Three (3) PhD Positions in language-based security & in location privacy, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden (2015-2016)

The Department has about 70 faculty members and enrolls a number of PhD students from more than 30 countries. The research spans the whole spectrum, from theoretical foundations to applied systems development. There is extensive national and international collaboration with academia and industry all around the world. For more information, see http://www.chalmers.se/cse/EN/ .

Major responsibilities
The PhD students will join a high-profile group of researchers on software security. Software is often the root cause of vulnerabilities in modern computing systems. By focusing on securing the software, we target principled security mechanisms that provide robust protection against large classes of attacks.

Application software relies on access to a range of sensitive data, but standard security mechanisms such as access controls can't distinguish between an app which uses data in a reasonable way from one which abuses the resources to which it has access. More research is needed to enable the specification and enforcement of fine grained security and privacy policies.

Securing real systems involves many challenges. Real systems are not single monolithic entities, but combine functionalities from many providers. For example, web applications combine services from different providers via script inclusion mechanisms, which routinely turns barebone web pages into fully fledged services built up from third-party code; server applications combine multiple components, application software, operating systems, and databases in security-critical ways. These projects will bridge theory and practice to put principled security and privacy to work, focusing on four application areas: Android apps, Web apps, Secure systems, and Location privacy. We are seeking a PhD student to work in each of them:

1. Android App Security
2. Web Application Security
3. Constructing Secure Systems
4. Robust Location Privacy

Further details:
http://www.nature.com