Rich Macfarlane
Rich Macfarlane

Rich Macfarlane

Associate Professor

 0131 455 2335

  R.Macfarlane@napier.ac.uk

   

Biography

Rich Macfarlane is an Associate Professor in the School of Computing at Edinburgh Napier University, working in the areas of cyber security and digital forensics since 2009. Rich played a key role in the creation and development of the GCHQ certified MSc Advanced Security and Digital Forensics programme (www.napier.ac.uk/courses/msc-advanced-security-and-digital-forensics-postgraduate-fulltime) and leading the course from 2014. Rich also collaborates with law enforcement, and industry within the Cyber Academy (thecyberacademy.org), which he co-founded with Prof. Bill Buchanan.

Working within the Networking, Cyber Security and Digital Forensics research group, and focused on research in the areas of Offensive Network Security, Ransomware, Digital Forensic Triage, and Online teaching and E-learning for cyber security. Research in teaching for cyber has focused on authentic, immersive virtualised environments and activities, as well as online learning pedagogy. Digital forensic research included techniques for triage which led to a ground breaking Forensic spin-out company Cyan Forensics (cyanforensics.com). Current research in offensive-security includes honeypots for attack analysis, and Ransomware analysis and detection methods including forensic triage of live memory.

Rich is a Senior Teaching Fellow of HEA, and has played a key part in developing the cyber security offering at Edinburgh Napier University including developing online teaching platforms which provide students with virtualised practical learning environments, such as vSOC. Based on student-centered teaching and learning for cyber security and digital investigations these provide authentic practical activities even to our remote students. Rich helped start and continues to support the ENUSEC student cyber security society at the university (enusec.org).

Rich is also heavily involved with the wider cyber security community, especially in Scotland, such as as working with schools to support cyber security engagement and teaching, and helping to start and his current moderator role with the Cyber Scotland Connect (@SecScotland) community organisation. He is also an active member of the NCSC educational community group which is made up of course and research lab leaders from NCSC accredited institutions.

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Esteem

Editorial Activity

  • Editorial Board - Journal of Cyber Security Technology

 

Fellowships and Awards

  • Senior Teaching Fellow of the HEA

 

Spin-outs and Licences

  • Cyan Forensics

 

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35 results

Identifying Vulnerabilities Using Internet-wide Scanning Data

Conference Proceeding
O'Hare, J., Macfarlane, R., & Lo, O. (2019)
Identifying Vulnerabilities Using Internet-wide Scanning Data. In 2019 IEEE 12th International Conference on Global Security, Safety and Sustainability (ICGS3), (1-10). https://doi.org/10.1109/ICGS3.2019.8688018
Internet-wide scanning projects such as Shodan and Censys, scan the Internet and collect active reconnaissance results for online devices. Access to this information is provid...

System and method for management of confidential data

Patent
Buchanan, B., Lo, O., Macfarlane, R., Penrose, P., & Ramsay, B. (in press)
System and method for management of confidential data. GB2561176A
This application is for a method of data management to identify confidential digital content on a database by first receiving a management request 302 from a system 304 to car...

Method for identification of digital content

Patent
Buchanan, B., Lo, O., Penrose, P., Ramsay, B., & Macfarlane, R. (2018)
Method for identification of digital content. World Intellectual Property Organization
Many areas oi investigation require searching through data that may be oi interest. One example oi data that may be involved in an investigation is copyrighted material that m...

Privacy Parameter Variation using RAPPOR on a Malware Dataset

Conference Proceeding
Aaby, P., Mata De Acuña, J. J., Macfarlane, R., & Buchanan, W. J. (2018)
Privacy Parameter Variation using RAPPOR on a Malware Dataset. In Proceedings of 17th IEEE International Conference On Trust, Security And Privacy In Computing And Communications (IEEE TrustCom-18), (8). https://doi.org/10.1109/TrustCom/BigDataSE.2018.00133
Stricter data protection regulations and the poor application of privacy protection techniques have resulted in a requirement for data-driven companies to adopt new methods of...

Distance Measurement Methods for Improved Insider Threat Detection

Journal Article
Lo, O., Buchanan, W. J., Griffiths, P., & Macfarlane, R. (2018)
Distance Measurement Methods for Improved Insider Threat Detection. Security and Communication Networks, 2018, 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/5906368
Insider threats are a considerable problem within cyber security and it is often difficult to detect these threats using signature detection. Increasing machine learning can p...

A methodology for the security evaluation within third-party Android Marketplaces

Journal Article
Buchanan, W. J., Chiale, S., & Macfarlane, R. (2017)
A methodology for the security evaluation within third-party Android Marketplaces. Digital Investigation, 23, 88-98. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.diin.2017.10.002
This paper aims to evaluate possible threats with unofficial Android marketplaces, and geo localize the malware distribution over three main regions: China, Europe; and Russia...

Review of e-Health Frameworks.

Conference Proceeding
Prajapati, B., Buchanan, W. J., Smales, A., Macfarlane, R., & Spyra, G. (2015)
Review of e-Health Frameworks. In Health Informatics Conference 2015
In order to improve the quality of health care and widen the accessibility, health care providers are consistently looking to inject information and communication technology t...

Evaluation of TFTP DDoS amplification attack

Journal Article
Sieklik, B., Macfarlane, R., & Buchanan, W. J. (2016)
Evaluation of TFTP DDoS amplification attack. Computers and Security, 57, 67-92. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cose.2015.09.006
Web threats are becoming a major issue for both governments and companies. Generally, web threats increased as much as 600% during last year (WebSense, 2013). This appears to ...

Evaluation of the DFET Cloud.

Presentation / Conference
Buchanan, W. J., Ramsay, B., Macfarlane, R., Smales, A., Keane, E., Callahan, C., …Popov, O. (2015, September)
Evaluation of the DFET Cloud. Paper presented at Cybercrime Forensics Education and Training (CFET) conference, Canterbury
The DFET (Digital Forensics Evaluation and Training) Cloud creates new training methods/techniques to support judicial authorities, law enforcement agencies and associated sta...

Teaching penetration and malware analysis in a cloud-based environment.

Presentation / Conference
Buchanan, W. J., Ramsay, B., Macfarlane, R., Smales, A., & Russell, G. (2015, June)
Teaching penetration and malware analysis in a cloud-based environment. Paper presented at UK Workshop on Cybersecurity Training & Education, Liverpool
This paper outlines evaluation of running a private Cloud-based system over two semesters at Edinburgh Napier University for two modules: Security Testing and Advanced Network...

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