Cybersecurity threats are the source of many broad challenges for academic research. The layered, composite nature of today’s cyber systems means that cyber security research challenges tend to be rapidly evolving and that they add to or modify, rather than replace existing issues. They require new approaches, insights and techniques, for example those leveraging the power of data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence. These new techniques can build on and work alongside continuing activity in more established areas such as cryptography, computational privacy, confidential computing, formal methods, software testing, malware analysis and intrusion detection. Areas that may not traditionally have been considered to be enablers of better cybersecurity, such as behavioural science and economics, continue to assume an increasingly important role in the field.
Imperial has been recognised by EPSRC and the National Cyber Security Centre as an Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research (ACE-CSR) continuously since the scheme was first introduced in 2012. Most academics involved in our centre are from the Department of Computing. They lead the Research Institute in Trustworthy Industrial Control Systems (RITICS), co-lead the UK Research Institute on Verified Trustworthy Software Systems (VeTSS), and have played a major role in the creation and running of the PETRAS National (UK) Centre of Excellence for IoT Systems Cybersecurity amongst other initiatives. Our academics have graduated 18 PhD students and currently supervise 25 PhD students working on related projects. They have also held about £25M in funding, through research projects whose majority is led by our academics. Our research funds come from a variety of sources including UKRI, EU, Industry, and Defence.
Our research groups boast world-leading expertise across a variety of cybersecurity domains including security and privacy in machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), systems security, software and platform security, infrastructure security, attacks and defenses, and human, organisational and regulatory aspects of cybersecurity and privacy.
Through collaborations with other departments, we apply interdisciplinary approaches to develop secure and private systems and methods with applications in healthcare, transportation and finance among others. We work with established industrial partners to transfer knowledge to products used by billions of users; we help run, advice or found start-ups to address novel real-world challenges; we work with national and international institutes, working groups and individuals to help shape policy, regulations, and national cybersecurity strategies.
The following links lead you to related videos describing some of our work, the websites of specific groups working in this area in Computing, and our ACE-CSR and ACE-CSR Affiliate academics.
Related videos
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The twenty first century has been defined by cyberspace
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Defining the legal and ethical boundaries at the cyber front
The 3rd Vincent Briscoe Annual Security Lecture
The 3rd Vincent Briscoe Annual Security Lecture - "Defining the legal and ethical boundaries at the cyber frontier" - Guest Speaker: The Honorable Michael Chertoff.
Accurate, robust metrics for usable security
A critical part of building secure systems is verifying that they're usable and secure
A critical part of building secure systems is verifying that they're usable and secure in practice, and not just theoretically. This requires accurate and robust metrics for quantifying this "usability" and "practical security". For several years, we've been studying how to help users create passwords that are hard for attackers to crack, but are still easy for users to remember and use.
The dark net: inside the digital underworld
Explore the world of dark internet subcultures, crypto-currencies and the hidden web
Explore the world of dark internet subcultures, crypto-currencies and the hidden web. Jamie Bartlett delivers the Vincent Briscoe annual security lecture at Imperial College London.
Research groups and centres
Academics
ACE-CSR Academics
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Dr Cristian Cadar
Location
435, Huxley Building
Research interests
Software engineering, computer systems, software security, practical techniques for improving software reliability and security.
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Dr Yves-Alexandre de Montjoye
Location
Data Science Institute, William Penney Laboratory
Research interests
Data privacy, machine learning, biometric and behavioural identification, safe and anonymous use of data, data science for good.
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Dr Soteris Demetriou
Location
Room 353, ACE Extension
Research Interest
Mobile computing, security and privacy, systems security, smartphone security, Internet-of-Things (IoT) security.
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Prof Alastair Donaldson
Location
422, Huxley Building
Research interests
Formal verification for multicore software, software performance optimization.
