Prof. George Loukas

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I am Professor of Cyber Security and Head of the Centre for Sustainable Cyber Security , carrying out research and teaching in cyber-physical security, Internet of Things security and human factors of cyber security. Before joining the Univ. of Greenwich I led London Technology Network's Security and Sensing steering group, and previously was a PhD and post-doctoral research associate at Imperial College. Since 2020, I am listed in the top 2% of most influential researchers globally.

Latest Book

Cyber-physical attacks are security breaches in cyberspace that affect adversely physical space. From hijacking control of a smart home or an insulin pump, to making a car veer off the road and a drone to land in enemy hands, the book explores how attacks using computers affect the physical world in ways that were previously only possible through physical means. The book has received highly positive reviews by the IEEE Cipher magazine (Issue E219), ACM Computing Reviews, Professional Security Magazine and Oxford Journals’ Policing: a Journal of Policy and Practice. It was also chosen by ACM in the top 10 in the Computing Milieux category of the 2015 annual list of notable books and articles published in computing.

Current and latest activities

  • Invited as witness by UK Parliament's select committee on the security of connected technology following evidence provided.

  • On the editorial board of IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security

  • On the editorial board of Elsevier's Simulation Modelling Practice and Theory journal

  • Previously on the Editorial Board of the Computer Journal.

  • Invited to submit evidence to the Parliament of Victoria (Australia) Electoral Matters Committee, and cited in its report on the Inquiry into the Impact of Social Media on Elections and Electoral Administration.

  • Quoted in The Times, Daily Mail, The Sun, Sunday Express, New Statesman, Tech Monitor, TFL's news

  • Founding member, IEEE working group on Internet of Things and Cultural Heritage

  • Visiting scholar at Reading University

  • Co-chair of ICA3PP track on "Service Dependability and Security in Distributed and Parallel Systems", Malaga, Spain, 2016.

  • Co-organiser of IEEE Globecom's Social Collaborative Internet workshop (SCI-2015), San Diego, USA.

  • On the programme committee of EAI SecureComm, IEEE FICLOUD, IEEE MASCOTS, IEEE HPCC, IEEE ISCIS, IEEE ISPA, IEEE SERA and PerNEM (IEEE PERCOM)

  • Grants reviewer for H2020 MCSCA (EU), EPSRC (UK), SNSF (Switzerland), ISF (Israel), MBIE (New Zealand)

  • Book proposal reviewer for Morgan Kaufmann and Butterworth-Heinemann

    • Teaching

    Communication Systems 1 (COMP1587), Computer Systems Architecture (COMP1588), Network Security (COMP1561), Cyber Security (COMP1426), Audit and Security (COMP1431), Mobile and Network Technologies (COMP1706), Scholarly and Academic Practice (COMP1715), Cyber-Physical Security

    Research

    Currently, I am the project coordinator of the 2.4M GBP EPSRC CHAI project on cyber hygiene for AI systems in domestic life, and UoG principal investigator of the SUN project focusing on the cyber security of virtual reality environments. Previously I was project coordinator of the 2.9M Euro H2020 EUNOMIA project on information trustworthiness in social media, as well as UoG P.I. for the EPSRC CHIST-ERA COCOON project, coordinating work in emotion-aware cyber threat detection in smart homes, the EU H2020 TRILLION project on the secure collaboration of citizens and law enforcement agencies via social networks; and overall coordinator for the GSIKE Blockchain-enhanced "Secure Hajj and Umrah" project, working on decentralised authentication for IoT services for pilgrims.

    Latest research grants and other contracts

  • EU Horizon Europe SUN project (8M Euro), 2022-2025, UoG P.I. (479,000 Euro)

  • EU Horizon 2020 RESCUER project (7M Euro), 2021-2024, jointly with Georgia Sakellari (441,000 Euro)

  • EPSRC CHAI project (2.4M GBP), 2020-2023, project coordinator (453,000 GBP)

  • EU Horizon 2020 ENSURESEC project (9M Euro), 2020-2022, jointly with Taimoor Khan, Ivana Tomic and Georgia Sakellari (489,000 Euro)

  • EU Horizon 2020 C4IIoT project (6.3M Euro), 2019-2022, jointly with Georgia Sakellari (250,000 Euro)

  • EU Horizon 2020 CUREX project (5M Euro), 2019-2022, jointly with Manos Panaousis (270,000 Euro)

  • EU Horizon 2020 EUNOMIA project (2.5M Euro), 2019-2022, project coordinator and technical manager and UoG P.I. (512,000 Euro)

  • British Council GSIKE blockchain-enhanced "Secure Hajj and Umrah" (42,000 GBP), 2018-2019, overall coordinator and P.I.

  • EPSRC CHIST-ERA Cocoon project (277,000 Euro), 2017-2018, P.I.

  • HEA: "Cyber Security Engineering MSc Conversion Course" (50,000 GBP), 2016, jointly with Diane Gan and Lachlan MacKinnon

  • REF Formulaic (48,000 GBP), 2015-2019, P.I.

  • EU Horizon 2020 TRILLION project (335,000 Euro), 2015-2018, P.I.

