Security and Privacy in Smart Grid

• Peer-to-peer (local) electricity trading markets
• Smart metering
• Smart electric vehicle charging
• Demand response

Applied Cryptography in Smart City and e-Health

• Keyless car sharing systems
• Frictionless authentication
• Health data collection, distribution and access control

• Winner of the Student Video Competition organised by the flagship IEEE International Conference on Smart Grid Communications (SmartGridComm 2017), the video: "Secure and Privacy-friendly Local Electricity Trading"
• Best Paper Award at the 11-th International Conference on Emerging Security Information, Systems and Technologies (SECURWARE 2017), the award
• Distinguished Achievement Award as Postgraduate Research Student of the Year nominee by the School of Computer Science of The University of Manchester (2015)

Graduated PhD students

• Sara Cleemput, "Secure and Privacy-friendly Smart Electricity Metering", PhD in Engineering Science: Electrical Engineering, KU Leuven, awarded in May 2018. I acted as her daily supervisor and was a member of her examination committee
• Iraklis Symeonidis, "Analysis and Design of Privacy-Enhancing Information Sharing Systems", PhD in Engineering Science: Electrical Engineering, KU Leuven, awarded in May 2018. I acted as his daily supervisor.

Graduated Master students

• Omar Alhawi, "Finding Software Vulnerabilities in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Using Software Verification", MPhil in Computer Science, The University of Manchester, awarded in November 2020.
• Osama Almoghamis, "Privacy-friendly Electric Vehicle Charging", MSc in Computer Science, The University of Manchester, awarded in November 2020.
• David De Troch - "Scalable and Efficient Smart Contract for Secure Car Sharing", KU Leuven, awarded in July 2020, Co-supervised with Akash Madhusudan and Iraklis Symeonidis.
• Chao Shi, "Conditional Anonymity in Sharing Economy Systems: The Private Car Sharing Case", MSc in Computer Science, The University of Manchester, awarded in November 2019.
• Xuyuan Su, "Conditional Anonymity in Sharing Economy Systems: The Uber Case", MSc in Computer Science, The University of Manchester, awarded in November 2019.
• Akash Madhusudan, “Secure and Privacy-friendly Keyless Car Sharing Systems”, Master in Engineering Science: Artificial Intelligence, KU Leuven, awarded in September 2018, Co-supervising with Iraklis Symeonidis.
• Siemen Dhooghe, “Applying Multiparty Computation to Car Access Provision”, Master in Engineering Science: Mathematical Engineering, KU Leuven, awarded in June 2017, co-supervised with Iraklis Symeonidis and Abdelrahaman Aly.
• Karel Domin, "Security Analysis of the Drone Communication Protocol: Fuzzing the MAVLink Protocol", Master in Engineering Science: Computer Science, KU Leuven, awarded in June 2016. I was his assessor.

Ongoing Reseach Projects

• EnnCore: End-to-End Conceptual Guarding of Neural Architectures, EPSRC (2020-2024), in collaboration with University of Liverpool
• SCorCH: Secure Code for Capability Hardware, EPSRC (2019-2023) in collaboration with University of Oxfrod
• SNIPPET: Secure and Privacy-friendly Peer-to-peer Electricity Trading, FWO-SBO project (2019 - 2023), in collaboration with KU Leuven (BE) and VUB (BE)
• Secure and Privacy-friendly Sharing Economy Applications, The University of Manchester (2018 - 2023)

Previous Reseach Projects

• DiskMan: Dynamic Risk-based Access Management, imec ICON project (2016 - 2018)
• SAGA: Secured Smart Grid Metering Architecture, KIC Innovation project (2015 - 2016)
• Smart Grid Security, EPSRC and Toshiba (2011 - 2015)

Scholarships and Fellowships

• Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw Research Fellowship, The University of Manchester, (2018–2023)
• Postdoctoral Scholarship Holder in international mobility, KU Leuven, (2015–2018)
• Industrial CASE Ph.D. Studentship, EPSRC and Toshiba Research Europe, (2011–2015)
• ONE North East Postgraduate Bursary, One North East, (2009–2010)

Mustafa A. Mustafa is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in the Department of Computer Science at The University of Manchester. He is also a deputy director of the university-wide Centre for Digital Trust and Society and Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research (ACE-CSR).

He received the B.Sc. degree in communications from the Technical University of Varna, Varna, Bulgaria, in 2007, the M.Sc. degree in communications and signal processing from Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K., in 2010, and the Ph.D. degree in computer science from The University of Manchester, Manchester, U.K., in 2015. He then was a post-doctoral research fellow with the imec-COSIC research group, Department of Electrical Engineering (ESAT), KU Leuven, Belgium. From July 2018 till June 2023, he was a Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw Research Fellow in the Department of Computer Science at The University of Manchester.

He was the recipient of the Best Student Video Award from IEEE SmartGridComm 2017 and the Best Paper Award from SECURWARE 2017. During his PhD studies he was also a recipient of the Distinguished Achievement Award as Postgraduate Research Student of the Year 2015 nominee by the School of Computer Science of The University of Manchester. He currently acts as an expert in the IEC/SYC/WG 3 “IEC Smart Energy Roadmap”. He has also given tutorials, guest lectures and invited talks at several national and international summer schools/seminars/workshops/conferences. He has acted as a reviewer for a large number of journals and international conferences.

His research interests include information security, data privacy and applied cryptography in areas such as smart grid, smart city, e-health, and IoT. His main expertise lies in applied crypto in the Smart Grid domain where he has filed one patent and published numerous papers at leading Smart Grid conferences.

Current PhD students

• Kamil Erdayandi - "Privacy-friendly Multi-agent Systems for Smart Grid Application" - main supervisor
• Khlood Jastaniah - "Security and Privacy for the Internet of Things (IoT) in E-health" - main supervisor
• Fatimah Aljaafari - "Detecting Vulnerabilities in IoT Lightweight Cryptography Algorithms using Fuzzing and Symbolic Execution" - co-supervisor
• Twisha Twisha - "Effective Solutions for BotVM Detection" - co-supervisor

Current MSc students

• Robbie Thandi - "Privacy-Enhancing Settlements Protocol in Peer-to-Peer Energy Trading Markets", MSc in Computer Science, The University of Manchester, expected to graduate in November 2021.

My contact details

Address:

Kilburn Building - office 2.93

Department of Computer Science

The University of Manchester

Oxford Road

Manchester, M13 9PL, UK

Email:

[email protected]

For prospective PhD students

I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD students interested in the following areas:

• Applied cryptography in Smart Grid, Smart City, e-Banking, e-Health, IoT (Internet of Things), etc.
• Distributed trust computing
• Blockchain and public ledgers
• Mobile and wireless security
• Privacy-friendly machine learning
• Anonymous communication