Research Topics in Cyber Security

The Cyber Security research at Kent has experienced significant growth since the award of ACE-CSR status in 2015 and its Cyber Security capabilities were strengthened through a number of strategic appointments since 2016. Our Cyber Security capabilities are organised into four main research themes:

Authentication and Authorisation (Theme lead: Gareth Howells): Biometrics and other new authentication technologies, passwords, federated identity management, CAPTCHA, device authentication, authentication, authorisation and access control protocols, autonomic authorisation.

Communication and Network Security (Theme lead: Julio Hernandez-Castro): IoT security, RFID security, cloud security, network security protocols, secure quantum communications, network intrusion detection, data loss prevention.

Security Testing and Verification (Theme lead: Andy King): Software security analysis, malware code analysis, security metrics and automated testing, self-adaptive security in software systems, self-testing of quantum computing for next-generation quantum based security systems.

Socio-technical Security and Privacy (Theme lead: Shujun Li): Socio-technical aspects of malware especially ransomware, usability, user behaviour, user profiling and modelling, cybercrime, privacy by design and privacy management, security and trust in online social networks, human-related risks, insider threats, trust management.

The Centre also has capabilities in some other important Cyber Security areas beyond the above themes, especially the following cross-cutting topics:

• AI and Security (security of AI and AI for security): A majority of Core Members have research expertise in applications of AI related technologies (machine learning, data mining, data analytics, discrete optimisation and information visualisation) in Cyber Security, which will allow interactions with other research groups of the two core schools of KirCCS (Data Science and Computational Intelligence groups of School of Computing; Intelligent Interactions group of School of Engineering and Digital Arts). A number of Core Members and Associate Members are also actively working on security of AI systems and models, a new emerging topic in both AI and cyber security fields.
• Digital Forensics and Online Harms: Typical sub-topics include network forensics, computer forensics, mobile forensics, multimedia forensics, cybercrime, online child protection, and false information (e.g., fraud) detection and prevention.
• Information Hiding: Typical sub-topics include steganography, steganalysis, and digital watermarking.
• Quantum Cyber Security: Development of quantum-resistant cyber security systems based on quantum mechanics.

Our work on these cross-cutting areas allows interactions with Associate Members from different disciplines.

The University has set Cyber Security as one of strategic research area and has decided to extend the KirCCS into a larger unit -- Institute of Advanced Studies in Cyber Security and Conflict (SoCyETAL), which will cover more cyber security related research in social sciences and humanities, and also coordinates the university wider teaching activities around cyber security such as setting up a number of cyber security related interdsciplinary PGT programmes across the whole university. The expansion will likely evolve KirCCS's research profile in the future.