Professor George Loukas

Professor George Loukas Head, Centre for Sustainable Cyber Security

Professor of Cyber Security (Human-centric and Cyber-physical Security)

George Loukas is a Professor of Cyber Security with particular interest in human-centric, applied and data-driven cyber security applications in cyber-physical environments. His research has been supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the European Commission, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), the UK Ministry of Defence and the British Council. Some highlights include the coordination of project EUNOMIA which developed the first social media platform that helps users tell the trustworthiness of what they share through it, and project CHAI which developed the first mechanism assisting users in telling whether their smart home AI has been compromised.

Professor Loukas has a PhD in Network Security from Imperial College. He is on the editorial board of IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security. He has previously been on the editorial board of BCS's The Computer Journal and Elsevier's Simulation Modelling Practice and Theory, as well as founding member of the IEEE working group on Internet of Things and Cultural Heritage. His 2015 book on cyber-physical attacks has been adopted in the curricula of universities internationally and was included in ACM’s top 10 of computing Milieux books and articles published that year.

Computer science and computing Computer science Computing

Computer science and informatics

Responsibilities within the university
  • Head, Centre for Sustainable Cyber Security
  • Subject Group Leader for "Networks, Security and Forensics"

Awards
Research Grants
2022 – 2025 P.I., Horizon Europe, SUN (UoG: €475K).
2021 – 2024 co-I, H2020 RESCUER (UoG: €441K)
2020 – 2023 P.I. & overall project coordinator, EPSRC CHAI (UoG: £453K, total project value: £1.9M including EP/T026812/1, EP/T026820/1, EP/T026707/1, EP/T026596/1).
2020 – 2022 co-I, H2020 ENSURESEC (UoG: €489K)
2019 – 2022 co-I, H2020 C4IIoT (UoG: €250K)
2018 – 2021 P.I. & overall project coordinator & technical manager, H2020 EUNOMIA (UoG: €512K, total project value: €2.9M)
2018 – 2021 co-I, H2020 CUREX (UoG: €250K).
2018 – 2019 P.I & overall project coordinator, British Council Secure Hajj (UoG: £20K, total project value: £42K)
2016 – 2018 UoG P.I. (co-I for Reading University), EPSRC/CHIST-ERA COCOON (UoG: 277K Euro)
2015 – 2018 P.I., H2020 TRILLION (UoG: €334K)
2013 – 2016 Co-I, MoD/dstl PhD scholarship (UoG: £117K)
2013 – 2014 P.I., EU ISEC ECENTRE (UoG: €70K)
Knowledge Exchange
2021 – 2022 Co-I., NCSC, Security Economics for the Connected Place Supply Chains (UoG: £50K).
2016 – 2017 Co-I., HEFCE, Cyber Security Engineering MSc (UoG: £50K)
2012 – 2013 P.I., Metropolitan Police, Cyber-physical counterterrorism training (UoG: £37.5K)

Research / Scholarly interests

Research topics

  • Internet of Things and Cyber-physical system security
  • Machine learning applications in cyber security
  • Information trustworthiness
  • Human-as-a-Security-Sensor
  • Digital forensics​
  • Network security
  • Trustworthy AI

Research supervision

Doctoral Students (Current)
  • Leonard Ikem: Optimising Cyber Risk Management in the era of AI.
  • Emily Parsons: Cyber Risk Management for IoT-enabled Smart Homes.
  • Blessing Odeleye: Cyber security of VR environments
  • Dennis Ivory: Human-as-a-security-sensor in the Internet of Things
  • William Oliff: Context-enhanced indoor localisation, tracking and occupancy detection
  • Lal Akhter: Model-based Software Security Assurance
  • Anthony Yekovie: Autonomous Safety and Security Validation System for IoT Applications
  • (External, Univ. of West Attica:) Christos Chatzigeorgiou
Doctoral Students (Completed)
  • Antonia Nisioti - 2022, PhD, Data-Driven Decision Support for Optimizing Cyber Forensic Investigations - Upon completion moved a to SOC Team Lead position at Secrutiny.
  • Ali Jaddoa - 2022, PhD, Computation offloading in IoT environments - Upon completion moved to a Univ. of Greenwich post-doc position at project RESCUER.
  • Terry Brett - 2020, PhD, Understanding contagion spreading processes of cyber security threats through social networks - Upon completion moved to an Application Developer position at IBM.
  • Dr David Gresty - 2018, PhD, Forensic timeline analysis - Upon completion moved to a University of Greenwich lecturer position.
  • Ryan Heartfield - 2017, PhD, Utilising the concept of Human-as-a-Security-Sensor for detecting semantic social engineering attacks - Upon completion moved to a Univ. of Greenwich postdoc position.
  • Anatolij Bezemskij - 2017, PhD, Safeguarding Autonomous Vehicles from Cyber Attacks< - Upon completion moved to a University of Greenwich post-doc position in EPSRC/CHIST-ERA project Cocoon.
  • Tuan Vuong - 2017, PhD, Cyber-physical security of robotic vehicles - Upon completion moved to a University of Greenwich lecturer position.
Postdoctoral Researchers
  • Dr Hsueh-Ju Chen – 2021-23, CHAI project – Moved to
  • Dr Ijaz Ahmed - 2020-22, ENSURESEC - Moved to lecturer position at Cardiff Metropolitan University.
  • Dr Areeg Elgazazz - 2020-21, ENSURESEC - Moved to postdoc position at UiT, Norway.
  • Dr Xing Liang - 2019-21, EUNOMIA - Moved to lecturer position at Kingston University.
  • Dr Ryan Heartfield - 2018-20, COCOON, EUNOMIA - Moved to Senior Security Architect role at Splunk.
  • Dr Ali Jaddoa – 2022-2023, RESCUER – Moved to lecturer position at Canterbury Christ Church Univ.
  • Dr Anatolij Bezemskij 2018-19, COCOON. Moved to a lecturer position at University of Greenwich.
  • Dr Syed Sadiqur Rahman - 2016-17, TRILLION - Moved to lecturer position at Prince Mugrin University.
  • Dr Avgoustinos Filippoupolitis - 2013-14, E-Centre. Moved to a Univ. of Greenwich lecturer position.

Recent publications