Professor John Clark
School of Computer Science
Professor of Computer and Information Security
Director of Siemens Digital MINE
Head of the Security of Advanced Systems research group
john.clark@sheffield.ac.uk
Regent Court (CS)
Full contact details
Professor John Clark
School of Computer Science
Regent Court (CS)
211 Portobello
Sheffield
S1 4DP
School of Computer Science
Regent Court (CS)
211 Portobello
Sheffield
S1 4DP
- Profile
-
I am Professor of Computer and Information Security and co-founder (2017) of the Security of Advanced Systens Research Group. I have major interests in security and safety and the role ML can play in solving problems in those domains. Most recent work focusses on cybersecurity. I also have long term interests in the harnessing of ML (and optimisation based approaches) for the purposes of synthesising novel algorithms for Quantum Computing. Very recent work has investigated deepfake detection. I have provided consultancy to various HMG agencies and also to commercial companies.
- Research interests
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His major research interests lie in cybersecurity and software engineering, most notably the use of Artificial Intelligence to these areas. Publications have included work on: threat modelling, security policies, covert channel analysis, cryptographic building blocks, intrusion detection, insider detection, and automated synthesis of security protocols.
Current work addresses the automated discovery of classical cryptanalytic strategies, intrusion detection, and the search for quantum approaches to cryptanalysis via evolutionary computation.
He is particularly interested right now in building up research in the security of robotic and autonomous systems and in the security of advanced manufacturing systems.
- Publications
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Books
- Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics): Preface.
- Formalizing anonymity: A review. Department of Computer Science, University of York.
- Writing Effective Security Abuse Cases. Department of Computer Science, University of York.
- Security Zonal Analysis. Department of Computer Science, University of York.
- Automatic test-data generation for testing simulink models. Department of Computer Science, University of York.
- Breaking the Model: finalisation and a taxonomy of security attack. Department of Computer Science, University of York.
- A search-based approach to the automated design of security protocols.
- Four methods for maintenance scheduling. Citeseer.
- A survey of authentication protocol literature: Version 1.0. Citeseer.
Journal articles
- Dataset for Collaborative Robotics. Data, 11(5).
- Beyond Frames: 3D-CoAtNet for Generalizable Deepfake Video Detection. IEEE Access, 14, 29692-29705.
- Evaluating features and variations in deepfake videos using the CoAtNet model. Journal of Imaging, 11(6). View this article in WRRO
- A Generic Framework for Practical Lattice-Based Non-interactive Publicly Verifiable Secret Sharing.. IACR Cryptol. ePrint Arch., 2025, 901-901.
- AIDPS: Adaptive Intrusion Detection and Prevention System for Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks.. IEEE/ACM Trans. Netw., 32, 1080-1095.
- User-empowered secure privacy-preserving authentication scheme for Digital Twin. Computers & Security, 140. View this article in WRRO
- AIDPS: Adaptive intrusion detection and prevention system for underwater acoustic sensor networks. IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, 32(2), 1080-1095. View this article in WRRO
- Incremental hybrid intrusion detection for 6LoWPAN. Computers & Security, 135. View this article in WRRO
- Covering arrays ML HPO for static malware detection. Eng, 4(1), 543-554.
- A Privacy-Preserving Energy Theft Detection Model for Effective Demand-Response Management in Smart Grids.. CoRR, abs/2303.13204.
- Adversarial RL-based IDS for evolving data environment in 6LoWPAN. IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, 17, 3831-3846. View this article in WRRO
- Bayesian hyper-parameter optimisation for malware detection. Electronics, 11(10).
- Systematic review of features for co‐simulating security incidents in
Cyber‐Physical Systems. SECURITY AND PRIVACY, 4(3).
- Intrusion detection systems in RPL-based 6LoWPAN: a systematic literature review. IEEE Sensors Journal, 21(11), 12940-12968. View this article in WRRO
- Antitrust and Data: What Your Car Knows and Who It Should Tell. Journal of European Competition Law & Practice, 12(2), 82-91.
- Evaluation of Mutation Testing in a Nuclear Industry Case Study. IEEE Transactions on Reliability, 67(4), 1406-1419.
- Handling Security Threats to the RFID System of EPC Networks, 63-82.
- Subdomain-based test data generation. Journal of Systems and Software, 103, 328-342.
- The optimisation of stochastic grammars to enable cost-effective probabilistic structural testing. Journal of Systems and Software, 103, 296-310.
