n132

I am Xiang (Neil) Mei, a Ph.D. student at Arizona State University, working with Dr. Yan Shoshitaishvili (advisor), Dr. Ruoyu (Fish) Wang, Dr. Adam Doupé, and Dr. Tiffany Bao in the SEFCOM lab. My research primarily revolves around automated binary analysis, vulnerability discovery, and exploitation. Prior to my doctoral studies, I earned my Master’s degree from NYU in 2023, where I conducted research (currently under submission) with Dr. Brendan Dolan-Gavitt.

Since my sophomore year, I have been actively engaged in Capture The Flag (CTF) competitions. I compete as part of Shellphish and r3kapig teams under the handle n132, specializing in binary exploitation (PWN). Recently, I became the tenth person to solve all challenges on Pwnable.tw, a journey that spanned seven years and built my exploitation skills. Moreover, I have been a DEF CON CTF finalist with team r3kapig since 2021. During my master’s study at NYU, I served as the Lab Manager for NYU Osiris Lab, organizing CSAW-CTFs in 2021 and 2022. It’s also worth mentioning that, I exploited the WYZE-V3 camera at PWN2OWN Toronto in 2023.

I am an advocate for open-source, contributing to major projects like the Linux kernel and how2heap. I share various exploitation tools and techniques I develop on my GitHub, including Libc-GOT-Hijacking, Dec-Safe-Linking, BeapOverflow, and more.