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PhD student position in logic for decision making in security, Bath (England)

Logic for Decision Making in Security

         https://www.findaphd.com/search/ProjectDetails.aspx?PJID=83168

Main supervisor: Professor Guy McCusker, University of Bath
Second supervisor: Professor David Pym, University College London

Security breaches often arise as a result of users? failure to comply with security
policies or follow good security practice, even when the implications of such
behaviour are known to them. Simple examples include the use of unencrypted
USB sticks for the transport of sensitive information, or connecting to public WiFi
networks despite the well-known dangers of so doing. There is evidence that this
failure to comply with policy arises from the perception that the benefit of
compliance is outweighed by the reduction in users? ability to complete their
tasks when complying. In recent work we have proposed a qualitative analysis of
the concept of ?compliance budget?: the idea that users have a finite budget of
time and energy available for such costly compliance activities, beyond which
they begin to deviate from secure behaviour. Compliance Budget Logic is a multi-
modal logic incorporating a notion of preference which we use to describe and
explain users? security decisions.

This PhD project will develop the theory and applications of this Compliance
Budget Logic. The basic theory of the logic will be developed, followed by its
application to security decision-making. For example, we may study how the
interaction of multiple security policies and multiple budgets (e.g. users? own
time, laptop battery life, etc) may be described and analysed via our logic. Some
of this work will be carried out in collaboration with leading security researchers
at University College London.

Anticipated start date: 2 October 2017.



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