- Trustworthy placements: Improving quality and resilience in collaborative attack detection. Computer Networks, 58, 70-86. View this article in WRRO
- The placement-configuration problem for intrusion detection nodes in wireless sensor networks. Computers & Electrical Engineering, 39(7), 2306-2317.
- An orchestrated survey of methodologies for automated software test case generation. Journal of Systems and Software, 86(8), 1978-2001.
- Knowing who to watch: Identifying attackers whose actions are hidden within false alarms and background noise. Information Systems Frontiers, 15(1), 17-34.
- Genetic algorithms and solid state NMR pulse sequences. Journal of Magnetic Resonance, 228, 66-75.
- Guest Editorial: Special section of the best papers from the 2nd International Symposium on Search Based Software Engineering 2010. Information and Software Technology, 55(1), 111-111.
- Evolutionary computation techniques for intrusion detection in mobile ad hoc networks. Computer Networks, 55(15), 3441-3457.
- Evolutionary Improvement of Programs. IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation, 15(4), 515-538.
- Cryptanalysis of Song’s advanced smart card based password authentication protocol. Arxiv preprint arXiv:1111.2744.
- Masquerade mimicry attack detection: A randomised approach. Computers & Security, 30(5), 297-310.
- Efficient Software Verification: Statistical Testing Using Automated Search. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 36(6), 763-777.
- Defending the weakest link: phishing websites detection by analysing user behaviours. Telecommunication Systems, 45(2-3), 215-226.
- SBST: 3rd International Workshop on Search-Based Software Testing. computer.org.
- Risk profiles and distributed risk assessment. Computers & Security, 28(7), 521-535.
- Highly entangled multi-qubit states with simple algebraic structure. Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical, 42(41), 415301-415301.
- Towards scalable intrusion detection. Network Security, 2009(6), 12-16.
- Intrusion Detection in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks, 427-454.
- False positive response. Network Security, 2008(12), 11-15.
- Network reconnaissance. Network Security, 2008(11), 12-16.
- Characterising intrusion detection sensors, part 2. Network Security, 2008(10), 8-11.
- Characterising intrusion detection sensors. Network Security, 2008(9), 10-12.
- Searching for Quantum Programs and Quantum Protocols. Journal of Computational and Theoretical Nanoscience, 5(5), 942-969.
- A search-based framework for automatic testing of MATLAB/Simulink models. Journal of Systems and Software, 81(2), 262-285.
- Searching for quantum programs and quantum protocols: a review. Journal of Computational and Theoretical Nanoscience, 5, 942-969.
- A user-phishing interaction model. Conference on Human System Interaction.
- The certification of the Mondex electronic purse to ITSEC Level E6. Formal Aspects of Computing, 20(1), 5-19.
- Journeys in non-classical computation II: initial journeys and waypoints. International Journal of Parallel, Emergent and Distributed Systems, 21(2), 97-125.
- Human-competitive evolution of quantum computing artefacts by genetic programming. Evolutionary Computation, 14, 21-40.
- The design of S-boxes by simulated annealing. New Generation Computing, 23, 219-231.
- Stressing Security Requirements: exploiting the Flaw Hypothesis Method with Deviational Techniques. Symposium on Requirements Engineering for Information Security (SREIS 2005).
- The design of S-boxes by simulated annealing. New Generation Computing, 23(3), 219-231.
- Smart dust, friend or foe?––Replacing identity with configuration trust. Computer Networks, 46(5), 723-740.
- Software testing in the United Kingdom. Software Testing, Verification and Reliability, 14(3), 165-166.
- Playing the game. ACM SIGCAS Computers and Society, 34(2), 3-3.
- Automated Design of Security Protocols. Computational Intelligence, 20(3), 503-516.
- Almost Boolean Functions: The Design of Boolean Functions by Spectral Inversion. Computational Intelligence, 20(3), 450-462.
- Test Data Generation for Product Lines–A Mutation Testing Approach. SPLiT International Workshop on Software Product Line Testing.
- Smart Devices and Software Agents: The Basics of Good Behaviour, 39-52.
- Results on Rotation Symmetric Bent and Correlation Immune Boolean Functions, 161-177.
- Search Based Automatic Test-Data Generation at an Architectural Level, 1413-1424.
- Evolving Quantum Circuits and Programs Through Genetic Programming, 569-580.
- Secret Agents Leave Big Footprints: How to Plant a Cryptographic Trapdoor, and Why You Might Not Get Away with It, 2022-2033.
- Using Ants to Attack a Classical Cipher, 146-147.
- Formulating software engineering as a search problem.. IEE Proc. Softw., 150, 161-175.
