Nick Pitropakis
nick pitropakis

Dr Nick Pitropakis

Associate Professor

 0131 455 2789

  N.Pitropakis@napier.ac.uk

   

Biography

Dr Nick Pitropakis is an Associate Professor of cybersecurity at the School of Computing of Edinburgh Napier University, and a Fellow of the HEA. He is also a core member of the Blockpass Identity Lab. Dr Pitropakis has a strong research background in attacks against machine learning. His current research interests include adversarial machine learning, trust and privacy using distributed ledger technology, advanced cyber attack attribution, and data science applied to cyber security and IoT device security. Dr Pitropakis is leading the integrated apprenticeship scheme BSc Cyber Security, which is the first in the UK to receive full NCSC accreditation. He is teaching Cyber-related graduate apprenticeship degrees, both running in Scotland and England. He is also the external examiner of The American College in Greece (ACG), covering the BSc (Hons) Information Technology and BSc (Hons) Cyber Security and Networking programmes provided by The Open University, and the Lead External Examiner for MSc Cyber Security (Newcastle and London campuses) of Northumbria University.
Dr Pitropakis is currently leading the Horizon Europe project Trust and Privacy-Preserving Computing Platform for Crossborder Federation of Personal Data (TRUSTEE). Prior to joining ENU in 2016, he worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher for the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he was involved in a U.S. Department of Defense project (Methods for producing standardized and transparent attribution) worth 17.3 million dollars aiming at advanced attribution of malicious parties. His work has impacted major trademark holders and especially average users, whose awareness was increased against combosquatting abuse.
His recent work has included £310,843 for the EU TRUSTEE project and over £300,000 through Edinburgh Napier’s latest spinout TRUEDEPLOY. Dr Pitropakis has established synergies around the UK with other centres of excellence in cyber security like Royal Holloway and the University of Lancaster. Additionally, he has been working with leading European and international partners such as Fraunhofer, Panasonic, Norwegian University of Science and Technology and Ericsson Nikola Tesla to name a few.
Based on the outcomes of these projects, Dr Pitropakis has published 60 quality scholarly articles. His research has been awarded multiple times and recently one of his projects as well as his last PhD graduate won the Scottish Cyber Awards. Dr Pitropakis has also been invited to serve as an organizing and program committee member of major international conferences and as an editor for prestigious journals. In addition, Dr Pitropakis has been involved in supervising Research MSc and PhD students since he accomplished his PhD in 2015. Currently, Dr Pitropakis is supervising 2 PhD students, and their research activities are being disseminated in high-quality conferences and journals. His latest PhD graduate Dr Pavlos Papadopoulos is leading the ENU spinout TRUEDEPLOY.

School

Research Groups

Research Areas

Events

Esteem

Conference Organising Activity

  • International Conference on Information and Communications Security (ICICS )
  • International Workshop on AI-driven Trustworthy, Secure, and Privacy-Preserving Computing (INFOCOM 2023 AidTSP)
  • IEEE World Forum on Public Safety Technology (WF-PST)
  • MSN, International Conference on Mobility, Sensing and Networking
  • SecureComm, International Conference on Security and Privacy in Communication Networks
  • IEEE DSC 2022, 2022 IEEE Conference on Dependable and Secure Computing (Local Arrangements Co-chair)
  • SRC, SUSTAINABILITY AND RESILIENCE CONFERENCE: DESIGN INNOVATION
  • ISC, International Conference on Information Security
  • UbiSec, International Conference on Ubiquitous Security
  • ISPEC, International Conference on Information Security Practice and Experience
  • DPSC, Digital Privacy and Security Conference
  • CyberICPS, International Workshop On The Security Of Industrial Control Systems & Of Cyber- Physical Systems
  • CRYPIS, International Conference on Cryptography and Information Securit
  • ICISSP, The International Conference on Information Systems Security and Privacy
  • STM, International Workshop on Security and Trust Management
  • TrustCom, The IEEE International Conference on Trust, Security and Privacy in Computing and Communications
  • TrustBus, International Conference on Trust, Privacy and Security in Digital Business
  • SECURWARE, The International Conference on Emerging Security Information, Systems and Technologies

 

Editorial Activity

  • Editor of Cybersecurity and Privacy (specialty section of Frontiers in Big Data)
  • Guest Editor in Frontiers in Sociology
  • MDPI SENSORS - Journal Topical Advisory Panel Member
  • MDPI SENSORS Guest Editor of Special Issue "Cyber Situational Awareness in Computer Networks"

 

External Examining/Validations

  • Lead examiner for MSc Cyber Security (Newcastle and London campuses)
  • External Examiner for Open University

 

