Yongning Tang

Professor

School of Information Technology

Illinois State University

(Life is full of hope 😊)

Research

My research interests include network security, data-driven cybersecurity analytics, intrusion and fault diagnosis, and network resilience.

 

Current Research Projects

·        Op5G: Open Programmable 5G Networks (partially sponsored by NSF)

·        Interpretable Machine Learning for Cybersecurity

·        IoT Intrusion Detection and Fault Diagnosis

·        Trust-5G: Evidence-Grounded Reasoning for Trustworthy and Resilient 5G Infrastructure

 

Past Research Projects

·        Uncertainty Reasoning in Botnet Detection

·        Encrypted Network Traffic Analysis

·        Encryption Key Distribution Schemes in IoT Networks

·        Intelligent Water Systems (second place in 2019 LIFT Intelligent Water Systems Challenge)

·        Evidential Reasoning for Network Fault Diagnosis

·        Belief Network Modelling for SDN

 

Recent Talks

·        BeamCovert: Spatial Covert Communication for Secure and Efficient IIoT in 5G Smart Factories IEEE SmartNets, July 2025

·        Fusion-Based Traffic Prediction for 5G Slicing: a Hybrid LSTM-Transformer Model. IEEE/IFIS FUSION. July 2025

·        Data in Network Management. International Network Management Research Summit. May. 2023

·        Towards Situational Awareness for Network Security, International Network Security Research Summit. Aug. 2022

·        Towards Interpretable and Secure IWS, Illinois Water Environment Association Webinar, Sept. 2021

·        Recent Advances in Machine Learning & their Impact on IWS, ASCE EWRI Technical Workshop Series: Smart City, Smart Water, Smart Investment, April 2021

·        IWS: Challenges and Opportunities, Illinois Water Environment Association Webinar, Oct. 2020

·        A Scalable Lightweight Traffic Analytics Service for Detecting Network Flow Anomalies, IEEE Conference on Smart Data Services, Oct. 2020

 

Selected Publications (Listed by projects)

·        Bofan Li, Zhankai Ye, Weikuan Yu, Yongning Tang, Xin Liu. 2FiA: Towards WiFi Sensing-Based Authentication with Unique Biometrics. 47th IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (S&P), CA, USA, May 2026

·        Yu Zhou, Feng Wang, Yongning Tang. Order Preserving Pattern Matching: Review. IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, 2026

·        Yongning Tang, Feng Wang, Zutong Hu, Chung-Chih Li, BeamCovert: Spatial Covert Communication for Secure and Efficient IIoT in 5G Smart Factories. IEEE Conference on Smart Applications, Communications and Networking, 2025

·        Yongning Tang, Feng Wang, Zutong Hu, Chung-Chih Li, Fusion-Based Traffic Prediction for 5G Slicing: a Hybrid LSTM-Transformer Model . 28th IEEE/ISIF International Conference on Information Fusion, 2025

·        Manish Adhikari, Feng Wang, Chung-Chih Li, Guang Cheng, Yongning Tang, SDT: Towards a Blockchain-Based Secure Data Trading Application . IEEE International Conference on Decentralized Applications and Infrastructures, 2024

·        Feng Wang, Yongning Tang, Diverse Intrusion and Malware detection: AI-based and Non-AI-based Solutions . Journal of Cybersecurity and Privacy, 2024

·        Yuyu Zhao, Guang Cheng, Yongning Tang, SINT: Towards a Blockchain-based Secure In-band Network Telemetry Architecture . IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security (TIFS), 2023

·        Jessil Fuhr, Feng Wang, Yongning Tang, MoCA: A Network Intrusion Monitoring and Classification System . Journal of Cybersecurity and Privacy, 2022

·        Jessil Fuhr, Isaac Hanna, Feng Wang, Yongning Tang, The Diminished Importance of Connection-based Features in Intrusion Detection . IEEE International Performance, Computing, and Communications Conference, 2021

·        Feng Wang, Eduard Babulak, Yongning Tang, On Detecting and Identifying Faulty IoT Devices and Outage . Bulletin of Electrical Engineering and Informatics, 2021

·        Fenghua Yang, Tha s Pluth, Xing Fang, Kyle Francq, Matthew Jurjovec, Yongning Tang, Advanced machine learning application for odor and corrosion control at a water resource recovery facility . Water Environment Research, Wiley Journal, 2021

·        Feng Wang, Yongning Tang, Lixin Gao, Guang Cheng, BC-Sketch: A Scalable Lightweight Traffic Analytics Service for Detecting Network Flow Anomalies . IEEE International Conference on Smart Data Services (SMDS 2020). Beijing, China. Oct. 19-23, 2020

·        Ying Hu, Guang Cheng, Yongning Tang, Feng Wang, A Practical Design of Hash Functions for IPv6 Using Multi-objective Genetic Programming . Elsevier Journal of Computer Communications. Volume 162. Oct. 2020

·        Guang Cheng, Chunsheng Guo, and Yongning Tang, dptCry: an Approach to Decrypting Ransomware WannaCry Based on API Hooking . Springer CCF Transactions on Networking, Volume 05. Dec. 2019

·        Yongning Tang, Yangxuan Wu, Guang Cheng, Zhiwei Xu, Intelligence Enabled SDN Fault Localization via Programmable In-band Network Telemetry . IEEE International Conference on High Performance Switching and Routing. Xi an, China. May 26-29, 2019