- Reformulating software engineering as a search problem. IEE Proceedings - Software, 150(3), 161-161.
- Artificial Immune Systems and the Grand Challenge for Non-classical Computation, 204-216.
- Fault Injection and a Timing Channel on an Analysis Technique, 181-196.
- Protocols are programs too: the meta-heuristic search for security protocols. Information and Software Technology, 43(14), 891-904.
- Investigating the effectiveness of object‐oriented testing strategies using the mutation method. Software Testing, Verification and Reliability, 11(4), 207-225.
- Automated test-data generation for exception conditions. Software: Practice and Experience, 30(1), 61-79.
- Abstract Testing, Proof and Automation: An Integrated Approach. Citeseer.
- Integrating Automated Testing with Exception Freeness Proofs for Safety Critical Systems. Proceedings of 4th Australian Workshop on Safety Critical Systems and Software. Australian Computer Society..
- CONVERSE: A change-oriented process for engine controllers. IEE Proceedings - Software, 146, 130-136.
- Software fault injection. Software: Practice and Experience, 28(15), 1637-1637.
- Automated program flaw finding using simulated annealing. ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes, 23(2), 73-81.
- The way forward for unifying dynamic test-case generation: The optimisation-based approach. Proceedings of the IFIP International Workshop on Dependable Computing and Its Applications (DCIA)..
- Attacking authentication protocols. High Integrity Systems.
- On the security of recent protocols. Information Processing Letters, 56(3), 151-155.
- Automated intrusion detection: theory and practice. High Integrity Systems, 1(3), 313-322.
- Satisfaction of PLC timing constraints. High Integrity Systems, 1(2), 221-224.
- Analysing high-integrity systems. Computing & Control Engineering Journal, 5(1), 18-23.
- An introduction to security in distributed systems. High Integrity Systems.
- Holistic schedulability analysis for distributed hard real-time systems. Microprocessing and Microprogramming, 40(2-3), 117-134.
Book chapters
- A Practical Framework for Lattice-Based Non-interactive Publicly Verifiable Secret Sharing, Lecture Notes in Computer Science (pp. 107-142). Springer Nature Switzerland
- On Optimal Configuration of IDS for RPL Resource-Constrained Networks Using Evolutionary Algorithm, Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems (pp. 514-535). Springer International Publishing
- Privacy Awareness Among Users of Digital Healthcare Services in Saudi Arabia, Lecture Notes in Computer Science (pp. 247-261). Springer Nature Switzerland
- Privacy-Aware Split Learning Based Energy Theft Detection for Smart Grids, Lecture Notes in Computer Science (pp. 281-300). Springer International Publishing
- Cybersecurity Roadmap for Active Buildings, Green Energy and Technology (pp. 219-249). Springer International Publishing
- Behaviour-Based Biometrics for Continuous User Authentication to Industrial Collaborative Robots, Lecture Notes in Computer Science (pp. 185-197). Springer International Publishing
- Mimicry Attacks Against Behavioural-Based User Authentication for Human-Robot Interaction, Lecture Notes in Computer Science (pp. 111-126). Springer International Publishing
- Security Threats in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks, Security of Self-Organizing Networks (pp. 145-164). Auerbach Publications
- The Human Factor in Mobile Phishing, Advances in Digital Crime, Forensics, and Cyber Terrorism (pp. 53-65). IGI Global
- Selecting Highly Efficient Sets of Subdomains for Mutation Adequacy (pp. 91-98). IEEE
- Risk Based Access Control with Uncertain and Time-dependent Sensitivity In Katsikas S & Samarati P (Ed.), Proceedings of the 2010 International Conference on Security and Cryptography (pp. 1-9). SciTePress
- Metaheuristic traceability attack against SLMAP, an RFID lightweight authentication protocol
- Power-Aware Intrusion Detection in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks, Ad Hoc Networks, First International Conference, ADHOCNETS 2009, Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, September 22-25, 2009. Revised Selected Papers (pp. 224-239). Springer
- User Behaviour Based Phishing Websites Detection (pp. 728-735).
- Modelling User-Phishing Interaction (pp. 633-638).
- Evolving Intrusion Detection Rules on Mobile Ad Hoc Networks In Ho TB & Zhou ZH (Ed.), PRICAI 2008: TRENDS IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (pp. 1053-1058). SPRINGER-VERLAG BERLIN
- Unentangling nuclear magnetic resonance computing, Unconventional Computing 2007 (pp. 1-18). Luniver Press
- Challenging formal specifications by mutation: A CSP security example (pp. 340-350).