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Prof. Philippa Gardner
Personal details
Prof. Philippa Gardner Professor of Theoretical Computer ScienceSend email+44 (0)20 7594 8292
Location
453, Huxley Building
Research interests
Programming languages, program analysis and verification, concurrency and resource reasoning.
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Professor Hamed Haddadi
Personal details
Professor Hamed Haddadi Professor of Human-Centred SystemsSend email+44 20 7594 2584
Location
I-X, Translation and Innovation Hub (I-HUB), White City Campus
Research interests
User-centred systems, networking, applied machine learning, privacy, security.
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Prof. Chris Hankin
Personal details
Prof. Chris Hankin Security Science Fellow, Institute for Security Science and TechnologySend email+44 (0)20 7594 7619
Location
Sherfield Building
Research interests
Security, Program Analysis and Programming Language Theory.
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Prof. Emil Lupu
Location
564, Huxley Building
Research interests
Adaptive systems, security, personal networks for healthcare, autonomous vehicles, wireless sensor networks, security for sensor-based environments, security management and authorisation policies.
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Dr Sergio Maffeis
Location
441, Huxley Building
Research interests
Software security; network and web security; applications of machine learning to security; security of machine learning; formal methods.
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Prof. Julie McCann
Location
258, ACE Extension
Research interests
Decentralised algorithms, network protocols, wireless sensor networks, ubiquitous, mobile, and autonomic computing.
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Prof. Peter Pietzuch
Personal details
Prof. Peter Pietzuch Professor of Distributed Systems and Director of ResearchSend email+44 (0)20 7594 8314
Location
442, Huxley Building
Research interests
Distributed systems, operating systems, data management, stream processing, data-intensive applications, networking, systems for machine learning, security, confidential computing, trusted hardware, and decentralised ledgers.
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Dr. Azalea Raad
Location
Huxley Building
Research interests
Programming languages, formal methods, verification, non-volatile memory, concurrency, persistency, weak memory models, transactional memory, program logics, and stateless model checking.
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Dr. Lluis Vilanova
Location
556, Huxley Building
Research interests
Computer architecture; operating systems; distributed systems; security and privacy; heterogeneous, parallel and accelerated systems; virtualization; cloud; hardware/software interfaces and co-design.
ACE-CSR Affiliate Academics
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Dr Dalal Alrajeh
Location
557, Huxley Building
Research interests
Formal methods, software engineering, artificial intelligence for correct software, and software for digital forensics.
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Prof. Pantelis J Beaghton
Location
Room E257, 2nd Floor, ACE Extension
Research interests
Associate Director Institute for Security Science and Technology
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Dr Mahdi Cheraghchi
Location
353, ACE Extension
Research interests
Communication and computing, randomness and computing, information and coding theory, algorithms and complexity theory, Boolean functional analysis, foundations of cryptography.
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Dr Naranker Dulay
Location
562, Huxley Building
Research interests
Security, pervasive/mobile/distributed systems, networking, software engineering, systems, and network management, applied machine learning.
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Dr Ben Livshits
Location
569, Huxley Building
Research interests
Security, privacy, program analysis, compilers, software engineering and crowd-sourcing.
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Prof. Alessio Lomuscio
Personal details
Prof. Alessio Lomuscio Professor of Safe Artificial IntelligenceSend email+ 44 (0)20 7594 8414
Location
I-X, Translation and Innovation Hub (I-HUB), White City Campus
Research interests
Logic-based specification, verification of autonomous systems.
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Prof. Alessandra Russo
Personal details
Prof. Alessandra Russo Professor in Applied Computational LogicSend email+44 (0)20 7594 8312
Location
I-X, Translation and Innovation Hub (I-HUB), White City Campus
Research interests
Computational logic, logic-based machine learning, probabilistic and distributed Inference, cognitive systems, autonomous systems.
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Dr Herbert Wiklicky
Location
424, Huxley Building
Research interests
Program analysis, programming languages, semantics, probabilistic models, program synthesis, semantics in computer security, quantum computation.