PhD student position in Information Security

The Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Chalmers University of Technology invites applicants to a position as PhD student in Information Security

The Department has in total 76 faculty members including teaching staff and enrolls about 70 PhD students from more than 30 countries. The research spans the whole spectrum of computer science and engineering, from theoretical foundations to applied systems development.

Information about the division
The research will be performed in the Networks and Systems division and the computer security group. This includes security research for vehicles connected to the Internet, ICT in the smart grid, Cyber-Physical systems, Cloud Computing, Embedded systems, Operating systems and Mobile systems. The department is very actively involved in many European and national projects including ERC grants and has many links to the industry.

There is extensive national and international collaboration with academia and industry all around the world. General information about the department is available at:

http://www.chalmers.se/cse/EN   

Major responsibilities
We are looking for an excellent PhD candidate to work in the area of information and communication security with a focus on authentication problems in constrained settings. This is particularly important for applications involving mobile phones, wireless communication and RFID systems, which suffer from restrictions in terms of power resources, network connectivity, computational capabilities, as well as potential privacy issues. The overall aim of the project will be to develop nearly optimal algorithms for achieving security and privacy while minimising resource use.

More concretely, part of the research will involve the analysis and development  of authentication protocols in specific settings. This will include investigating resistance of both existing and novel protocols against different types of attacks, theoretically and experimentally. In addition to investigating established settings, such as RFID authentication, the research will also explore more general authentication problems, such as those that arise in the context of trust in social networks, smartphone applications and collaborative data processing. This will be done by grounding the work in a generalised decision-making framework. The project should result in the development of theory and authentication mechanisms for noisy, constrained settings that strike an optimal balance between reliable authentication, privacy-preservation and resource consumption. Some previous research related to this research project can be found here: http://lasecwww.epfl.ch/~katerina/Publications.html

Your major responsibilities as PhD student is to pursue your own doctoral studies. You are expected to develop your own scientific concepts and communicate the results of your research verbally and in writing, both in Swedish and in English. The position generally also includes teaching on Chalmers' undergraduate level or performing other duties corresponding to 20 per cent of working hours.

Position summary
Full-time temporary employment. The position is limited to a maximum of five years.

Qualifications
Applicants for the position shall have a Master’s Degree or corresponding (Sw. civilingenjörsexamen) in Computer Science, Informatics, Telecommunications or in a   related discipline. A master's degree in information security or cryptography is a bonus. As for all PhD studies, a genuine interest and curiosity in the subject matter, excellent analytical and communication skills, orally as well as written,  ability to work independently and intrinsic motivation are needed. Proven proficiency in English (orally and literally) is required. Experience in security communication protocols, lightweight cryptography, provable security, machine learning, biometric authentication, decision making and excellent programming skills are beneficial.

You may apply even though you have not yet completed your degree yet, but expect to do so before the position starts. Knowledge of Swedish is not a prerequisite for applying because
the working language in the research group is English. The undergraduates are normally taught in Swedish, but the graduate level teaching is in English. Thus good language skills are required. Chalmers offers Swedish courses.

Application procedure
The application should be marked with Ref 20130178 and written in English. The application should be sent electronically via Chalmers webpage.

Application deadline: August 31, 2013

For questions, please contact:

Research:     

Dr. Katerina Mitrokotsa,
Assistant Professor,
Department of Computer Science and Engineering,
Networks and Systems Division,
aikmit@chalmers.se, mitrokatkm@gmail.com

Division:      
Lecturer Peter Lundin, Head of division Networks and Systems
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
peter.lundin@chalmers.se
+46 (0)31 772 5726






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