- Invited paper. Nature-inspired cryptography: Past, present and future, CEC: 2003 CONGRESS ON EVOLUTIONARY COMPUTATION, VOLS 1-4, PROCEEDINGS (pp. 1647-1654). IEEE
- CONVERSE: A Family Oriented Software Development Process for Engine Controllers, Systems Engineering for Business Process Change (pp. 38-73). Springer-verlag
- Evolving Boolean Functions Satisfying Multiple Criteria, Lecture Notes in Computer Science (pp. 246-259). Springer Berlin Heidelberg
- A Search-Based Automated Test-Data Generation Framework for Safety-Critical Systems, Systems Engineering for Business Process Change: New Directions (pp. 174-213). Springer London
- Investigating the Effectiveness of Object-Oriented Strategies with the Mutation Method, Mutation Testing for the New Century (pp. 4-4). Springer US
- Automated Verification and Validation for High Integrity Systems: A Targeted Formal Methods Approach, Proceedings of the NASA Langley Formal Methods Workshop
- Searching for a solution: engineering tradeoffs and the evolution of provably secure protocols (pp. 82-95). IEEE Comput. Soc
- Integrating Safety Analysis with Automatic Test-Data Generation for Software Safety Verification, Proceedings of 17th International System Safety Conference (pp. 128-137).
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Conference proceedings
- Toward a Design of User’s Consent Tool for IoT-based Healthcare System. 2023 1st International Conference on Advanced Innovations in Smart Cities (ICAISC) (pp 1-7), 23 January 2023 - 25 January 2023.
- A Transfer Learning Approach to Discover IDS Configurations Using Deep Neural Networks. 2022 International Conference on Communications, Computing, Cybersecurity, and Informatics (CCCI) (pp 1-8), 17 October 2022 - 19 October 2022.
- Reinforcement-learning-based IDS for 6LoWPAN. 2021 IEEE 20th International Conference on Trust, Security and Privacy in Computing and Communications (TrustCom) (pp 1049-1060). Shenyang, China, 20 October 2021 - 20 October 2021. View this article in WRRO
- Neural Network Approximation of Simulation-based IDS Fitness Evaluation. 2022 IEEE 25th International Conference on Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) (pp 81-89), 9 December 2022 - 11 December 2022.
- Enhanced Scanning in SDN Networks and its Detection using Machine Learning. 2022 IEEE 4th International Conference on Trust, Privacy and Security in Intelligent Systems, and Applications (TPS-ISA) (pp 188-197), 14 December 2022 - 17 December 2022.
- Electricity theft detection in the presence of prosumers using a cluster-based multi-feature detection model. 2021 IEEE International Conference on Communications, Control, and Computing Technologies for Smart Grids (SmartGridComm). Aachen, Germany, 25 October 2021 - 25 October 2021. View this article in WRRO
- Continuous User Authentication for Human-Robot Collaboration. Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security (pp 1-9)
- Grammatical Evolution for Detecting Cyberattacks in Internet of Things Environments. 2021 International Conference on Computer Communications and Networks (ICCCN) (pp 1-6), 19 July 2021 - 22 July 2021.
- Using Genetic Improvement to Retarget quantum Software on Differing Hardware. 2021 IEEE/ACM International Workshop on Genetic Improvement (GI) (pp 31-38), 30 May 2021 - 30 May 2021.
- Optimising trotter-suzuki decompositions for quantum simulation using evolutionary strategies. GECCO '19: Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (pp 1223-1231). Prague, Czech Republic, 13 July 2019 - 13 July 2019. View this article in WRRO
- Efficient Evolutionary Fuzzing for Android Application Installation Process. 2019 IEEE 19th International Conference on Software Quality, Reliability and Security (QRS) (pp 62-68), 22 July 2019 - 26 July 2019.
- Evolutionary Computation Algorithms for Detecting Known and Unknown Attacks (pp 170-184)
- Dependent input sampling strategies. Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (pp 1451-1458)
- SAFEDroid: Using Structural Features for Detecting Android Malwares (pp 255-270)
- Search-Based Temporal Testing in an Embedded Multicore Platform (pp 794-809)
- Applying Cartesian Genetic Programming to Evolve Rules for Intrusion Detection System. Proceedings of the 10th International Joint Conference on Computational Intelligence (pp 176-183), 18 September 2018 - 20 September 2018.
- The executable experimental template pattern for the systematic comparison of metaheuristics. Proceedings of the Companion Publication of the 2014 Annual Conference on Genetic and Evolutionary Computation (pp 1427-1430)
- Mutation Testing for Jason Agents. EMAS 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 8758 (pp 309-327). Cham, Switzerland, 5 May 2015 - 6 May 2014.
