Uchenna Daniel Ani

Biography

Dr Uchenna Daniel Ani leads the MSc. Cyber Security programme in the School of Computer Science and Mathematics. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), a Member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), a Member of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM). He is a School Taught Programme Ethics Committee Chair.

Dr Ani obtained his first degree in Computer Science and his Masters Degree in Computer Security and Forensics from the University of Bedfordshire, UK, and took up the role of Lecturer in Computer Science at Federal University Lokoja, Nigeria. Dr Ani later went on to complete a PhD in Industrial Control System Cybersecurity at Cranfield University, UK.

Prior to joining Keele University, Dr Ani was a Senior Research Fellow in Cybersecurity at the PETRAS National Centre of Excellence for IoT Systems Cybersecurity at the Department of Science Technology Engineering and Public Policy (STEaPP), University College London (UCL). He was involved in leading and guiding the direction of some of the IoT-enabled critical infrastructure security projects in the PETRAS Centre Consortium, as well as supporting teaching in Cybersecurity Risk Assessment and Governance Module for Masters Students. His work is deeply ingrained in multidisciplinary research – exploring and understanding how technical cybersecurity solutions interact with social elements including human, standards, and policy attributes to create safe, secure, practical, and future-proof cyber security and resilient outcomes.

Dr Ani has strong multidisciplinary research interests in the application of socio-technical security lenses – analysis, modelling, and simulation – that can be engaged simultaneously to address emerging security challenges in interconnected critical Infrastructure systems/organisations. He has experience in stakeholder engagements across industry, academia, and government. Dr Ani’s research interests include; ICS/IoT/IIoT Cyber Security, Security Modelling and Simulations, Security Metrics, Human-factor Security, Security Risk (threat, vulnerability and impact) Analysis, Cybersecurity Analytics, Digital Forensics and Evidence Integrity, Network Quality of Service.

These research interests are showcased in some of his research projects including ‘Analytical Lenses for Internet of Things Threats’, ‘IoT in Control’, ‘Improving the Security of Centralised Transport Infrastructure Efficiency System (ISCTIES)’, and ‘Modelling for Socio-Technical Security’ with collaborations with Transport and Water Critical Infrastructure organisations, policy-makers, and leading cybersecurity researchers.

Dr Ani’s research publications can be found at Google Scholar, Orcid, and ResearchGate

Research and scholarship

Dr Ani is an active member of the EPSRC Peer Review College, an active member of the college of Reviewers, National Research Centre on Privacy, Harm Reduction and Adversarial Influence Online (REPHRAIN), UK. He has reviewed articles for various journals and conferences and participates as chair of some conference tracks and sessions in the cyber security area. Dr Ani has led and co-led research projects funded by the Research Council and internal institutional awards in the areas of cyber security risk assessment, security modelling and simulations, security model credibility, and security compliance.

His current research involves understanding the utility of existing security modelling and simulation approaches for socio-technical security analysis, how to reason and model cyber security of critical infrastructure systems considering both technical and social factors and attributes at the same time, and the application of machine learning approaches for automated/early security anomaly detection in transport control systems. His interest in socio-technical security stems from the initial collaborative research efforts and insights from the PETRAS ALIoTT project for understanding the use and utility of open-source security simulators, the responsiveness of existing critical infrastructure protection tools and techniques to evolving risks landscape, and design factors for building credible security modelling and simulation testbeds.

Following on from an EPSRC-funded PETRAS 2 project and an Innovate UK (UKRI) Cyber Security Academic Start-Up Accelerator Programme Project Awards, his research seeks to understand the knowledge, attitudes, perceptions, practices, enabling factors, and barriers for security modelling that are used to support threat and vulnerability identification and monitoring operations, and countermeasures development including analytics at the periphery of the Internet. Also, exploring how modelling, simulation, monitoring and detection tools can be evaluated and validated, and the impacts of cyber-attacks on technical and socio-technical cyber-physical systems and services considering interdependencies and cascading impacts, exploring the value and maturity of security development tools used for modelling and simulation in practice, especially for socio-technical security risk analysis of IoT-connected cyber-physical systems, and how machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques can be used to improve security in CNI infrastructures.

Uchenna has contributed to the advocacy of STEM subjects amongst primary school and college students – delivering talks to primary school pupils and mentoring college interns in the field of computer science. Dr Ani is a member of the IET Young Professional Ambassadors, a registered STEM Ambassador, and a mentor with the In2ScienceUK.

Dr Ani welcomes email enquiries regarding PhD research relating to socio-technical security analysis, modelling, and simulations, cyber-physical system security, cyber security analytics, and digital forensics.

Research project links

• Analytical Lenses for Internet of Things Threats
• IoT in Control
• Improving the Security of Centralised Transport Infrastructure Efficiency System (ISCTIES)
• Modelling for Socio-Technical Security’
• Cognitive and Socio-Technical Cybersecurity in Modern Railway System (CoSTCMoRS)

Teaching

• CSC-20057 Cloud Computing (Apprenticeship Programme MSc module)
• CSC-40104 Human Factors of Cyber Security (MSc Cyber Security Module)
• CSC-40122 Cyber Security (MSc Cyber Security Module)
• CSC-40120 Cryptography (MSc Cyber Security Module)

Further information

For my research publications and other data please see:

• Google Scholar
• Orcid
• ResearchGate
• LinkedIn profile

For further information on some of my current research projects please see: 

• Modelling for Socio-Technical Security’
• Cognitive and Socio-Technical Cybersecurity in Modern Railway System (CoSTCMoRS)