[HGI-news-int] interndisciplinary PhD position in Psychology & Cybersecurity at Uni Bochum

[English Newsletter of the Horst Goertz Institute of IT Security in Bochum]

Dear Colleagues,

We have an opening for a very exciting interdisciplinary PhD position
for candidates with a background in Psychology, Cognitive Science or
Education at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany. Please find a description
of the position in the attached PDF and an overview of the research below.

If you have further questions about the research, please feel free to
contact Prof. Nikol Rummel (cc). For questions about the application
process, please contact Anne Thiele (cc).

Regards, Christof

========================================================================
Christof Paar  
Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy (MPI-SP)
Universitätsstraße 140
44799 Bochum, Germany

phone: +49 (0)170 790 3393
https://www.mpi-sp.org
========================================================================

**

*The Research Project*

For the SecHuman research project *"Cognitive Aspects of Hacking",* we
are looking for an excellent Master's graduate (m/f/d) from the fields
of *psychology, cognitive science, education* or related disciplines. An
affinity to computer science is also desirable.

The tandem project deals with an important component of modern cyber
security, namely obfuscation. Obfuscation techniques are aim to impede
reverse engineering of software and hardware, and are widely used in
practice. Despite its relevance, this topic has been treated in the
literature only from a technical point of view, although humans play a
central role here. The main goal of the tandem project is to develop
novel hardware obfuscation based on the understanding of human cognition
during hardware reverse engineering. A major part of the research
project will be the design and implementation of complex studies that
can be used to investigate learning processes during hardware reverse
engineering. It is of great interest to analyze changes in these
learning processes and to derive suggestions for the development of
obfuscation techniques. 

The research project builds on the tandem project "Learning Processes in
IT Security" from the first SecHuman funding phase. The research
question was to analyze which cognitive processes play a role during
attacks on computer hardware (i.e., hardware reverse engineering) for
the first time worldwide. The starting point was to describe the
engineers’ understanding of an unknown hardware circuit as a
problem-solving process. For this, methods of problem solving research
were applied. Many important results were achieved in the first tandem
project, which were described in conference and journal papers and
presented at invited talks at SHB (Security and Human Behavior Workshop)
2018 and 2019 at CMU and Harvard, respectively.

Applicants (m/f/d) should have a strong interest in interdisciplinary
work and knowledge transfer. SecHuman is based on a structured Ph.D.
program, in which qualification modules consisting of lectures,
colloquia, summer/winter schools and internships are completed in
addition to the classical dissertation research. The dissertation
duration is scheduled for 39 months. At the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, we
particularly want to promote the careers of women in areas in which they
are underrepresented and particularly welcome applications from female
candidates. We also welcome applications from candidates with disabilities.

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