- Engineering Multi-Agent Systems
- Probability-Based Semantic Interpretation of Mutants. 2014 IEEE Seventh International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation Workshops (pp 186-195), 31 March 2014 - 4 April 2014.
- Dynamic adaptive Search Based Software Engineering needs fast approximate metrics (keynote). 2013 4th International Workshop on Emerging Trends in Software Metrics (WETSoM) (pp 1-6), 21 May 2013 - 21 May 2013.
- SE and AI: A two-way street. 2013 2nd International Workshop on Realizing Artificial Intelligence Synergies in Software Engineering (RAISE) (pp 1-3), 25 May 2013 - 26 May 2013.
- Efficient Subdomains for Random Testing (pp 251-256)
- Using Mutation Analysis to Evolve Subdomains for Random Testing. 2013 IEEE Sixth International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation Workshops (pp 53-62), 18 March 2013 - 22 March 2013.
- The optimisation of stochastic grammars to enable cost-effective probabilistic structural testing. Proceedings of the 15th annual conference on Genetic and evolutionary computation (pp 1477-1484)
- Semantic mutation testing. Science of Computer Programming, Vol. 78(4) (pp 345-363)
- Filtered Nonlinear Cryptanalysis of Reduced-Round Serpent, and the Wrong-Key Randomization Hypothesis (pp 120-140)
- Searching for Pareto-optimal Randomised Algorithms (pp 183-197)
- Dynamic adaptive search based software engineering. Proceedings of the ACM-IEEE international symposium on Empirical software engineering and measurement (pp 1-8)
- The GISMOE challenge: constructing the pareto program surface using genetic programming to find better programs (keynote paper). Proceedings of the 27th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (pp 1-14)
- MESSI: Mutant Evaluation by Static Semantic Interpretation. 2012 IEEE Fifth International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation (pp 711-719), 17 April 2012 - 21 April 2012.
- METAHEURISTIC TRACEABILITY ATTACK AGAINST SLMAP, AN RFID LIGHTWEIGHT AUTHENTICATION PROTOCOL. International Journal of Foundations of Computer Science, Vol. 23(02) (pp 543-553)
- Modelling Uncertain and Time-Dependent Security Labels in MLS Systems (pp 158-171)
- Segmentation and Normalisation in Grapheme Codebooks. 2011 International Conference on Document Analysis and Recognition (pp 613-617), 18 September 2011 - 21 September 2011.
- Applications of Model Reuse When Using Estimation of Distribution Algorithms to Test Concurrent Software (pp 97-111)
- Decorrelating WSN Traffic Patterns with Maximally Uninformative Constrained Routing (pp 207-218)
- A Principled Evaluation of the Effect of Directed Mutation on Search-Based Statistical Testing. 2011 IEEE Fourth International Conference on Software Testing, Verification and Validation Workshops (pp 184-193), 21 March 2011 - 25 March 2011.
- Searching for invariants using genetic programming and mutation testing. Proceedings of the 13th annual conference on Genetic and evolutionary computation (pp 1907-1914)
- Finding short counterexamples in promela models using estimation of distribution algorithms. Proceedings of the 13th annual conference on Genetic and evolutionary computation (pp 1923-1930)
- F for fake. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp 3469-3478)
- Information-Theoretic Detection of Masquerade Mimicry Attacks. 2010 Fourth International Conference on Network and System Security (pp 183-190), 1 September 2010 - 3 September 2010.
- Power-Aware Intrusion Detection in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (pp 224-239)
- Risk based access control with uncertain and time-dependent sensitivity. Secrypt 2010 Proceedings of the International Conference on Security and Cryptography (pp 5-13)
- Learning Autonomic Security Reconfiguration Policies. 2010 10th IEEE International Conference on Computer and Information Technology (pp 902-909), 29 June 2010 - 1 July 2010.
- Scribe Identification in Medieval English Manuscripts. 2010 20th International Conference on Pattern Recognition (pp 1880-1883), 23 August 2010 - 26 August 2010.
- Semantic Mutation Testing. 2010 Third International Conference on Software Testing, Verification, and Validation Workshops (pp 100-109), 6 April 2010 - 10 April 2010.
- Searching for Safety Violations Using Estimation of Distribution Algorithms. 2010 Third International Conference on Software Testing, Verification, and Validation Workshops (pp 212-221), 6 April 2010 - 10 April 2010.
