We believe in evidence,
and we build with it

CRANE is a new EPSRC-funded network that strengthens the UK’s cybersecurity research ecosystem. It will evaluate new technologies, threats and opportunities for novel research, to bring about tangible security interventions. Read more about the project here.

Researchers in Computer Science, International Relations, Law, Psychology, Management, Design, Digital Humanities, Public Policy, Political Science, Criminology and Sociology at Bristol (lead), University College London, Bath, King’s College London and Edinburgh have teamed up to lead an £8.6 million three-year UKRI Research Centre of Excellence, focused on the protection of citizens online. This activity is designed to build and lead the UK’s world-leading interdisciplinary community and provide a clear single path to engage and build capacity with government, industry and citizens. Read more about the project here.

The Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) 'Cyber Secure Everywhere: Resilience in a World of Disappearing System Boundaries' will train at least 50 new doctoral-level graduates to address national cybersecurity capability gaps. It will do this by educating PhD students in both the technical skills needed to study and analyse blended infrastructures. It will also simultaneously train them to understand the challenges as fundamentally human. The training involves close involvement with industry and practitioners who’ve played a key role in co-creating the programme. Read more about the project here.

Cyber Security Quirks is funded by the Home Office and part of the Research Institute in Sociotechnical Cyber Security. The project explores the role of personalisation in cybersecurity behaviour interventions by taking account of individual variability.

Simulated Phishing and Employee Cyber security behaviour (SPEC) is led by CybSafe in conjunction with the University of Bath. Funded by the Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats, the project explores the impact of simulated phishing emails on employee awareness and work-based outcomes such as productivity and trust. Read more about the project here.

PHISHTRAY is a modifiable open source e-tray software for research and training applications related to social engineering for use in academia and industry. Funded by CPNI and developed by behavioural scientists from the University of Bath and University of Bristol in conjunction with CybSafe.

AP4L is a 3-year programme of interdisciplinary research, centring on the online privacy and vulnerability challenges that people face when going through major life transitions. Our central goal is to develop privacy-by-design technologies to protect and empower people during these transitions.

CybSafe is an associate partner of the Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats, a national hub delivering a world-class, interdisciplinary portfolio of activity that maximises the value of behavioural and social science research to understand, mitigate and counter threats to national security.

The PETRAS Internet of Things Research Hub is a consortium of nine leading UK universities that explore critical issues in privacy, ethics, trust, reliability, acceptability and security relating to Internet of Things (IoT) technology. We currently support the Consumer Security Index project, which explores labelling schemes for consumer products and the Cyber Hygiene project, which covers behaviour change interventions for cybersecurity behaviour.

Dr Jason Nurse, who leads our Science and Research team, also works as an academic at the University of Kent. This collaboration between CybSafe and Kent has led to various joint projects, on topics such as behavioural security, cybersecurity in the home and human risk management.

The Research Institute for Sociotechnical Cyber Security is the UK’s first academic Research Institute to focus on understanding the overall security of organisations, including their constituent technology, people and processes. It is now in its second phase.

The SPRITE+ hub brings together people involved in research, practice and policy, with a focus on digital contexts. We help them identify the future challenges of security, privacy, identity and trust in the digital world.

As a result of COVID-19, many workplaces had to suddenly transition to remote working, despite a lack of training, remote-working policies, or (in some cases) work devices. Coupled with the pressures of working from home in this context (e.g. childcare, impaired work-life balance), this new way of working has changed the risks and challenges surrounding workplace Trust, Identity, Privacy and Security (TIPS). This is exacerbated even further by the increase in cyberattacks specifically targeting remote workers. This work will therefore aim to explore and identify these issues, by taking a socio-technical approach and focusing on small and large organisations. Our goal is to provide key, novel insights into the new challenges and tensions in relation to TIPS in these environments, and provide the much-needed foundation for approaches that address these issues.