We conduct world-class research into all areas of information and cyber security, and boast a world-leading group of academics and experts from industry.
Royal Holloway has been recognised as a UK Government Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research (ACE-CSR). Our department is at the forefront in the development of highly secure communications and computer systems and offers independent expertise in a field where trust and integrity are paramount.
Our research profile takes advantage of the group's interdisciplinary nature to tackle major challenges in many different areas of information security. Find out more about our research areas, or see our list of research groups below. Our dynamic research environment is supported by a range of research seminars and working groups.
The ISG has more than 15 permanent research-active members of academic staff, as well as a number of distinguished visiting professors and consultants. Alongside this, we have several postdoctoral researchers and a vibrant PhD student research community, including our Centre for Doctoral Training in Cyber Security for the Everyday.
Systems and Software Security Research Lab
The Systems and Software Security Research Lab (S3 Lab) was founded in June 2018.
The research carried out in the lab focuses on devising novel techniques to protect systems from a broad range of threats, including those perpetrated by malicious software. In particular, we aim at building practical tools and provide security services to the community at large. Our research, kindly sponsored by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPRSRC) and the European Union's Horizon 2020 (H2020) Research and Innovation programme, crosses the boundaries of a number of different Computer Science related topics, such as operating systems, computer architecture, program analysis and machine learning, making our challenging journey always exciting.
The Smart Card and Internet of Things Security Centre
We have our own dedicated research centre, the Smart Card and IoT Security Centre. This centre (previously known as the smart card centre) was founded in 2002 as a world-wide centre of excellence for training and research into security issues associated with smart cards, tokens and mobile devices. Topics studied with the group now include Radio Frequency ID (RFID), Near Field Communication (NFC), mobile devices and general embedded/ implementation system security. As research activity also focuses on devices with relatively limited processing and memory resources but with direct network connectivity – the Internet of Things (IoT) – the group’s name changed to “The Smart Card and Internet of Things Security Centre” in December 2015.
Cryptography Group
The Cryptography Group was formally founded in May 2021. However, the history of cryptography in the Information Security Group goes back to at least 1987, making it one of the oldest academic groups working in cryptography.
