Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Position for researcher/postdoc

At the Computer Systems Section, we are looking for candidates for the new EU FP7 FORWARD project, expected to start in January 2007.

The aim of the coordination action (CA) FORWARD is to promote collaboration and partnership between researchers from academia and industry involved in the protection of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructures against cyber threats such as malicious code (viruses, botnets, and spyware), spam, and phishing. The goal is to identify, network, and coordinate the multiple research efforts that are underway in these areas and leveraging these efforts with other activities to build secure and trusted ICT systems and infrastructures.

The main objectives of this project are to:

Establish working groups to discuss best practices, progress and priorities, setting the research agendas to be pursued in Europe and identify possible new research areas and threats that need to be address.
Set up an online platform for regularly assessing and reviewing the evolution of the threat landscape and the state of the art in threat detection and prevention techniques.
Organize workshops with relevant groups of experts from industry and academia but also with policymakers for discussing and presenting the emerging threat landscape, the ongoing research in answer to these threats, and recommended actions to be taken in partnership with industry and governments.
Leverage the findings of individual working groups to describe scenarios in which ad- versaries use a combination of attacks to threaten the security and disrupt the lives of the people in the European Union or its member states.

The core consortium consists of six leading academic institutions that are well recognized for their broad expertise in different areas of systems security and ICT threat defense. To ensure industrial participation, this core consortium is complemented by an industrial board that provides a platform for players from industry to contribute to the project. For this board, we won representatives of 18 companies that endorse FORWARD and its goals, as well as assert their willingness to serve on the industrial board.

Participation in the project will be an excellent opportuntity to interact and network with the major players in the research domain.

Role of the VU

In the starting phase of the project, the consortium will form a number of working groups. Each working group will focus on one specific threat (e.g., malicious code and malware propagation, social engineering and fraud, etc.) The Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam will be leading one of the working groups.

Requirements:

PhD or proven experience in the research area. Having worked in the security industry is not by itself sufficient qualification.

Contact

Interested and qualified candidaters should send an application letter including CV to
Herbert Bos: herbertb at cs dot vu dot nl

Disclaimer: while the project is now accepted for funding and pretty much finalised, the positions advertised are subject to the signing of the contract by the consortium members.

Vrije Universiteit AmsterdamPosition for researcher/postdoc

Role of the VU

Requirements:

Contact

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Position for researcher/postdoc