Dr Hossein Abroshan

Hossein teaches and conducts research in the areas of cybersecurity, cyberpsychology and artificial intelligence. He is the Course Director for MSc Cyber Security and the Director of the Cyber Security, Networking, and Applications Research Group (CNA).

[email protected]

Background

Hossein has over 25 years of professional and academic experience across diverse industries and universities. He has held various roles, including lecturer, researcher, Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), Chief Technical Officer (CTO), and cybersecurity expert in sectors such as academia, research, banking, telecom, and manufacturing. His expertise extends to participating in technical work packages for EU-funded projects, including Horizon 2020, and serving in key research groups such as the RDA-Group of European Data Experts (GEDE), the EUDAT work group on sensitive data, and the DDI Alliance. With a strong presence in the European research community, he has contributed to advancing cybersecurity and AI knowledge and practice.

Hossein has secured multiple internal and external funding awards, including CyberASAP and CyBOK, enabling him to lead pioneering cybersecurity research. His work focuses on human factors in cybersecurity, particularly their impact on users' susceptibility to phishing scams. He holds multiple certifications, such as certified information security manager (CISM) and ISO27001 lead auditor. Hossein has implemented and managed IT and OT security programs for various organisations, leveraging frameworks such as ISO/IEC 27001, NIST CSF, and ISA/IEC 62443. Beyond research, he has actively organised successful events fostering collaboration with research groups, centres, and industry partners in the UK and internationally, strengthening interdisciplinary engagement and driving innovation in cybersecurity.

Hossein manages ARU's CNA research group, aiming to improve the university's cybersecurity, networking, and applications research and build strong internal and external collaborations and partnerships. He is also leading the MSc Cyber Security course, focusing on improving the quality of the course and increasing the student's satisfaction.

Spoken Languages

• English
• Persian
• Norwegian

Research interests

• Cybersecurity and Cybercrime
• Human Factors in Cyber Security
• Security and Privacy of AI
• Information security management
• IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) and OT (Operational Technology) security
• Digital Privacy
• AI for cybersecurity (e.g., to detect and prevent cyber threats)
• Digital Sustainability
• Cryptography

Areas of expertise

• Cybersecurity and Networking
• Artificial Intelligence
• Cyberpsychology

Areas of research supervision

Hossein is interested in supervising PhD students in the abovementioned areas under research interests, especially interdisciplinary research.

Teaching

• Cyber Security and AI Case Studies
• Secure Systems
• Security Management, Operations, and Analytics
• Principles of Data Mining and Machine Learning (Practical)

Qualifications

• PhD in Cyber Security (Business Economics), Ghent University, Belgium
• PGCert in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, Anglia Ruskin University
• PGCert in Psychology, Northumbria University
• Master of Business Administration (IT-focused)
• Certified Information Security Manager (CISM)
• ISO 27001 Lead Auditor (IRCA certified)
• Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP), 2000
• Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA), 2002
• Cisco Secure Firewall, 2002

Memberships, editorial boards

• Fellow, Higher Education Academy (FHEA)
• Member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (MIET)
• Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
• Full Member of ICS Community of Interest (COI), National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC)
• Member of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society (IES)
• Member of the IEEE Industrial Cyber-Physical Systems (TC-ICPS)
• Member of the IEEE Cyber Security STC
• Member of Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA)
• Member – IEEE Computational Intelligence Chapter (CIC)

External Activities

• Vice Chair of the IEEE UK and Ireland Computational Intelligence Chapter (IEEE CIS)
• Main Guest Editor of the Human Factors in Cyber Security: Social Engineering, Behavioural Aspects and Resilience Solutions journal
• Review Panel Member for IEEE Senior Members applications (2025)
• Editor of International Journal of Data Structure Studies
• Advisory Board Member of Digital Innovation Zone (DIZ)
• Technical program committee member of the 23rd IEEE International Conference on Industrial Informatics (INDIN 2025)
• Committee Member of the European Conference on Cyber Warfare and Security (ECCWS)
• Chair of the Forward-looking Cybersecurity Education (ISC2 Academy Partnership) Group
• Editorial Board of International Journal of Science, Technology and Society (IJSTS)
• Reviewer of IEEE Access Journal, Computers and Security Journal, International Journal of Cyber Security, Cyberpsychology Journal, Journal of Experimental Criminology, Routledge, and URKI