- Message from the Program Chairs. 2nd International Symposium on Search Based Software Engineering (pp ix-ix), 7 September 2010 - 9 September 2010.
- Optimising IDS Sensor Placement. 2010 International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security (pp 315-320), 15 February 2010 - 18 February 2010.
- Fine-Grained Timing Using Genetic Programming (pp 325-336)
- Automatic Test Data Generation for Multiple Condition and MCDC Coverage. 2009 Fourth International Conference on Software Engineering Advances (pp 152-157), 20 September 2009 - 25 September 2009.
- Accumulating evidence of insider attacks. Ceur Workshop Proceedings, Vol. 469 (pp 34-50)
- A Multi-objective Optimisation Approach to IDS Sensor Placement (pp 101-108)
- Comparing algorithms for search-based test data generation of Matlab® Simulink® models. 2009 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (pp 2940-2947), 18 May 2009 - 21 May 2009.
- Dynamic security policy learning. Proceedings of the first ACM workshop on Information security governance (pp 39-48)
- A Deployment Value Model for Intrusion Detection Sensors (pp 250-259)
- TAIC PART 2007 and Mutation 2007 special issue editorial. Journal of Systems and Software, Vol. 82(11) (pp 1753-1754)
- Widening the Goal Posts: Program Stretching to Aid Search Based Software Testing. 2009 1st International Symposium on Search Based Software Engineering (pp 122-131), 13 May 2009 - 15 May 2009.
- Using automated search to generate test data for matlab. Proceedings of the 11th Annual conference on Genetic and evolutionary computation (pp 1697-1704)
- Metaheuristic traceability attack against SLMAP, an RFID lightweight authentication protocol. 2009 IEEE International Symposium on Parallel & Distributed Processing (pp 1-5), 23 May 2009 - 29 May 2009.
- A grammatical evolution approach to intrusion detection on mobile ad hoc networks. Proceedings of the second ACM conference on Wireless network security (pp 95-102)
- Comparing algorithms for search-based test data generation of Matlab (pp 2940-2947)
- Metaheuristic Traceability Attack against SLMAP, an RFID Lightweight Authentication Protocol. 2009 IEEE INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON PARALLEL & DISTRIBUTED PROCESSING, VOLS 1-5 (pp 2265-+)
- User behaviour based phishing websites detection. 2008 International Multiconference on Computer Science and Information Technology, 20 October 2008 - 22 October 2008.
- Policy Evolution with Grammatical Evolution (pp 71-80)
- Multi-objective Improvement of Software Using Co-evolution and Smart Seeding (pp 61-70)
- Evolving Intrusion Detection Rules on Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (pp 1053-1058)
- Policy evolution with Genetic Programming: A comparison of three approaches. 2008 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence) (pp 1792-1800), 1 June 2008 - 6 June 2008.
- Strengthening Inferred Specifications using Search Based Testing. 2008 IEEE International Conference on Software Testing Verification and Validation Workshop (pp 187-194), 9 April 2008 - 11 April 2008.
- Modelling user-phishing interaction. 2008 Conference on Human System Interactions (pp 627-632), 25 May 2008 - 27 May 2008.
- Searching for resource-efficient programs. Proceedings of the 10th annual conference on Genetic and evolutionary computation (pp 1775-1782)
- MLS security policy evolution with genetic programming. Proceedings of the 10th annual conference on Genetic and evolutionary computation (pp 1571-1578)
- Reputation Attacks in Mediated and Automated Systems
- Policy evolution with genetic programming
- Threat Modelling in User Performed Authentication (pp 49-64)
- Heuristic search for non-linear cryptanalytic approximations. 2007 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (pp 3561-3568), 25 September 2007 - 28 September 2007.