Fellowships and Awards

  • Best Paper award at ICEET 2023
  • CyberFirst won the LLeading Education Programme Award at Scottish Cyber Awards 2023
  • GLASS won the Leading Light Innovation Award at Scottish Cyber Awards 2022
  • Pavlos Papadopoulos won Outstanding Young Person in Cyber at Scottish Cyber Awards 2022
  • Truedeploy was nominated for the Leading Light Innovation Award at Scottish Cyber Awards 2022
  • MDPI Computers Journal Cover: Hughes K, Papadopoulos P, Pitropakis N, Smales A, Ahmad J, Buchanan WJ. Browsers Private Mode: Is It What We Were Promised? Computers. 2021; 10(12):165.
  • SINCONF 2021, Best Paper Award: Abramson, W., Buchanan, W. J., Sayeed, S., Pitropakis, N., & Lo, O. (2021). PAN-DOMAIN: Privacy-preserving Sharing and Auditing of Infection Identifier Matching.
  • MDPI SENSORS Editor’s Choice Article: Stamatellis, C., Papadopoulos, P., Pitropakis, N., Katsikas, S., & Buchanan, W. J. (2020). A Privacy-Preserving Healthcare Framework Using Hyperledger Fabric. Sensors, 20(22), 6587.
  • MDPI Computers Journal Cover: Papadopoulos, P., Pitropakis, N., Buchanan, W. J., Lo, O., & Katsikas, S. (2020). Privacy-Preserving Passive DNS. Computers, 9(3), 64.

 

Grant Reviewer

  • Israel Science Foundation (ISF)
  • Reviewer of Greek General Secretariat for Research and Innovation
  • European Research Council Starting Grant

 

Invited Speaker

  • Cyber Scotland Week 2024: Domain Name Abuse: Can I trust that URL?
  • Truth or Dare? Attacking the AI
  • Invited Lecture at ATHENA Talks
  • Connect Week 2022
  • Man Versus The Machine: The Adversarial Era
  • Attacks against machine learning: Influencing cybersecurity and our everyday life
  • “Man Against The Machine: Losing My Perception”
  • NTNU CISaR Workshop
  • SANCUS: Redefining security and Privacy in Modern ICT Infrastructures
  • 5G and the Pathway to Privacy-Preserving Infection Tracking and Contact Tracing in SANCUS Project
  • Domain Name System abuse

 

Media Activity

  • Interview/Discussion about Computer Science studies pcsteps.gr (YouTube)
  • Discussion at Radio Forth

 

Research Degree External Examining

  • Security and Privacy Enhancing Mechanisms for The Android Operating System

 

Reviewing

  • Artificial Intelligence Review (Springer)
  • Ad Hoc Networks (Elsevier)
  • PeerJ Computer Science
  • Sustainability - MDPI
  • Elsevier Journal of Information Security And Applications
  • IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications (J-SAC)
  • Artificial Intelligence Review - Springer
  • Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing, Elsevier
  • IET Information Security
  • IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics
  • Algorithms MDPI
  • IEEE Access
  • Personal and Ubiquitous Computing - Springer
  • Security and Communication Networks - Hindawi
  • Information Sciences - Elsevier
  • International Journal of Medical Informatics
  • Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, Springer
  • Information - MDPI
  • Cybersecurity - Springer
  • The Computer Journal - Oxford University Press
  • Computers - MDPI
  • Computers and Security (COSE)
  • Open Journal of Information Systems (OJIS), RonPub
  • Electronics - MDPI
  • Machine Learning and Knowledge Extraction (MAKE) - MDPI
  • Future Internet - MDPI
  • Computer Communications - Elsevier
  • Sensors - MDPI
  • IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems
  • International Journal of Machine Learning and Cybernetics
  • Symmetry - MDPI
  • Technologies - MDPI
  • Applied Sciences - MDPI
  • Applied Computing and Informatics - Emerald
  • Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing - Hindawi
  • Journal Of Cloud Computing (JOCCASA), Springer
  • European Symposium on Research in Computer Security (ESORICS)
  • Journal of Cyber Security Technology - Taylor & Francis
  • Systems - MDPI

 

Spin-outs and Licences

  • TrueDeploy

 

Visiting Positions

  • Visiting Researcher

 

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Date


59 results

A New Intrusion Detection System for the Internet of Things via Deep Convolutional Neural Network and Feature Engineering

Journal Article
Ullah, S., Ahmad, J., Khan, M. A., Alkhammash, E. H., Hadjouni, M., Ghadi, Y. Y., …Pitropakis, N. (2022)
A New Intrusion Detection System for the Internet of Things via Deep Convolutional Neural Network and Feature Engineering. Sensors, 22(10), Article 3607. https://doi.org/10.3390/s22103607
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a widely used technology in automated network systems across the world. The impact of the IoT on different industries has occurred in recent ye...