PhD Supervision

• James Fitzjohn (2020-2025), Emulating a traditional CPU for execution on a Quantum Computer, 2020-2025 (completed)
• Farah Al-Adwan (2024-Present), Building Robust AI Techniques Against Adversarial Attacks in the Healthcare System
• Kevin Hankinson (2023-Present), Capturing and Communicating Essential Information: The Critical Role of Documentation in Software Development Projects

Research grants, consultancy, knowledge exchange

• Toward a safer cyberspace using a human factor based anti-scam AI-powered solution (2024-2015). Funder: Safe and Inclusive Communities. Total fund: £9,868. Role: PI.
• Development of a lab environment and learning materials for the Security and Privacy of AI, CyBOK (2024-2025). Total fund: £4,967. Role: PI.
• SIROCCO: An AI-based approach for windfarm security, Funder: CyberASAP (Innovate UK). 2024-2025. Total fund: £60,862. Role: Co-I.
• OTRAND: An AI-powered solution to detect ransomware targeting OT networks. Funder: CyberASAP (Innovate UK). Total fund: £16,990 (phase 1: £8,000). Role: PI.
• Identifying challenges and proposing solutions for sustainable ICT by reducing file storage on the cloud (2023-2014). Total fund: £7,979. Role: PI.
• Development of an active learning lesson plan and laboratory materials for AI for Security. Funder: CyBOK (2023-2024). Total fund: £4,969. Role: PI. (www.ai4cs.academy)
• Domain Technical leader of societal challenge #6 of the Big Data Europe project (BDE): Total fund: €4,984,238
• Member of the Synergies for Europe's Research Infrastructures in the Social Sciences (SERISS) project. Fund: €8,884,397
• Sensitive data in research e-infrastructures to enable the participation of sensitive data in the development of cloud-based services for Open Science. (EUDAT)
• Strengthening and widening the European infrastructure for social science data archives (CESSDA SaW)
• Group of European data experts (GEDE) in RDA
• Council of European Social Science Data Archives research e-infrastructure (CESSDA PPP)
• Cyber security projects in maritime, manufacturing, telecom, and banking industries

Selected recent publications

Onumadu, P., & Abroshan, H. (2024). Near-Field Communication (NFC) Cyber Threats and Mitigation Solutions in Payment Transactions: A Review. Sensors, 24(23), 7423.

Adeyeri, A., & Abroshan, H. (2024). Geopolitical Ramifications of Cybersecurity Threats: State Responses and International Cooperations in the Digital Warfare Era. Information, 15(11), 682.

Mersico, L., Abroshan, H. Sanchez-Velazquez, E., Saheer, L. B., Simandjuntak, S., Dhar-Bhattacharjee, S., ... & Saxena, A. (2024). Challenges and Solutions for Sustainable ICT: The Role of File Storage. Sustainability, 16(18), 8043.

Coates, S. K., Abroshan, H. (2023). Guideline for the Production of Digital Rights Management (DRM). International Journal of Security, Privacy and Trust Management (IJSPTM), 12(3/4).

Abroshan, H., Devos, J., Poels, G., & Laermans, E. (2021a). COVID-19 and Phishing: Effects of Human Emotions, Behaviour, and Demographics on the Success of Phishing Attempts during the Pandemic. IEEE Access, vol. 9, pp. 121916-121929, 2021, doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3109091.

Abroshan, H., Devos, J., Poels, G., & Laermans, E. (2021, June). A phishing mitigation solution using human behaviour and emotions that influence the success of phishing attacks. In Adjunct Proceedings of the 29th ACM Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization (pp. 345-350).

Abroshan, H. (2021). A Hybrid Encryption Solution to Improve Cloud Computing Security Using Symmetric and Asymmetric Cryptography Algorithms. International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications, 12(6).

Abroshan, H., Devos, J., Poels, G., & Laermans, E. (2021). Phishing Happens Beyond Technology: The Effects of Human Behaviors and Demographics on Each Step of a Phishing Process. IEEE Access, 9, 44928-44949.

Abroshan, H., Devos, J., Poels, G., & Laermans, E. (2017). Phishing Attacks Root Causes. In Lecture Notes in Computer Science (Vol. 10694, pp. 187-202): Springer.

Wittenburg, P., Hellström, M., Zwölf, C. M., Abroshan, H., Asmi, A., Di Bernardo, G., ... & Weigel, T. (2017). Persistent identifiers: Consolidated assertions. Standard, Research Data Alliance; Zenodo: Geneva, Switzerland.