Sadiq Sani

Dr Sadiq Sani BSc, MSc, PhD, CEH, ECSA

Senior Lecturer in Cybersecurity

Dr Sadiq Sani received a PhD degree from The University of Sydney and professional education from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a Certified Ethical Hacker and an EC-Council Certified Security Analyst. With several professional and industry certifications and training in cybersecurity and Information Technology (IT), he is a highly trained cybersecurity, Information and Communications Technology (ICT), and Energy IT expert; with several years of industry experience and expertise ranging from penetration testing and countermeasures, through security architecture and engineering, to Industrial Control System (ICS) cybersecurity and network security. He is versed in the Internet of Things (IoT), distributed ledger technologies (such as blockchain), and Operational Technology (OT).

Dr Sadiq works very closely with the industry; currently advises on cybersecurity, ICT, and OT.

Prior to joining the University of Greenwich as a Senior Lecturer in Cybersecurity, he was an industry-oriented researcher/project lead and a lecturer at the University of New South Wales and The University of Sydney, respectively. He focuses on industry research; his primary research interests include applied cryptography, IoT security and privacy, energy internet and smart grid/microgrid cybersecurity, distributed key management, risk assessments, IoT distributed ledger and cryptocurrency technologies, quantum cryptography, OT cybersecurity, network and communication security, secure software engineering, and distributed federated learning.

He is a member of EC-Council, ICS-CERT, ACS, IEEE, and ACM. He is a technical paper reviewer for IEEE TDSC, IEEE TII, IEEE ICDCS, IEEE TrustCom, and ACM Computing Surveys. He holds key intellectual property in identity management, cryptocurrency, and distributed ledger technologies.

Computer science

Responsibilities within the university
  • Industry Research
  • Project Supervision
  • Cybersecurity Module Leader

Research / Scholarly interests
  • Internet of Things (IoT) security and privacy
  • Quantum resistant cryptographic schemes
  • Applied cryptography
  • Distributed key management
  • Risk-based security assessments
  • Applied cybersecurity
  • Network and communication security
  • IoT distributed ledger and cryptocurrency technologies
  • Energy internet and smart grid/micro-grid cybersecurity and safety
  • Secure power and energy systems
  • Peer-to-Peer energy storage and trading
  • Distributed renewable energy grid connection
  • Secure computing frameworks
  • Operational technology cybersecurity
  • Distributed federated learning
  • Secure software engineering

Recent publications
Article  
  • Sani, A.S., Bertino, E., Yuan, D., Meng, K., and Dong, Z.Y., 2022. SPrivAD: A Secure and Privacy-Preserving Mutually Dependent Authentication and Data Access Scheme for Smart Communities. Computers & Security, p.102610.
  • Sani, A.S., Yuan, D., Bao, W., and Dong, Z.Y., 2020. A universally composable key exchange protocol for advanced metering infrastructure in the energy Internet. IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, 17(1), pp.534-546.
  • Sani, A.S., Yuan, D., Bao, W., Dong, Z.Y., Vucetic, B. and Bertino, E., 2019. Universally Composable Key Bootstrapping and Secure Communication Protocols for the Energy Internet. IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, 14(8), pp.2113-2127.
  • Sani, A.S., Yuan, D., Jin, J., Gao, L., Yu, S., and Dong, Z.Y., 2019. Cyber security framework for Internet of Things-based Energy Internet. Future Generation Computer Systems, 93, pp.849-859.
Conference Proceedings
  • Sani, A.S., Yuan, D., Meng, K., and Dong, Z.Y., 2022. KEF: A Key Exchange Framework for Operational Technology Security Standards and Guidelines, accepted for publication in 2022 IEEE Innovative Smart Grid Technologies North America (ISGT NA).
  • Sani, A.S., Yuan, D., Bertino, E., and Dong, Z.Y., 2021. Crypto-Chain: a relay resilience framework for smart vehicles. In Annual Computer Security Applications Conference (pp. 439-454).
  • Sani, A.S., Yuan, D., Meng, K., and Dong, Z.Y., 2021. R-Chain: a universally composable relay resilience framework for smart grids. In 2021 IEEE Power & Energy Society General Meeting (PESGM) (pp. 01-05). IEEE.
  • Sani, A.S., Meng, K., and Dong, Z.Y., 2021. SComm: A Real-Time Mutually Authenticated Secure Communication Framework for Smart Grids. In 2021 IEEE Power & Energy Society Innovative Smart Grid Technologies Conference (ISGT) (pp. 1-5). IEEE.
  • Sani, A.S., Yuan, D., Meng, K., and Dong, Z.Y., 2021. DIACS: A Blockchain-based Model for Systematic Data Integrity Assessment and Control. In 2021 IEEE Power & Energy Society Innovative Smart Grid Technologies Conference (ISGT) (pp. 1-5). IEEE.
  • Sani, A.S., Yuan, D., Meng, K., and Dong, Z.Y., 2020. Idenx: A Blockchain-based Identity Management System for Supply Chain Attacks Mitigation in Smart Grids. In 2020 IEEE Power & Energy Society General Meeting (PESGM) (pp. 1-5). IEEE.
  • Sani, A.S., Yuan, D., Bao, W., Yeoh, P.L., Dong, Z.Y., Vucetic, B. and Bertino, E., 2019. Xyreum: A high-performance and scalable blockchain for IIoT security and privacy. In 2019 IEEE 39th International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS) (pp. 1920-1930). IEEE.
  • Sani, A.S., Yuan, D., Yeoh, P.L., Qiu, J., Bao, W., Vucetic, B. and Dong, Z.Y., 2019. CyRA: A real-time risk-based security assessment framework for cyber attacks prevention in industrial control systems. In 2019 IEEE Power & Energy Society General Meeting (PESGM) (pp. 1-5). IEEE.
  • Sani, A.S., Yuan, D., Yeoh, P.L., Bao, W., Chen, S. and Vucetic, B., 2018. A lightweight security and privacy-enhancing key establishment for internet of things applications. In 2018 IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
  • Sani, A.S., Yuan, D., Bao, W., and Dong, Z.Y., 2017. Towards secure energy internet communication scheme: An identity-based key bootstrapping protocol supporting unicast and multicast. In 2017 IEEE 16th International Symposium on Network Computing and Applications (NCA) (pp. 1-5). IEEE.
Book Chapter
  • Sani, A.S., Yuan, D., Ogaji, S., Dong, Z.Y., 2020. CyreumE: A Real-Time Situational Awareness and Decision-Making Blockchain-Based Architecture for the Energy Internet. In Springer Handbook of Real-Time Computing