A New Multistage Encryption Scheme Using Linear Feedback Register and Chaos-Based Quantum Map

Journal Article
Alharbi, A. R., Ahmad, J., Arshad, Shaukat, S., Masood, F., Ghadi, Y. Y., …Buchanan, W. J. (2022)
A New Multistage Encryption Scheme Using Linear Feedback Register and Chaos-Based Quantum Map. Complexity, 2022, Article 7047282. https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/7047282
With the increasing volume of data transmission through insecure communication channels, big data security has become one of the important concerns in the cybersecurity domain...

A Smart and Robust Automatic Inspection of Printed Labels Using an Image Hashing Technique

Journal Article
Khan, M. A., Ahmed, F., Khan, M. D., Ahmad, J., Kumar, H., & Pitropakis, N. (2022)
A Smart and Robust Automatic Inspection of Printed Labels Using an Image Hashing Technique. Electronics, 11(6), Article 955. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11060955
This work is focused on the development of a smart and automatic inspection system for printed labels. This is a challenging problem to solve since the collected labels are ty...

GLASS: A Citizen-Centric Distributed Data-Sharing Model within an e-Governance Architecture

Journal Article
Lo, O., Buchanan, W., Sayeed, S., Papadopoulos, P., Pitropakis, N., & Chrysoulas, C. (2022)
GLASS: A Citizen-Centric Distributed Data-Sharing Model within an e-Governance Architecture. Sensors, 22(6), Article 2291. https://doi.org/10.3390/s22062291
E-governance is a process that aims to enhance a government’s ability to simplify all the processes that may involve government, citizens, businesses, and so on. The rapid evo...

PAN-DOMAIN: Privacy-preserving Sharing and Auditing of Infection Identifier Matching

Conference Proceeding
Abramson, W., Buchanan, W. J., Sayeed, S., Pitropakis, N., & Lo, O. (2022)
PAN-DOMAIN: Privacy-preserving Sharing and Auditing of Infection Identifier Matching. In 14th International Conference on Security of Information and Networks. https://doi.org/10.1109/SIN54109.2021.9699138
The spread of COVID-19 has highlighted the need for a robust contact tracing infrastructure that enables infected individuals to have their contacts traced, and followed up wi...

Privacy-preserving and Trusted Threat Intelligence Sharing using Distributed Ledgers

Conference Proceeding
Ali, H., Papadopoulos, P., Ahmad, J., Pit, N., Jaroucheh, Z., & Buchanan, W. J. (2022)
Privacy-preserving and Trusted Threat Intelligence Sharing using Distributed Ledgers. In IEEE SINCONF: 14th International Conference on Security of Information and Networks. https://doi.org/10.1109/SIN54109.2021.9699366
Threat information sharing is considered as one of the proactive defensive approaches for enhancing the overall security of trusted partners. Trusted partner organizations can...

HDL-IDS: A Hybrid Deep Learning Architecture for Intrusion Detection in the Internet of Vehicles

Journal Article
Ullah, S., Khan, M. A., Ahmad, J., Jamal, S. S., e Huma, Z., Hassan, M. T., …Buchanan, W. J. (2022)
HDL-IDS: A Hybrid Deep Learning Architecture for Intrusion Detection in the Internet of Vehicles. Sensors, 22(4), Article 1340. https://doi.org/10.3390/s22041340
Internet of Vehicles (IoV) is an application of the Internet of Things (IoT) network that connects smart vehicles to the internet, and vehicles with each other. With the emerg...

GLASS: Towards Secure and Decentralized eGovernance Services using IPFS

Conference Proceeding
Chrysoulas, C., Thomson, A., Pitropakis, N., Papadopoulos, P., Lo, O., Buchanan, W. J., …Tsolis, D. (2022)
GLASS: Towards Secure and Decentralized eGovernance Services using IPFS. In Computer Security. ESORICS 2021 International Workshops. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95484-0_3
The continuously advancing digitization has provided answers to the bureaucratic problems faced by eGovernance services. This innovation led them to an era of automation, broa...

Ransomware: Analysing the Impact on Windows Active Directory Domain Services

Journal Article
McDonald, G., Papadopoulos, P., Pitropakis, N., Ahmad, J., & Buchanan, W. J. (2022)
Ransomware: Analysing the Impact on Windows Active Directory Domain Services. Sensors, 22(3), Article 953. https://doi.org/10.3390/s22030953
Ransomware has become an increasingly popular type of malware across the past decade and continues to rise in popularity due to its high profitability. Organisations and enter...

Decentralised Privacy: A Distributed Ledger Approach

Book Chapter
Papadopoulos, P., Pitropakis, N., & Buchanan, W. J. (2021)
Decentralised Privacy: A Distributed Ledger Approach. In C. Mustansar Hussain, & P. Di Sia (Eds.), Handbook of Smart Materials, Technologies, and Devices (1-26). Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58675-1_58-1
Our world due to the technological progress became fast-paced and is constantly evolving, thus changing every single day. Consequently, the most valuable asset on earth is not...

Pre-Napier Funded Projects

  • SECANT (European Commission)

Current Post Grad projects

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