I am a Senior Staff Security Researcher at Palo Alto Networks (Wildfire). I hold a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Purdue University, where I was advised by Prof. Antonio Bianchi.

I have 7 years of experience in Security Research and Software Engineering. Previously, I co-founded and scaled an AI education platform (AI课代表) from 0 to 60,000+ active users. I share AI technology insights and data-driven analyses with 10,000+ followers on X (formerly Twitter). I am the first author of 3 research papers published in top-tier computer science conferences, and the credited discoverer of high-severity CVEs including CVE-2025-22439 and CVE-2026-0024.

My research interests span mobile security, malware detection, AI/ML for security, and software vulnerability analysis.

Publications

• A First Look at the Mobile Driving License (mDL) Standard and its Real-world Usage
  Zeyu Lei, Güliz Seray Tuncay, Abdullah Imran, Z. Berkay Celik, and Antonio Bianchi. In Proceedings of the ACM Asia Conference on Computer and Communications Security (ASIACCS), 2026
• ScopeVerif: Analyzing the Security of Android's Scoped Storage via Differential Analysis
  Zeyu Lei, Güliz Seray Tuncay, Beatrice Carissa Williem, Z. Berkay Celik, and Antonio Bianchi. In Proceedings of the Network and Distributed Systems Security (NDSS) Symposium 2025
• On the Insecurity of SMS One-Time Password Messages against Local Attackers in Modern Mobile Devices
  Zeyu Lei, Yuhong Nan, Yanick Fratantonio, and Antonio Bianchi. In Proceedings of the Network and Distributed Systems Security (NDSS) Symposium 2021 [Paper], [Video], [Slides]

Experience

• Senior Staff Security Researcher (Wildfire) — Palo Alto Networks
  March 2026 – Present
• AI Research Scientist — Stably AI
  May 2025 – February 2026
• Graduate Research Assistant — Purdue University
  August 2019 – May 2025

Talks

• Security Analysis of Three Emerging Pieces of Android OS
  Android Security and Privacy Research (ASPIRE), Google (remote), October 2022