• United Kingdom

Accepting PhD Students

PhD projects

Prospective PhD students should send an email to [email protected] providing their CV and an explanation of their research interests in the area of security and privacy. Please contact me early so the appropriate scholarship or industrial partnership may be identified. A PhD student can expect to seek under my guidance security and privacy problems that appear in emerging systems, and to use those problems to drive better methodologies for identifying and eliminating threats. See, for example, the thesis of my former PhD student Semen Yurkov, who considered privacy-preserving smartcard-based payments.

Students with strong mathematical and computer science skills are suited to topics in security. I can also propose software engineering problems, e.g., prototyping and evaluating emerging privacy-preserving technology. Students with an entrepreneurial streak are also welcome. See my personalised homepage for a selection of topics, across several domains (logic, space systems, ePassports, ePayments, personal data, concurrency theory, proof theory, API composition, threat modelling, etc.):

https://personal.cis.strath.ac.uk/ross.horne/

Personal profile

Personal Statement

My security & privacy research concerns protocols used to connect devices and people in our digital society. I work to mitigate challenging threats where it is not obvious whether or not attackers can manipulate protocols so that they may, for instance, masquerade using someone elses identity or profile activities. A threat model precisely specifies the capabilities of attackers in such a way that logical methods may be employed to show the presence or absence of attack vectors.

I have a broad interest in interdisciplinary thinking that is required to solve real problems, for which we need to combine multiple methodologies in order to understand cyber threats and measures.

My personal website lays down several research directions in more detail. Notably it also explains my research in concurrency theory, which is important for understanding how to reason precisely about computing involving two or more parties, with protocols being a prime example.

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • SDG 4 - Quality Education
  • SDG 5 - Gender Equality
  • SDG 16 - Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

Education/Academic qualification

Doctor of Philosophy, Programming Languages and Principles for Read-Write Linked Data, University of Southampton

Award Date: 23 Feb 2012

Bachelor of Arts, Computable Cyclic Functions, Oxford University

Award Date: 30 Sept 2005

External positions

research fellow, University of Luxembourg

1 Sept 201831 Aug 2023

senior research fellow, Nanyang Technological University

1 Nov 201531 Aug 2018

associate professor, Kazakh-British Technical University

1 Sept 201231 Oct 2015

research associate, Romanian Academy

1 Feb 201231 Aug 2012

Keywords

  • security
  • privacy
  • authentication
  • protocols
  • verification
  • proof theory
  • Process calculi
  • concurrency
  • equivalence checking
  • unlinkability
  • Cyber Security
  • Data Protection
  • logic
  • FinTech

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Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years

Recent external collaboration on country/territory level. Dive into details by clicking on the dots or
  • Provably unlinkable smart card-based payments

    Bursuc, S., Horne, R., Mauw, S. & Yurkov, S., 6 Sept 2023, Ithaca, NY, p. 1-32, 32 p.

    Research output: Working paperWorking Paper/Preprint

    Open Access
    File
    17 Downloads (Pure)
  • Unlinkability of an improved key agreement protocol for EMV 2nd gen payments

    Horne, R., Mauw, S. & Yurkov, S., 31 Oct 2022, 2022 IEEE 35th Computer Security Foundations Symposium, CSF 2022. Piscataway, NJ: IEEE, p. 364-379 16 p. (Proceedings - IEEE Computer Security Foundations Symposium; vol. 2022-August).

    Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution book

    6 Citations (Scopus)