Kyungchan Lim

Postdoctoral Associate at the University of Maryland

I'm a Postdoctoral Associate at the University of Maryland, affiliated with the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS) and the Maryland Cybersecurity Center (MC2), and advised by Dr. Yonghwi Kwon. I received my Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, advised by Dr. Doowon Kim.

My research measures deployed web systems to identify security-relevant insights and opportunities for improvement.

Research Interests
  • Measuring security behavior and abuse across the web ecosystem.
  • Evaluating the effectiveness and timeliness of security detection and mitigation.
  • Identifying weaknesses in web implementations and security configurations to inform more effective defenses.
Education

Ph.D. in Computer Science
University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Aug. 2021 - Aug. 2025

M.S. in Computer Science
State University of New York at Albany
May. 2015 - Jul. 2016

B.S. in Computer Science
State University of New York at Albany
Aug. 2011 - May. 2015

Kyungchan Lim

klim7@umd.edu
GitHub
LinkedIn
CV

News

Publications

Refereed Conference Proceedings

C.7. Understanding the Security Impact of Blocklist-based Anti-phishing Intelligence Services in Practice.
Kyungchan Lim, Eunjin Roh, Jaehwan Park, Yonghwi Kwon, Sanghyun Hong, and Doowon Kim
Electronic Crime Research (eCrime), 2026 (to appear).
C.6. Built to Last? Registration and DNS Strategies in Phishing Domain Survival.
Kyungchan Lim, Jaehwan Park, Raffaele Sommese, Mattis Jonker, Ricky Mok, KC Claffy, and Doowon Kim
Electronic Crime Research (eCrime), 2026 (to appear).
C.5. 7 Days Later: Analyzing Phishing-Site Lifespan After Detected. (Oral: 7.6%)
Kiho Lee*, Kyungchan Lim*, Hyoungshick Kim, Yonghwi Kwon, Doowon Kim (*: contributed equally to this research)
The Web Conference 2025, formerly WWW. Acceptance rate: 19.8% (out of 2062).
C.4. What's in Phishers: A Longitudinal Study of Security Configurations in Phishing Websites and Kits. (Oral: 7.6%)
Kyungchan Lim, Kiho Lee, Fujiao Ji, Yonghwi Kwon, Hyoungshick Kim, Doowon Kim
The Web Conference 2025, formerly WWW. Acceptance rate: 19.8% (out of 2062).
C.3. Phishing Vs. Legit: Comparative Analysis of Client-Side Resource of Phishing and Target Brand Websites. (Oral: 9.6%)
Kyungchan Lim, Jaehwan Park, and Doowon Kim
The Web Conference 2024, formerly WWW. Acceptance rate: 20.2% (out of 2008).
C.2. A Longitudinal Study of Vulnerable Client-side Resources and Web Developers' Updating Behaviors.
Kyungchan Lim, Yonghwi Kwon, and Doowon Kim
ACM IMC'23: The 23rd Internet Measurement Conference.
C.1. Dazzle-attack: Anti-Forensic Server-side Attack via Fail-free Dynamic State Machine.
Bora Lee*, Kyungchan Lim*, JiHo Lee, Chijung Jung, Doowon Kim, Kyu Hyung Lee, Haehyun Cho, and Yonghwi Kwon. (*: co-first authors)
WISA'22: The 23rd World Conference on Information Security Applications.
*Best Student Paper Award

Refereed Journal & Magazine Articles

J.1. Demystifying the Regional Phishing Landscape in South Korea.
Hyunjun Park, Kyungchan Lim, Doowon Kim, Donghyun Yu, and Hyungjoon Koo
IEEE Access

Refereed Workshop Proceedings

W.1. Evaluating Password Composition Policy and Password Meters of Popular Websites.
Kyungchan Lim, Joshua H. Kang, Matthew Dixson, Hyungjoon Koo, and Doowon Kim
SecWeb 2023

Preprints

A.3. Supporting Students in Navigating LLM-Generated Insecure Code.
Jaehwan Park, Seonhye Park, Kyungchan Lim, Hyoungshick Kim, and Doowon Kim
arXiv preprint arXiv:2511.20878
A.2. Registration, Detection, and Deregistration: Analyzing DNS Abuse for Phishing Attacks.
Kyungchan Lim, Kiho Lee, Raffaele Sommese, Mattis Jonker, Ricky Mok, KC Claffy and Doowon Kim
arXiv preprint arXiv:2502.09549
A.1. Occasionally Secure: A Comparative Analysis of Code Generation Assistants.
Ran Elgedawy, John Sadik, Senjuti Dutta, Anuj Gautam, Konstantinos Georgiou, Farzin Gholamrezae, Fujiao Ji, Kyungchan Lim, Qian Liu, Scott Ruoti
arXiv preprint arXiv:2402.00689

Refereed Posters

P.1. Dazzle-attack: Anti-Forensic Server-side Attack via Fail-free Dynamic State Machine.
Bora Lee*, Kyungchan Lim*, JiHo Lee, Chijung Jung, Doowon Kim, Kyu Hyung Lee, Haehyun Cho, and Yonghwi Kwon. (*: co-first authors)
ACSAC 2022: Annual Computer Security Applications Conference

Awards & Grants

Teaching Experience

Teaching Assistant

University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN
Aug. 2021 – May 2025
  • Software Security (COSC 566)
  • Human Factors in Cybersecurity (COSC 469/569)
  • Introduction to Cybersecurity (COSC 366)
  • Mobile and Embedded Systems Security (ECE 469/569)
  • Computer Systems Architecture (ECE 356/358)

Teaching Assistant

State University of New York at Albany, Albany, NY
Sep. 2014 – Aug. 2016
  • Societal and Ethical Implications of Computing (CS 300)

Mentoring

University of Maryland, College Park

University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Professional Service

External Reviewer

Program Committee

Invited Talks

Registration, Detection, and Deregistration: Analyzing Lifecycles of Phishing Attacks
ICANN SSAC Lightning Talk, Online
Mar. 2025
Understanding Phishing Attacks: From Exploited Resources to Blocklist Effectiveness
GMI-AIMS-3, San Diego, CA
Jan. 2025
Understanding Phishing Attacks: From Exploited Resources to Blocklist Effectiveness
Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea
Jan. 2025

Professional Experience

Postdoctoral Associate

University of Maryland, UMIACS and Maryland Cybersecurity Center (MC2), College Park, MD
Aug. 2025 – Present

Ph.D. Research Intern

CAIDA, Remote
May 2024 – Aug. 2024

Salesforce Consultant

DKBMC, Seoul, Korea
Jan. 2021 – Jul. 2021

Senior Research Engineer

Prompt Technology, Seoul, Korea
Apr. 2018 – Jul. 2020

Network Engineer

Eluon, Seoul, Korea
Aug. 2016 – Mar 2018