Dr Ingolf Becker

I am a Lecturer in Security and Crime Science in the Department of Security and Crime Science at University College London. I am part of UCL's Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber-Security Research (ACE-CSR) and a Principal Investigator at the Research Institute in Socio-Technical Security (RISCS). I currently lead UCL's part of the 3-year ESPRC project Protecting public-facing professionals and their dependents online (3PO).

My research focuses on human-centred security and privacy. I fundamentally believe that security and privacy are never the primary task but should instead be seen as an enabler for productivity and society more generally. I work with people and organisations to build and study systems and policies that are both secure and productive.

News

30/12/23 The NSPW '24 CfP is out! I will be the NSPW '24 co-general chair (and then the general chair in '25), and I am already looking forward to an exciting conference in September.
04/12/23 Sarah Zheng passed her PhD Viva with minor corrections. Congratulations Dr. Zheng! The title of the thesis is Online scam detection using human psychology: Towards usable cybersecurity.
16/10/23 Our EPSRC funded 3PO project has been featured by the British Psychological Society.
16/10/23 Carlos, Shane and I have published a pre-print of our systematic literature review on SME Cybersecurity. Let us know what you think!
20/09/23 I attended NSPW '23 in Segovia, Spain. It was once again a fun event, in a marvelous location. I like the strict no-technologies format, with 60 minutes of discussion for each paper. Thank you for all the colleagues that attended, the discussions were insightful and I learned a lot.
18/08/23 Sarah Zheng and I had our paper on Phishing to improve detection accepted at The 2023 European Symposium on Usable Security (EuroUSEC 2023) in Copenhagen, Denmark. The program looks exciting too, we are looking forward to presenting there! The paper is already available on UCL Discovery.
17/08/23 Daniel, David and I have published a pre-print of our Hyperfuzzing: black-box security hypertesting with a grey-box fuzzer paper. Let us know what you think!
09/08/23 Tristan Caulfield and I presented our paper on Internet Service Providers' and Individuals' Attitudes, Barriers, and Incentives to Secure IoT at 32nd USENIX Security Symposium in Anaheim, CA. It was great seeing so many colleagues (old and new) at the conference.
Tristan and Ingolf on stage at USENIX Security 2023
07/08/23 Sarah Zheng presented our paper on Checking, nudging or scoring? Evaluating e-mail user security tools at SOUPS 2023 in Anaheim, CA. The paper generated lots of discussion and food for thought, and the conference was well organised and fun.
02/08/23 I have been invited to NSPW '23. It is still months away, but this will be an exciting (and intense) few days!
24/07/23 I presented (alongside the rest of the 3PO team) at the BPS Cyberpsychology Section Annual Conference 2023 at Northumbria University in Newcastle Upon Tyne.
11/07/23 I gave a guest lecture at the UCL Summer School on Cybersecurity Risk Management.
08/06/23 I spent two days at the REPHRAIN All Hands Meeting in Bristol.
20/02/23 I chaired a discussion on Security, Automation and AI at CyberTech Forum 2023.

Recent Publications

A complete list of my publications can be found here or on my Google Scholar Profile.

Recent Projects

Protecting public-facing professionals and their dependents online (3PO)

The 3PO is an EPSRC funded project associated with the National Research Centre on Privacy, Harm Reduction and Adversarial Influence Online. We focus on protecting public-facing police personnel and their dependents online by co-designing vulnerability assessments, harm reporting apps, and various risk assessment tools, alongside training and supporting materials.

Kris Christman is the senior research fellow on the project at UCL.

Secure Development

Dr Charles Weir and I have been working on a project to improve software security through a bottom-up approach. We focus on helping developers understand, appropriately evaluate and promote security inside their organisations. After successfully working with almost a dozen organisations and publishing our results in conferences and journals, we successfully commercialised our project through CyberASAP in 2021. We still hold regular training events, and our workshop and materials are open source and can be used free of charge. We continue working with companies, both for research to improve the package and for consultancy to help deliver the training. We have good links with organisations specialising in training and professional development, and certification bodies to improve secure software development in the UK and abroad.

Attitudes, Barriers, and Incentives to Secure IoT

Dr Tristan Caulfield and I have been working in collaboration with colleagues from Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) on cross-cultural studies on internet service providers' and individuals' attitudes, barriers, and incentives to secure the internet of things. The first part of this work has been published, and will be presented at USENIX Security '23.

Research Supervision

I mainly supervise PhD students through UCL's CDT in Cybersecurity, the Dawes Centre for Future Crime, and UCL SECReT. If you want to study with me, please email me before submitting an application to UCL with a research proposal and a CV attached.

Finished Students

Teaching

Professional Activities

Program Committees

External Reviewing

Academic Service

Contact

Email

i.becker at ucl.ac.uk

Post

Dr Ingolf Becker
Security and Crime Science
University College London
Gower Street
London
WC1E 6BT
United Kingdom