The Waikato Cyber Security Research Group (CROW)

Discover how our Cybersecurity research makes systems on the Internet safer. Learn how we increase security and privacy by advancing the understanding of attacks and designing novel defences.

Cyber security (or simply systems security) is the practice of protecting systems, networks, and data from digital attacks, unauthorised access, damage, or theft. It involves implementing technologies, processes, and controls to secure access to information and services, ensuring its confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Cyber security is cross-sectional to computer science, ranging from hardware security to social engineering techniques.

Our group, Cybersecurity Researchers of Waikato (CROW), tackles pressing research problems and covers some of the most relevant areas in Cybersecurity, such as (alphabetical order):

  • Applied cryptography
  • Honeypots, IDSes, and active sensing for attack characterisation
  • Cyber deception
  • Data provenance and sovereignty
  • Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack and mitigation
  • Industrial Cyber-Physical Systems (ICPS) Security
  • Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) Security
  • Internet measurements and experimentation
  • Internet scanning and network security assessment
  • Machine Learning Approaches for Cybersecurity
  • Malware Analysis and Detection, including Ransomware
  • Privacy in Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs)
  • Routing security
  • Software-defined networks (programmable data planes) for Network Security

The key research group personnel is four faculty with expertise on the topics previouusly, complemented by a strong team of Research Programmers, PhD students, Master of Cybersecurity (MCS) students, and Honours students. 

Our team expertise supports a range of cyber security papers/courses at all levels, including:

The infrastructure of our research group includes a spacious lab space regularly attended by the team, a powerful server to crunch large datasets (e.g. network traces and system logs), and a cluster of 40+ Internet-facing machines that we use for experimentation and measurements, including in demonstrations and practical work part of our lectures.

Since 2014, we have organised the NZ Cybersecurity Challenge, helping to spark interest in Cybersecurity in young students as well as provide a forum for the discussion of cybersecurity trends in NZ. It has attracted a large number of students every year, of all levels, industry participants, and sponsors, which help us grant awards for the winners.

Together with New Zealand industry partners, multi-national companies and international consortia, we work on discovering and disclosing vulnerabilities that expose user data to dangers in both systems and networks. 

Our people

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Dr Marinho Barcellos

Senior Lecturer, Programme Lead

Since October 2019 I have been with the University of Waikato. In the past, I worked at INF/UFRGS Federal University (Associate Professor, 2010–2019), UNISINOS University (Adjunct Professor, 1993–2008), PUC-RS University (2008–2009), as well as an Invited Adjunct Professor at UNAL, Colombia.

I have regularly contributed to the network research community…
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Dr Junaid Haseeb

Lecturer

My research mainly focus on capturing and analysing cyber attacks to understand their behavioural patterns and categorise attackers behind them. This includes working with cyber deception tools (Honeypots) and intrusion detection/prevention systems. I am also interested in applications of machine learning and formal methods.
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Dr Vimal Kumar

Research Associate

I studied Computer Science & Engineering at IP University in New Delhi before working for a couple of years with Computer Sciences Corporation in India. I moved to Missouri, US in 2008 for further study, where I worked on various problems surrounding secure data aggregation in sensor networks with Prof. Sanjay Madria. I received a PhD in Computer Science…
+64 7 838 4378
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Dr Farzana Zahid

Lecturer

Farzana's primary research interest lies in the analysis, design, and development of novel light-weight active security solutions to deal with the sophisticated cyber-attacks on Industrial Cyber-Physical Systems (ICPS), Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), Industrial Internet of things (IIoT), Industrial Control Systems. Additionally, I possess a keen interest …

Students

  • Atthapan Daramas, PhD
  • Dimeji Fayomi, PhD
  • Pandu Konala, PhD
  • Thye Way Phua, PhD
  • Ravjot Singh Samra, PhD
  • Yasir Al Siyabi, PhD
  • Zijing Zhang, PhD
  • Mohamed Azeez, MCS
  • Poonam Dhankhar, MCS
  • Robinston Fernando, MCS
  • Kevin Han, MCS
  • Xiaoye Hua, MCS
  • Ilija Jankovic, MCS
  • Daniel McAlpine, MCS
  • Nitin Nandal, MCS
  • Bhim Rai, MCS
  • Brendon Ranum, MCS
  • Bharath Reddy, MCS
  • Kiran Sadasivan, MCS
  • Amith Sankar, MCS
  • Wenjie Tong, MCS
  • Peter Wanyonyi, MCS
  • Chumao Wu, MCS
  • Logan Cook, Honours

Publications