeghi.
• [Security for Space Systems (3S)] AegisSat: Securing AI-Enabled SoC FPGA Satellite Platforms”. Huimin Li, Vusal Novruzov, Nikhilesh Singh, Lichao Wu, Mohamadreza Rostami, and Ahmad-Reza Sadeghi.
• [NDSS] “NeuroStrike: Neuron-Level Attacks on Aligned LLMs”. Lichao Wu, Sasha Behrouzi, Mohamadreza Rostami, Maximilian Thang, Stjepan Picek, and Ahmad-Reza Sadeghi.
• [NDSS - \({\color{Orange}Distinguished\ Paper\ Award}\)] “Fuzzilicon: A Post-Silicon Microcode-Guided x86 CPU Fuzzer”. Johannes Lenzen, Mohamadreza Rostami, Lichao Wu, and Ahmad-Reza Sadeghi.
• [NDSS] “GoldenFuzz: Generative Golden Reference Hardware Fuzzing”. Lichao Wu, Mohamadreza Rostami, Huimin Li, Nikhilesh Singh, and Ahmad-Reza Sadeghi.
• [USENIX Security] “GenHuzz: An Efficient Generative Hardware Fuzzer”. Lichao Wu, Mohamadreza Rostami, Huimin Li, Jeyavijayan Rajendran, and Ahmad-Reza Sadeghi.

2024

• [DATE] “HFL: Hardware Fuzzing Loop with Reinforcement Learning”. Lichao Wu, Mohamadreza Rostami, Huimin Li, and Ahmad-Reza Sadeghi.
• [ASIACRYPT] “It’s a Kind of Magic: A Novel Conditional GAN Framework for Efficient Profiling Side-Channel Analysis”. Sengim Karayalçın, Marina Krček, Lichao Wu, Stjepan Picek, and Guilherme Perin.
• [IACR CiC] “Leakage Model-Flexible Deep Learning-based Side-channel Analysis”. Lichao Wu, Azade Rezaeezade, Amir Ali-pour, Guilherme Perin, and Stjepan Picek.
• [IACR CiC] “Plaintext-based Side-Channel Collision Attack”. Lichao Wu, Sébastien Tiran, Guilherme Perin, and Stjepan Picek.
• [IACR TCHES] “Weakly Profiling Side-Channel Analysis”. Lichao Wu, Guilherme Perin, and Stjepan Picek.

2023 & earlier (selected)

• [IEEE TIFS] “Label Correlation in Deep Learning-based Side-Channel Analysis”. Lichao Wu, Léo Weissbart, Marina Krček, Huimin Li, Guilherme Perin, Lejla Batina, and Stjepan Picek.
• [IEEE TDSC] “Ablation Analysis for Multi-Device Deep Learning-based Physical Side-Channel Analysis”. Lichao Wu, Yoo-Seung Won, Dirmanto Jap, Guilherme Perin, Shivam Bhasin, and Stjepan Picek.
• [ACM Computing Surveys] “Sok: Deep Learning-based Physical Side-Channel Analysis”. Stjepan Picek, Guilherme Perin, Luca Mariot, Lichao Wu, and Lejla Batina.
• [IEEE TETC] “I Choose You: Automated Hyperparameter Tuning for Deep Learning-based Side-Channel Analysis”. Lichao Wu, Guilherme Perin, and Stjepan Picek.
• [IACR TCHES] “Exploring Feature Selection Scenarios for Deep Learning-based Side-Channel Analysis”. Guilherme Perin, Lichao Wu, and Stjepan Picek.
• [IACR TCHES] “The Best of Two Worlds: Deep Learning-Assisted Template Attack”. Lichao Wu, Guilherme Perin, and Stjepan Picek.
• [IACR TCHES] “Reinforcement Learning for Hyperparameter Tuning in Deep Learning-based Side-channel Analysis”. Jorai Rijsdijk, Lichao Wu, Guilherme Perin, and Stjepan Picek.
• [IACR TCHES] “Remove Some Noise: On Pre-Processing of Side-Channel Measurements with Autoencoders”. Lichao Wu and Stjepan Picek.
• [CT-RSA] “A Fast Characterization Method for Semi-Invasive Fault Injection Attacks”. Lichao Wu, Gerard Ribera, Noemie Beringuier-Boher, and Stjepan Picek.

Check my Google Scholar for more papers.

Activities & Services

• [2026.02] Session chairs at NDSS 2026.
• [2026.02] Invited talk at the Institute of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Hosted by Dr. S. Gao)
• [2025.11] Invited talk at the College of Computer Science and Technology, Zhejiang University (Hosted by Prof.dr. F. Zhang)
• [2025.10] Gives tutorial at ICCAD 2025.
• [2025.09] Co-chairs the Top Picks in Hardware and Embedded Security collocated with ICCAD 2025.
• [2025.09] Organizes the HACK@CHES 2025 collocated with CHES 2025, collaborated with Intel and Texas A&M University.
• [2025.06] Serves as the programme committee of USENIX Security’26.
• [2025.06] Serves as the programme committee of CHES’26.
• [2025.04] Serves as the programme committee of NDSS’26.
• [2025.03] Organizes the HACK@DATE 2025 collocated with DATE 2025, collaborated with Intel and Texas A&M University.
• [2025.01] Serves as the programme committee of CCS’25.
• [2024.10] Serves as the programme committee of USENIX Security’25.
• [2024.09] Invited talk at the School of Cyber Science and Technology, Beijing Institute of Technology (Hosted by Prof.dr. A. Wang)

Open Positions

I am looking for motivated PhD students and postdoctoral researchers to join my group working on (i) Hardware security; (ii) Secure and trustworthy computing; (iii) AI security and safety; (iv) Cross-layer security across hardware and AI systems.

• PhD Positions: Fully funded PhD positions are available through the CDT in Cyber Security at the University of Bristol. I also welcome students applying through the China Scholarship Council (CSC) program.
• Postdoctoral Positions: I am happy to host postdoctoral researchers applying for independent fellowships. If you plan to apply for a fellowship and your research aligns with my group, feel free to contact me to discuss potential collaboration.

If you are interested, please send me an email (lichao[dot]wu[at]bristol[dot]ac[dot]uk) with:

• CV
• Transcript (for PhD applicants) with publication list (if available)
• A brief description of your research interests