Book Series: Security Science and Technology

This series is under the aegis of the prestigious Institute for Security Science and Technology at Imperial. Its Director, Prof. Christopher Hankin, is the Editor-in-Chief.

Professor Christopher Hankin joined Imperial College London in 1984 and was promoted to Professor in 1995. He was Director and then Co-Director of the Institute for Security Science and Technology from 2010 until 2019. His research is in cyber security, data analytics and theoretical computer science. He leads multidisciplinary projects focused on providing better decision support to defend against cyber attacks for both enterprise systems and industrial control systems.

He is Director of the UK Research Institute on Trustworthy Inter-connected Cyber-physical Systems (RITICS) which focuses on cyber security of critical infrastructure. He is founder and immediate past chair of the UK’s Academic Resilience and Security Community (Academic RiSC). He is a Board Member for the International Cyber Security Centre of Excellence which is a new collaboration between leading cyber security research centres in the UK, US and Japan.

Scope

This series will be a collection of monographs presenting science and science policies for mitigating security risks, addressing a range of vulnerabilities including: Individuals in society, their security and wellbeing; National infrastructure and services; and Economic prosperity.

The series will encompass three operational domains: the cyber, physical and social spaces, covering aspects of Prediction (prior to the event), Detection (during the event), and Response (after the event). For example, in cyber space, Prediction includes data mining, data analytics, and threat and vulnerability assessment; Detection includes trustworthy systems, information assurance, and anomaly detection; and Response includes security strategies, decision support, and forensics.

The rapidly changing security landscape is being transformed by a number of broader social changes that we have attributed to four drivers: Connectedness, Resources, Asymmetry and High Impact Futures.

Connectedness takes on subjects such as how digitisation is giving rise to new cyber vulnerabilities and threats; the increasingly rapid technological development and dissemination we are experiencing today; and the growth in city dwelling that is providing opportunities in service delivery, but also concentrating threats to infrastructure, transport, health, etc.

Resources includes studies of the battle for resources (principally clean water and food); and how conflict and terror are moving into congested spaces as mankind adapts to climate change.

Asymmetry explores subjects like the multi-polarity between state and non-state actors; from large/global scales to the small/local, and the asymmetric nature of defence economics.

High Impact Futures involves looking into emerging technologies that may revolutionize the way mankind will live in the future, covering technologies like 3D printing; biotechnology; big data analytics; embedded sensors; and nature-inspired, low power and autonomous systems.

Target readership and level
The series is aimed at graduate level students and practitioners and will provide concise, authoritative accounts of current approaches to security challenges in the various domains.