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Accepting PhD Students

PhD projects

There are projects available in: AI Security, Networks (wired and wireless), Cyber security (Malware/Botnets), IoT device communication (smart buildings) and security, Satellite/drone/UAV communication networks and security, Secure routing protocols, Artificial Intelligence or machine learning applications, Android security, Robotics automation/security, and Cloud computing optimisations. NOTE: PhD queries from good potential students from the above or related areas are welcome.

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Personal profile

Biography

Dr Biju Issac is an Associate Professor (Networks and Cyber Security) at Northumbria University and Director of the Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research (ACE-CSR). His research focuses on AI security, LLM security, insider threat detection, malware and botnet detection, uncertainty estimation, ethical hacking, and resilient networked systems. He leads and contributes to projects funded by the Alan Turing Institute, NATO, Innovate UK, British Academy, UKRI and industry partners. He is also the co-lead of the 'Intelligent Cyber and Network Systems' Research Group. He is the Chair of the AI-Cyber SIG (AI-Cybersecurity Special Interest Group) under CRANE, an EPSRC-funded network to strengthen the UK’s cybersecurity research ecosystem, led by Oxford University. He joined Northumbria as an academic staff member in September 2018. 

He holds funded projects with the Alan Turing Institute (Laboratory for AI Security Research (LASR)), working on "AI Security" as follows: (1) 'Synthetic Data detection' (or specifically, Model-Agnostic Detection of Synthetic Data Using Uncertainty-Enhanced Non-Conformity Measures: A Mixture-of-Experts Approach) for UK Defence and Security, and (2) 'Closed-Box Inference of Large Language Models: Dual-Channel Probing, Traffic Analysis, and Quantization-Aware Fingerprinting' for UK Defence and National Security and US Defence and National Security. He has completed a funded project led by Kent - 'LLM-Facilitated and Graph-Based Analysis of Relationships Between Organisations' with the Alan Turing Institute, working for NCSC, and completed a funded project for Lockheed Martin Space (USA) to create an 'Intelligent Vulnerability Detection and Reporting Automation' tool. He has also completed funded projects, such as the NATO Advanced Training Course in 'Cyber Defence and Ethical Hacking' for Ukrainians from Lviv Polytechnic National University, Innovate UK-funded 'Ethical Hacking for Girls in the North East of England', etc.

He supervises multiple PhD students working in the hybrid areas of AI and Cybersecurity (including ransomware, fake news, insider threat, hate speech, and botnet detection).

He was the Head of the Subject (Networks and Cyber Security) from 2022 to 2025 and the Programme Leader of BSc (Computer Networks and Cyber Security) and BSc (Computer and Digital Forensics) from 2018 to 2023. He has done PhD in Networking and Mobile Communication (focusing on 802.11 Mobility and Security), having finished Bachelor of Engineering (BE) in Electronics and Communication Engineering and Master of Computer Applications (MCA) with a first. He is a Chartered Engineer (CEng), Senior IEEE member, Senior Fellow of HEA and EPSRC Associate Peer Review College member.

He founded Northumbria Cyber Clinic in 2018, which works with NEBRC/NECRC (led by the police), to secure businesses against cyber attacks, where students are appointed to work as part-time ethical hackers. He currently heads Cisco Net Academy at Northumbria and teaches Cisco CCNA modules covering Networking, Switching, Routing and Security. Northumbria won the ‘Innovator of the Year’ award based on his botnet detection project in Dynamites 2020, organised by Dynamo North East and he was shortlisted as a finalist in ‘Excellence in Cybersecurity’ for E&T Innovation Awards 2020, organised by IET, UK.

He has worked as a Computer Science academic staff at Teesside University since July 2012, where he has been the course leader of BSc Cybersecurity, a member of the Machine Intelligence research group and taught Network and System Administration modules. Prior to that, he worked as a Computer Science academic staff and course leader of BSc Telecommunication and Network Engineering at an Australian University (Swinburne University of Technology) in Malaysia and at Madras Christian College under Madras University in India. He started his job as a project assistant at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore in India, where he worked on a funded Tomography project. He has authored 100+ publications such as conference papers, journal papers, book chapters and edited books. He is one of the Editors of Scientific Reports (Springer Nature) and IET Wireless Sensor Systems (Wiley) and the Editor in Chief (EiC) of the International Journal of Information and Computer Security.

Links to check:
(1) Personal Website
(2) University Research Profile 
(3) Northumbria ACE-CSR
(4) AI-Cyber SIG

Research interests

His research interests are AI Security, Cyber Security (Malware/Botnets), Networks (wired and wireless), IoT Security (smart buildings), Satellite/drone/UAV communication networks and security, Secure routing protocols, AI/ML applications, Android security, Robotics automation/security and Cloud computing optimisations.

Education/Academic qualification

PhD

… → 3 Sept 2008

Research Group keywords

  • Cyber Security and Network Systems (CyberNets)​

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):

  1. SDG 9 - Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure
    SDG 9 Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure

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