·        Wubin Pan, Guang Cheng, Yongning Tang, WENC: HTTPS Encrypted Traffic Classification Using Weighted Ensemble Learning and Markov Chain . IEEE International Conference on Trust, Security and Privacy in Computing and Communications (TrustCom). Sydney, Australia, August 1-4, 2017

·        Guang Cheng and Yongning Tang, eOpenFlow: Software Defined Sampling via a Highly Adoptable OpenFlow Extension . IEEE International Conference on Communications. Paris, France, May 21-25, 2017

·        Yongning Tang, Guang Cheng, Zhiwei Xu, Feng Chen, Khalid Elmansor, and Yangxuan Wu, Automatic Belief Network Modelling via Policy Inference for SDN Fault Localization . (2016) Journal of Internet Services and Applications. Vol. 7:1.

·        Wubin Pan, Guang Cheng, Hua Wu, and Yongning Tang, Towards QoE Assessment of Encrypted YouTube Adaptive Video Streaming in Mobile Networks . (June 20-21, 2016) IWQoS 2016 IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Quality of Service. Beijing, China.

·        Adrew Lester, Yongning Tang, and Tibor Gyires.  Prioritized Adaptive Max-Min Fair Residual Bandwidth Allocation for Software-Defined Data Center Networks . The 13th International Conference on Networks, 2014 (Best Paper Award)

·        Yongning Tang, Guang Cheng, James Yu, and Bin Zhang.  Catching Modern Botnets Using Active Integrated Evidential Reasoning . Springer Journal of Internet Services and Applications. 2013

·        Aishwarya Mishra, Tibor Gyires, and Yongning Tang.  Yet Another Bounded Broadcasting for Random Key Predistribution Schemes in Wireless Sensor Networks . The 12th International Conference on Networks, 2013 (Best Paper Award)

·        Aishwarya Mishra, Tibor Gyires, and Yongning Tang.  Optimally Controlled Nonintrusive Broadcasting for Path Key Establishment Mechanism in Wireless Sensor Networks . International Journal on Advances in Telecommunications, Vol 3 & 4, 2012

·        Aishwarya Mishra, Tibor Gyires, and Yongning Tang. Towards a Theoretically Bounded Path Key Establishment Mechanism for Wireless Sensor Networks . The 11th International Conference on Networks, 2012 

·        Yongning Tang, Ehab Al-Shaer, Kaustubh Joshi, Reasoning under Uncertainty in Overlay Fault Diagnosis . IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management, Volume: 9, Number: 1, March 2012

·        Yongning Tang and Ehab S. Al-Shaer, Sharing End-user Negative Symptoms for Improving Overlay Network Dependability . The 39th IEEE International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN 2009) Lisbon, Portugal (Acceptance rate: 37/177 = 20.9%)

·        Yongning Tang and Ehab S. Al-Shaer, Overlay Fault Diagnosis Based on Evidential Reasoning . The 28th IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (IEEE INFOCOM 2009), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

·        Yongning Tang, Ehab Al-Shaer and Raouf Boutaba, Efficient Fault Diagnosis Using Incremental Alarm Correlation and Active Investigation for Internet and Overlay Networks . IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management , Volume: 5, Number: 1, Pages: 36--49, 2008

·        Yongning Tang and Ehab S. Al-Shaer. Towards User-Level Collaborative Overlay Fault Diagnosis . The 27th IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (IEEE INFOCOM 2008), Phoenix, AZ, USA

·        Yongning Tang, Ehab S. Al-Shaer, and Bin Zhang, Toward Globally Optimal Event Monitoring and Aggregation for Large-scale Overlay Networks . IEEE Symposium on Integrated Management (IM'2007), May 2007.

·        Yongning Tang, Ehab S. Al-Shaer, and Raouf Boutaba, Active Integrated Fault Localization in Communication Networks . IEEE Symposium on Integrated Management (IM'2005), May 2005.

 

Teaching

I have been teaching various courses, mainly on computer networking, information assurance and network security, computation theory, and programming. I am also the graduate coordinator for the school.

 

Professional Services

·        TPC member, IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC) 2026

·        Guest Editor: Special Issue: Intrusion/Malware Detection and Prevention in Networks 2nd Edition. Journal of Cybersecurity and Privacy 2026

·        NSF CyberInfrastructure Panel. 2022

·        Guest Editor: Applied Sciences Special Issue on Network Traffic Security Analysis . 2022

·        Editor: Journal of Advances in Networks and Services. 2012 - present

·        TPC member, The 30th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) 2021, 2022

·        TPC member, IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM) 2009, 2010, 2011, 2021, 2022

·        TPC member, IEEE International Conference on Computer Communication and Networks (ICCCN) 2010, 2011 

·        TPC member, IEEE International Symposium on Integrated Network Management (IM) 2011

·        TPC member, IEEE International Conference on Networking, Architecture, and Storage (NAS) 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012

·        TPC member, International Conference on Networking and Services (ICNS) 2009, 2010, 2011

·        TPC member, International Conference on Internet Monitoring and Protection (ICIMP) 2009, 2010

·        TPC member, The First International Workshop on Pervasive Computing Systems and Infrastructure (PCSI) 2009

 

Here are some of my recent pictures.