On this page, you will find information about the speakers and the various lectures and research activities that will take place at the summer school. This page is constantly being updated.
Dr. Konstantinos Mersinas – Royal Holloway
Title: Understanding Threat Actors: Cultural and Behavioural Analyses in Cybercrime and Hybrid Threats
Abstract: To be Confirmed.
Bio: Dr Konstantinos Mersinas, PhD, CISSP, is an Associate Professor at the Information Security Group, Royal Holloway, University of London, and Visiting Professor at Keio University, Tokyo, Japan. Konstantinos’ research lies with human and behavioural aspects of cybersecurity, maritime security, and cybercrime. He has advised the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Cybersecurity, the UK Fraud Act and Digital Fraud Committee, and a number of UK Government Departments. He co-founded the research group HIVE (Hub for Interdisciplinary research into Vulnerability to Exploitation). Konstantinos collaborates with the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (https://ccdcoe.org/) in Tallinn, Estonia, and the Pukhov Institute in the Ukraine. He is Director at the International Cyber Security Centre of Excellence (https://incs-coe.org), an international community founded between UK, USA and Japan, promoting cybersecurity research globally.
A.P. Luca Demetrio – Università degli Studi di Genova
Title: Pick Two: Robustness, Accuracy, Real Correlations in Malware Detection with AI
Abstract: While great progress has been achieved in the domain of Windows malware detection, there is still work to do. In particular, these models reach incredible performance, but at the cost of either robustness against unseen attacks, or by relying on spurious correlations inside data that are known to be useless by expert domain knowledge. In this talk, we will present the limits of current literature, and provide some pointers towards possible lines of research that address this triangle.
Bio: Luca Demetrio is an Assistant Professor (University of Genova). He is currently investigating the principal issues that hinders the security of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, with strong emphasis on their applications in the Cyber Security domain. With his seminal work on top-tier international journals (TIFS, TOPS), he highlighted how novel machine-learning threat detectors can be easily deceived by injecting minimal perturbations inside malware, potentially harming end-user devices. In 2023, he received an honorable mention “Premio Giovani Ricercatori” from the “Gruppo 2003” for his research on adversarial attacks against Windows malware detectors. In 2024, he also was appointed Associate Editor for the journal Pattern Recognition.
Dr. Darren Hurley-Smith- University of Kent
Title: An introduction to practical UAV research: simulation environments, experiment design, and implementation
Abstract: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) offer a flexible, cost-effective platform for a wide range of research applications—from AI-driven swarm coordination to environmental monitoring and media production. However, conducting UAV research poses unique challenges that go beyond regulatory compliance, requiring careful attention to experiment design, simulation fidelity, and practical constraints.
This session introduces the foundational tools, methodologies, and planning strategies needed for rigorous and impactful UAV research. Attendees will learn how to design and implement meaningful simulations and real-world experiments using platforms like ArduCopter and Gazebo, with a focus on aligning technical setups to research goals.
We will also explore the trade-offs between data richness, repetition, and feasibility in UAV experiments, addressing questions such as: “How much data is enough?” and “When is simulation sufficient?” A hybrid approach that blends simulation with targeted real-world validation will be discussed as a practical path forward for many research projects.
This talk is aimed at helping PhD students build confidence in UAV experiment design—from concept to analysis—equipping them with the skills to balance rigor, realism, and resource constraints in their own work.
Bio: Dr. Darren Hurley-Smith is a Senior Lecturer in Information Security at the School of Computing, University of Kent. He earned a B.Eng. (Hons) in Hardware and Software Engineering (2012) and a Ph.D. in Autonomous Systems Network Security (2015), both from the University of Greenwich.
Dr. Hurley-Smith’s research covers a broad range of cybersecurity topics, including anti-ransomware strategies, random number generation, and secure mobile ad hoc networking (MANET) protocols. His work focuses on the detailed modelling of both technological and organisational systems to identify vulnerabilities and evaluate effective countermeasures. This includes analytical studies of random number generators and the use of game theory to model ransomware threats.
His recent research emphasizes the impact of engineering decisions on system security, particularly in real-world applications such as drone networks and autonomous vehicles. He is especially interested in resilient communication systems where safety and reliability are paramount—such as UAV and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure scenarios. His current projects include the development of secure MANET protocols to ensure communication redundancy in these contexts.
In addition to his research, Dr. Hurley-Smith is an active educator and science communicator, with a strong interest in methodology, modelling, and simulation for networked cyber-physical systems. He teaches Ethical Hacking and Digital Forensics at the University of Kent.
Dr. Pierre Ayoub – LAAS-CNRS
Title: Wireless Protocol Security: Mouse Sniffing and Keystroke Injection on Connected Peripherals
Abstract: The aim of this practical course is to familiarize you with the methods and tools used to analyze wireless protocols, particularly proprietary ones. We will first explain how to install the software tools, mainly WHAD (Wireless HAcking Devices) being a state of the art swiss-army tool for wireless security, as well as how to use hardware tools such as the nRF52840 dongle. In a second part, we will leverage those tools to analyze the Logitech Unifying protocol, which is widely used in wireless keyboards and mouses. We will learn how to sniff the mouse traffic and how to reproduce attacks exploiting the so called Mousejack vulnerability to inject malicious traffic to the host computer.
Bio: Pierre Ayoub is specialized into low-level computer and radio security, currently working at LAAS-CNRS in Toulouse (France) as a postdoctoral researcher. He obtained his PhD in 2024 at EURECOM in Sophia-Antipolis (France), under the supervision of Aurélien Francillon, Clémentine Maurice and Romain Cayre. He focused on novel electromagnetic side-channel attacks, such as Screaming Channels, and their security implications for IoT protocols such as the Bluetooth Low Energy.
During his master thesis supervised by Clémentine Maurice, he worked on processor micro-architectural attacks such as Spectre, and their simulation using gem5. Moreover, he is particularly interested into reproducible research, privacy concerns and free software development. In addition to computer science, he is also passionate about music and practice high altitude mountaineering.
A.P. Marie Vasek – UCL
Title: An introduction to cryptocurrency-based cybercrime
Abstract: To be Confirmed.
Bio: Marie Vasek is an associate professor in the information security research group in the computer science department at University College London (UCL). Her work focuses on online harms ranging from cryptocurrency fraud to drug sales to surveillance. She’s broadly interested in measuring these harms towards suggesting countermeasures. Her work has informed policy through consultations to Ofcom and the FCA. She’s currently interested in mixed methods approaches to measuring harms, considering how we can leverage social science insights on data collected and analysed quantitatively. Her work has been featured in top venues in her field like IEEE Security & Privacy, Usenix Security, and Financial Cryptography.
Dr. Ricardo J. Rodriguez – UZ
Title: To be Confirmed.
Abstract: To be Confirmed.
Bio: Ricardo J. Rodríguez holds a PhD in Computer Science and Systems Engineering from the University of Zaragoza since 2013. He is currently an Associate Professor at the same university. His research interests include the analysis of complex systems, with a particular focus on performance and security, digital forensics, and binary application analysis. He is a regular speaker and workshop instructor at numerous industry-focused security conferences, such as NoConName, Hack.LU, RootedCON, Hack in Paris, MalCON, SSTIC, CCN-CERT, and Hack in the Box Amsterdam, among others. He leads a research line dedicated to computer security at the University of Zaragoza (https://reversea.me).
To be Confirmed.
Title: To be Confirmed.
Abstract: To be Confirmed.
Bio: To be Confirmed.
More talks and research activities to be announced. 
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