Introduction to ISG Research

The ISG is an interdisciplinary research group conducting internationally-leading research in all areas of information security:

  • Device and system security (including security of portable devices, smart cards, smart tokens and embedded systems);
  • Protection of evolving networks (including wireless, mobile, ad hoc and ubiquitous networks);
  • Trusted computing;
  • Security infrastructure provision (including protection of critical national infrastructure and grid security);
  • Socio-technical studies in information security (including both organisational information security research and sociological research in the wider "Information Society" context);
  • Application security (including identity management and software security); and
  • Fundamental security technologies (including cryptography, cryptographic protocols, and authentication technologies).

Our breadth of coverage, coupled with our size, distinguished educational and academic track record, and long-standing and deep engagement with industry, makes the ISG a unique research group in the UK.

ISG Research Staff

We currently have 20 permanent research-active members of academic staff, with additional visiting professors, senior visiting fellows and consultants, as well as a large group of postdoctoral research assistants and research students. Prof. Walker (FRAE), Group R&D Director of Vodafone, is also holder of the part-time Vodafone chair with the ISG. Visiting Professors include Whit Diffie (co-inventor of public key cryptography) and Richard Walton (former director of CESG).

The research interests and contact details of the ISG staff can be found on their respective home pages. Recent research publications can also be found on those pages and on the ISG Publications pages.

Our current research portfolio is sponsored by companies and organisations such as British Telecom, Giesecke and Devrient, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft Research, the UK Ministry of Defence and Vodafone, as well as the EPSRC and the EU. We work in cooperation with organisations such as the CPNI and I-4 to build bridges between academia and industry. We also run industry-funded research clubs on specific topics such as PKI and Identity Management, providing a neutral forum for debate on these issues. Over the past 20 years, ISG staff have acted as consultants to more than 100 companies.

For more information on specific projects, visit our Research Projects page. For further information on ISG consulting, visit our Consultancy page.

Research Environment

Our postdoctoral researchers and research students contribute to our thriving research environment. We have a weekly ISG research seminar, and several internal research discussion groups. We have a state-of-the-art penetration testing laboratory, a security development laboratory. Our industrial partners have made a significant investment in equipping our Smart Card Centre of Excellence.

Our PhD graduates and postdocs are now employed all over the world by governments, in the education, finance, telecoms and IT sectors, and by specialist information security companies. If you are interested in joining us as a research student, please visit our PhD Research Programme pages for more information. Opportunities to join the ISG as a postdoctoral researcher or an academic member of staff will be advertised widely.

Collaborations

ISG staff have a global network of research collaborators, including significant current collaborations with major groups in Europe (through our participation in the ECRYPT Network of Excellence and the OpenTC Integrated Project), IBM research and US universities (through the International Technology Alliance), and universities in Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan.

Research Leadership

ISG researchers sit on (or chair) the editorial boards of major international journals including: the Journal of Cryptology; IEEE Transactions on Information Theory; IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology; ACM Transactions on Information and System Security; Designs, Codes and Cryptography; The Computer Journal; the Journal of Mathematical Cryptology and the International Journal of Information Security. On behalf of Elsevier, the ISG runs the quarterly journal Information Security Technical Report.

ISG staff regularly sit on leading conference program committees such as Eurocrypt, ESORICS and AsiaCCS, as well as dozens of more specialised conferences. In 2010, the group will host the 2nd International Conference on Symbolic Computation and Cryptography and the European Trusted Infrastructure Summer School.

ISG staff are in constant demand as invited speakers at academic and industrial conferences. Recent and forthcoming speaking engagements include: EuroPKI 2010 and AfricaCrypt 2010.