- An efficient experimental methodology for configuring search-based design algorithms. Proceedings of IEEE International Symposium on High Assurance Systems Engineering (pp 53-62)
- Threat Modelling for Mobile ad hoc and Sensor Networks
- Aggregation of Information leaked by a MANET
- The state problem for test generation in Simulink. Proceedings of the 8th annual conference on Genetic and evolutionary computation (pp 1941-1948)
- Human competitive security protocols synthesis. Proceedings of the 8th annual conference on Genetic and evolutionary computation (pp 1855-1856)
- Security in Pervasive Computing, Third International Conference, SPC 2006, York, UK, April 18-21, 2006, Proceedings
- Deviational analyses for validating regulations on real systems. Ceur Workshop Proceedings, Vol. 241 (pp 813-817)
- Human-Competitive Evolution of Quantum Computing Artefacts by Genetic Programming. Evolutionary Computation, Vol. 14(1) (pp 21-40)
- Breaking the Model: Finalisation and a Taxonomy of Security Attacks. Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science, Vol. 137(2) (pp 225-242)
- Evolution of a human-competitive quantum fourier transform algorithm using genetic programming. Proceedings of the 7th annual conference on Genetic and evolutionary computation (pp 1657-1663)
- Search-based mutation testing forSimulinkmodels. Proceedings of the 7th annual conference on Genetic and evolutionary computation (pp 1061-1068)
- Synthesising Efficient and Effective Security Protocols. Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science, Vol. 125(1) (pp 25-41)
- Journeys in non-classical computation I: A grand challenge for computing research. International Journal of Parallel, Emergent and Distributed Systems, Vol. 20(1) (pp 5-19)
- “Devices Are People Too” Using Process Patterns to Elicit Security Requirements in Novel Domains: A Ubiquitous Healthcare Example (pp 31-45)
- The design of S-boxes by simulated annealing (pp 1533–1537-1533–1537)
- Can Secure Systems be Built Using Today’s Development Processes?
- Metrics Are Fitness Functions Too (pp 58-69)
- Acquiring a Debt Worth Repaying: why Evolutionary Computation should gain yet further inspiration from Biology
- Effective Security Requirements Analysis: HAZOP and Use Cases (pp 416-427)
- Smart Devices and Software Agents: The Basics of Good Behaviour (pp 39-52)
- Automatic generation of tests from Statechart specifications
- Two-Stage Optimisation in the Design of Boolean Functions (pp 242-254)
- Investigating the Applicability of Traditional Test Adequacy Criteria for Object-Oriented Programs
- Class Mutation: Mutation Testing for Object-Oriented Programs
- The Rigorous Generation of Java Mutation Operators using HAZOP
- Assessing Test Set Adequacy for Object-Oriented Programs using Class Mutation (pp 72-83)
- A Safety Change Oriented Process for Safety-Critical Systems
- Automated program flaw finding using simulated annealing. Proceedings of the 1998 ACM SIGSOFT international symposium on Software testing and analysis (pp 73-81)
- Non-linear Cryptanalysis Revisited: Heuristic Search for Approximations to S-Boxes (pp 99-117)
- Fusing Natural Computational Paradigms for Cryptanalysis. Or, Using Heuristic Search to Bring Cryptanalysis Problems within Quantum Computational Range. 2006 IEEE International Conference on Evolutionary Computation (pp 200-206)
- Metrics are fitness functions too. 10th International Symposium on Software Metrics, 2004. Proceedings. (pp 58-69)
- Searching for cost functions. Proceedings of the 2004 Congress on Evolutionary Computation (IEEE Cat. No.04TH8753) (pp 1517-1524)
- The design of s-boxes by simulated annealing. Proceedings of the 2004 Congress on Evolutionary Computation (IEEE Cat. No.04TH8753) (pp 1533-1537)
- Challenging formal specifications by mutation: a CSP security example. Tenth Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference, 2003. (pp 340-350)
- Making the most of two heuristics: breaking transposition ciphers with ants. The 2003 Congress on Evolutionary Computation, 2003. CEC '03., Vol. 4 (pp 2653-2658)
- Nature-inspired cryptography: past, present and future. The 2003 Congress on Evolutionary Computation, 2003. CEC '03., Vol. 3 (pp 1647-1654)
- Almost Boolean functions: the design of Boolean functions by spectral inversion. The 2003 Congress on Evolutionary Computation, 2003. CEC '03., Vol. 3 (pp 2173-2180)
- Automated design of security protocols. The 2003 Congress on Evolutionary Computation, 2003. CEC '03., Vol. 3 (pp 2181-2188)
- FORTEST: formal methods and testing. Proceedings 26th Annual International Computer Software and Applications (pp 91-101)
- Towards industrially applicable formal methods: three small steps, and one giant leap. Proceedings Second International Conference on Formal Engineering Methods (Cat.No.98EX241) (pp 76-88)
- An automated framework for structural test-data generation. Proceedings 13th IEEE International Conference on Automated Software Engineering (Cat. No.98EX239) (pp 285-288)
- The Phish in the Pond: scam emails as literature
- A Research Agenda for Metaheuristic Standardization (pp 1-3)
Theses
- Metaheuristic Search as a Cryptological Tool.
Other
- Demonstration software for IDS Sensor Placement.
Preprints
- Improving the Reliability of Quantum Circuits by Evolving Heterogeneous Ensembles, arXiv.
