City University launches cyber crime centre

The university will collaborate with the Home Office, University College London and the University of St Andrews on the project

London's City University has launched a research centre devoted to helping experts identify and combat cyber crime and cyber terrorism.

The Centre for Cyber and Security Sciences will unite researchers from across the institution who will share expertise on areas as broad as network and physical security, cryptography, software reliability and systems science.

"The university has many specialists in this area with experience of both advising governments and industry and researching the latest trends," said Dr Muttukrishnan Rajarajan, a reader in information security systems at City University.

"The new centre will co-ordinate these efforts for the first time and enable us to address a wider range of cyber security threats."

"Cybercrime is causing a lot of concern across the globe.
From the research side, I found there was very limited exposure on cyber crime research in the UK compared with other countries. It was important we set up a centre with local expertise before we run out of it."

He said the reason for this is there is a lack of computer scientists who want to go into securities in the UK.

"There aren't many programmes dedicated to cyber security as part of computing degrees, which is a major concern.

"I have spoken to many people who are struggling to recruit in this space and I find it hard to sustain my own students after they complete their PhD because they get jobs in a bank.

"This is all happening at what is currently a complex time for security experts."

The launch of the centre coincides with the start of The Uncertainty of Identity research project, which will examine the ways in which a person's real identity can be linked to their virtual identity.

This will then address some of the issues faced by the government in protecting critical national information infrastructures from cyber attacks.

City University will collaborate with the Home Office, University College London and the University of St Andrews on the project.

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council has given £1.2m towards the funding, of which City University will receive £450,000.