  • dstl 3-year PhD studentship on "Safeguarding Autonomous Vehicles from Cyber Attacks" (117,000 GBP), 2013-2016, jointly with Richard Anthony and Diane Gan

  • EU ISEC 2011: ECENTRE - Cybercrime Centre of Excellence Network for Training Research and Education (63,000 Euro), 2013-2014, P.I.

  • Cyber-physical security training of senior counterterrorism managers of the Metropolitan Police (37,500 GBP), 2012-2013, jointly with Diane Gan

    • Current PhD students

  • Dennis Ivory: Human-as-a-security-sensor in the Internet of Things

  • William Oliff: Context-enhanced indoor localisation, tracking and occupancy detection

  • Blessing Odeleye: Cyber security of VR environments

  • Emily Parsons: Cyber risk management in IoT

  • Lal Akhter: Model-based Software Security Assurance

    • Current post-doc researchers

  • Dr. Hsueh-Ju (Eddy) Chen, CHAI project

    • Alumni PhD and post-doc researchers

  • Dr. Ijaz Ahmed - 2020-22, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, ENSURESEC project - Upon completion moved to a lecturer position at Cardiff Metropolitan University

  • Dr. Xing Liang - 2019-21, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, EUNOMIA project - Upon completion moved to a lecturer position at Kingston University

  • Dr. Ali Jaddoa - 2018-22, PhD, Computation offloading in IoT environments - Upon completion moved to a University of Greenwich post-doc position in EU project RESCUER

  • Dr. Antonia Nisioti - 2019-22, PhD, Data-Driven Decision Support for Optimizing Cyber Forensic Investigations - Upon completion moved a to SOC Team Lead position at Secrutiny

  • Dr. Terry Brett - 2017-20, PhD, Understanding contagion spreading processes of cyber security threats through social networks - Upon completion moved to an Application Developer position at IBM

  • Dr. Syed Sadiqur Rahman - 2016-17, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, TRILLION project - Upon completion moved to a lecturer position at Prince Mugrin University

  • Dr. Ryan Heartfield - 2013-17, PhD, Utilising the concept of Human-as-a-Security-Sensor for detecting semantic social engineering attacks - Upon completion moved to a University of Greenwich post-doc position in EPSRC/CHIST-ERA project Cocoon

  • Dr. Anatolij Bezemskij - 2013-17, PhD, Safeguarding Autonomous Vehicles from Cyber Attacks< - Upon completion moved to a University of Greenwich post-doc position in EPSRC/CHIST-ERA project Cocoon

  • Dr. David Gresty - 2013-17, PhD, Forensic timeline analysis - Upon completion moved to a University of Greenwich lecturer position

  • Dr. Avgoustinos Filippoupolitis - 2013-14, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, E-Centre project: Detection of botnets through attacker profiling - Upon completion moved to a University of Greenwich lecturer position

  • Dr. Tuan Vuong - 2012-17, PhD, Cyber-physical security of robotic vehicles - Upon completion moved to a University of Greenwich lecturer position

    • Alumni junior researchers

  • Rytis Venslovas - 2022-23, Front-end development for smart valve application in project CHAI - Upon completion moved to project RESCUER.

  • Gabriel Netz Dambros Benakouche - 2020-22, AI in XR-IoT and AI in disinformation projects - Upon completion moved to a Software Engineer position at Ocado Technology

  • Harry Whitby - 2019-22, software developer in projects XR-IoT, EUNOMIA and RESCUER - Upon completion moved to a MSc programme of Advanced Computer Science at the University of Exeter.

  • Nertila Ismailaj - 2019-20, software development in project EUNOMIA - Upon completion moved to a software developer position at Nomura.

  • Daleel Hagy - 2019, software development in project EUNOMIA - Upong completion moved to a PhD in mathematics at Queens' University, Belfast

  • Eugen Mihali - 2019, software development in project EUNOMIA - Upon completion moved to a position at Nomura Holdings.

  • Dr. Kokulan Natkunam- 2019, Research Fellow, project EUNOMIA - Upon completion moved to another research fellow position at University of Greenwich

  • Rohan Kathpal - 2018, Computational offloading for Internet of Things systems - Upon completion moved to a Security integration specialist position at Concise Group

  • Dhruv Bisani - 2018, Penetration testing of mobile-based participatory sensing - Upon completion moved to an Ethical hacking associate position at PWC

  • Dennis Ivory - 2018, Digital forensics in IoT - Upon completion moved to a PhD position at the University of Greenwich

  • Thomas Westmacott-Verran - 2017, Graduate Trainee Software Developer on Human-as-a-Security-Sensor app development - Upon completion moved to a Software developer position with SearchFlow

  • Domenico Galimi - 2016, Legal aspects of community policing enhanced by social media reporting (TRILLION project) - Upon completion moved to PhD position at Royal Holloway)

  • William Oliff - 2016, Student Software Developer for Bluetooth Low Energy-based occupancy detection - Upon completion moved to a University of Greenwich PhD position

  • Tomas Dos Santos Correa (2016. Moved to Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais)

  • Babak Takand - 2016, Student Software Developer for Wearable Devices - Upon completion moved to a Machine Learning Engineer position with ANDi Games Ltd

  • Orestis Mavropoulos - 2015, Student Software Developer: An Internet of Things Living Lab - Upon completion moved to a University of Brighton PhD position