Secure and Distributed Systems
Modern digital infrastructure faces unprecedented challenges in safeguarding information security and maintaining operational reliability across increasingly complex distributed systems. According to industry reports, cybersecurity breaches cost the global economy over $7 trillion annually, with this figure projected to reach $10.5 trillion by 2028. The proliferation of IoT devices, estimated to exceed 75 billion by 2030, creates vast attack surfaces that traditional security frameworks struggle to protect. Meanwhile, distributed networks supporting critical services from healthcare to transportation require novel approaches to ensure resilience against both malicious attacks and technical failures.
In our group we focus on building secure, safe, privacy-preserving, reliable, and trustworthy systems. Our research investigates the computational and networking challenges associated with modern information and communication paradigms such as Internet, distributed networks, and high-performance computing. We employ advanced techniques spanning cryptography, formal verification, machine learning, and performance modelling to develop next-generation security solutions for increasingly complex digital ecosystems.
Members
- Professor Geyong Min - Professor (E&R)
- Professor Achim Brucker - Professor (E&R)
- Professor Jia Hu - Associate Professor (E&R)
- Professor Anne Kayem - Associate Professor (E&R)
- Professor Chunbo Luo - Associate Professor (E&R)
- Dr Muhammad Khurram Bhatti - Associate Professor (E&R)
- Dr Diego Marmsoler - Lecturer (E&R)
- Dr Yunxiao Zhang - Lecturer (E&R)
- Dr Wang Miao - Lecturer (E&R)
- Dr Haozhe Wang - Lecturer (E&R)
- Dr Rui Jin – Lecturer (E&R)
Current research projects
- UKRI Horizon Europe Guarantee: Versatile Feature Representation and Analysis for Smart On-board Remote Sensing Services (EFFORT)
- Real-time Fine-grained Air Quality Monitoring with Intelligent and Robust Multi-UAV Networks (REFINE)
- Real-Time Federated Learning at the Wireless Edge via Algorithm-Hardware Co-Design
- Autonomous Vehicular Edge Computing and Networking for Intelligent Transportation (ASCENT)
- Intelligent and Sustainable Aerial-Terrestrial IoT Networks (INITIATE)
- Knowledge-driven Explainable Misinformation Detection for Trustworthy Computational Social Systems (KEEN)
- Automated insurance rebuilds cost estimate for residential and commercial properties
- Business Process Logic Faults and Insider Attacks on Enterprise Systems
- Securing connected vehicles with Digital Security by Design
- Formal security and correctness guarantees of smart contracts.
Research topics
- Network Security and Privacy
- Formal Methods for Security
- Formal Verification and Interactive-theorem Proving
- Security Testing and Program Analysis
- Language-based Security and Secure Development
- Federated Learning and Edge Computing
- IoT Security and Cyber-physical Systems Security
- Network Slicing and Digital Twin Technology
- Vehicular Edge Computing and Autonomous Systems
- Smart Energy Systems and Privacy-Preserving Computation
- Hardware Security and Side-Channel Attack Detection
- Blockchain Security and Smart Contracts
- Software-Defined Networking (SDN)
- Performance Modelling and Quantitative Analysis
- Applied Machine Learning for Security
- Next-Generation Internet and Cloud Computing
- Game Theory and Risk Management in Cybersecurity
- AI-Powered Network Management