- AIDPS:Adaptive Intrusion Detection and Prevention System for Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks, arXiv.
- A Privacy-Preserving Energy Theft Detection Model for Effective Demand-Response Management in Smart Grids, arXiv.
- Adaptive Hybrid Heterogeneous IDS for 6LoWPAN, arXiv.
- Electricity Theft Detection in the Presence of Prosumers Using a Cluster-based Multi-feature Detection Model, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
- Electricity Theft Detection in the Presence of Prosumers Using a Cluster-based Multi-feature Detection Model, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
- Challenges in the Safety-Security Co-Assurance of Collaborative Industrial Robots, arXiv.
- Genetic algorithms and solid state NMR pulse sequences, arXiv.
- Cryptanalysis of Song's advanced smart card based password authentication protocol, arXiv.
- Highly entangled multi-qubit states with simple algebraic structure, arXiv.
- Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics): Preface.
- Grants
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- Security of Digital Twins in Manufacturing, EPSRC, 10/2021 - 05/2025, £774,954, as PI
- The Active Building Centre Research Programme (ABC RP), ISCF, 03/2020 - 09/2022, £9,324,024, as Co-PI
- Studentship, EPSRC, 02/2019 - 02/2023, £150,304, as PI
- The Active Building Centre, ISCF, 09/2018 - 05/2020, £35,947,247, as Co-PI
- Pitch-In: Promoting the Internet of Things via Collaborations between HEIs & Industry, HEFCE, 04/2018 - 09/2021, £4,917,863, as PI
- Cybersecurity and Al Skills Development, HEFCE, 02/2018 - 02/2019, £183,409, as PI
- DAASE: Dynamic Adaptive Automated Software Engineering, EPSRC, 06/2012 - 09/2019, £297,095, as PI
- The Birth, Life and Death of Semantic Mutants, EPSRC, 10/2009 - 09/2013, £136,252, as PI
- Using Learning to Support the Development of Embedded Systems, EPSRC, 10/2007 - 09/2011, £379,941, as Co-PI
- System-Smart Intrusion Detection, EPSRC, 09/2007 - 07/2010, £228,258, as PI
- Defending the Weakest Link: Intrusion via Social Engineering, EPSRC, 08/2006 - 01/2010, £189,277, as PI
- SEBASE: Software Engineering By Automated SEarch, EPSRC, 06/2006 - 12/2011, £784,417, as PI
- Formal Methods and Testing (FORTEST), EPSRC, 11/2001 - 04/2005, £63,158, as Co-PI
- SEMINAL: Software Engineering with Metaheuristic Innovative ALgorithms, EPSRC, 06/2000 - 05/2002, £45,763, as Co-PI
- SEMINAL: Software Engineering with Metaheuristic Innovative ALgorithms, EPSRC, 11/1999 - 06/2000, £51,112, as Co-PI
- CONVERSE: A Change-oriented process for Engine Controllers, EPSRC, 10/1997 - 10/2000, £201,963, as Co-PI
- Test Automation for Verification of non-functional properties, EPSRC, 01/1996 - 10/1997, £124,406, as Co-PI
- Anaylis and design synthesis for real-time safety critical systems, EPSRC, 12/1994 - 03/1998, £151,005, as Co-PI
- Professional activities and memberships
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Professional activities and achievements
- Member of the Security of Advanced Systems research group
- Awarded Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award in 2013.
- ACM/IEEE Automated Software Engineering. Most influential 15 year (-/+1) paper: ASE 1998 - An Automated Framework for Structural Test-Data Generation - Nigel Tracey, John Clark, Keith Mander and John McDermid.
- Winner of Silver Medal and $1000 (Human-Competitive Quantum Fourier Transform Algorithm Using Genetic Programming. Paul Massey, John A Clark and Susan Stepney, 2005) and Bronze Medal and $2000 (Genetic algorithms and solid state NMR pulse sequences. Matthias Bechmann, John Clark, Angelika Sebald, 2013) in GEECO’s Human Competitive Awards open competitions.
- Awarded 9 best paper prizes since 2004.
- External Examiner for 4 undergraduate programmes: King's College London, Sheffield, Brunel, and Imperial College London.
- External Examiner for 4 postgraduate programmes: Newcastle, Open University, Dublin and University College London.
Administrative and Community Roles
- Joins Sheffield in April 2017 as the group leader for new Security of Advanced Systems Research Group
- Previously: Secretary and Chair of various Boards of Examiners, Head of Research, Sciences Rep on Senate, and Head of Department.
- Regular reviewer, panellist, and panel chair for the EPSRC.