The Twente University Centre for Cybersecurity Research has a vacancy for a PhD Position in Secure Federated Monitoring and Automated Response.

Real-time monitoring is essential for threat detection and response. Many different security monitoring approaches have been proposed in the state-of-the-art and several tools are available on the market. However, the complexity and dynamism of modern cloud-based distributed environments (e.g., Kubernetes clusters) pose a critical challenge to such tools, which are limited in terms of scalability and visibility and do not allow for prompt detection of cyberattacks. Additionally, in such distributed architectures it is crucial to correlate observed insights (e.g., indicators of compromise) to track lateral movement.

The goal of this PhD Project is to research novel methodologies to securely monitor distributed environments, ultimately aiming at threat detection, automating the extraction, learning, and correlation of cyber threat intelligence (CTI), and reasoning about effective and transferable threat response strategies.

• You are a highly motivated and enthusiastic researcher, aspiring to do world-class research and have real-world impact. ;
• You have a MSc degree with excellent grades in computer science, or similar; applications from students who are about to finish their MSc degree studies will be considered as well.
• You are interested in the domain of cybersecurity and have a solid background in data and systems security; some good background in machine learning and prior experience with writing scientific papers are of additional advantage.
• You are curious and interested in learning how things work and how to make them better.
• You have a creative mindset and excellent analytical and communication skills;
• You have good team spirit and like to work in an interdisciplinary and internationally oriented environment
• You are proficient in English.

• As a PhD student at UT, you will be appointed to a full-time position for four years, with a qualifier in the first year, within a very stimulating and exciting scientific environment;
• The University offers a dynamic ecosystem with enthusiastic colleagues;
• Your salary and associated conditions are in accordance with the collective labour agreement for Dutch universities (CAO-NU);
• You will receive a gross monthly salary ranging from € 2.541,- (first year) to € 3.247,- (fourth year);
• There are excellent benefits including a holiday allowance of 8% of the gross annual salary, an end-of-year bonus of 8.3%, and a solid pension scheme;
• A family-friendly institution that offers parental leave (both paid and unpaid);
• You will have a training programme as part of the Twente Graduate School where you and your supervisors will determine a plan for a suitable education and supervision;
• We encourage a high degree of responsibility and independence, while collaborating with close colleagues, researchers and other staff.

The Twente University Centre for Cybersecurity Research (TUCCR) is a public-private partnership where experts, professionals, entrepreneurs, researchers, and students from industry and knowledge partners collaborate to deliver talents, innovations, and know-how in the domain of cybersecurity.

The mission of TUCCR is to strengthen the security and digital sovereignty of our society by performing top-level research on real-world data and network security challenges. To achieve significant societal impact, TUCCR combines technical, socio-economic, and ethical know-how and is equipped with state-of-the-art infrastructure, ranging from security labs, testbeds, data lakes, and dedicated attack-defense environments, such as cyber ranges.

The Twente University Centre for Cybersecurity Research is a public-private partnership between the University of Twente, Cisco, SIDN, Thales, TNO, BetterBe, NDIX, NCSC, Vereniging Nederlandse Banken, SURF and Northwave.