PhD position in Cybercrime in Underground Ecosystems

Cybersecurity Group

Deadline for receipt of applications: 08 June 2021, 14:00h Europe/Madrid Time

Underground markets play a key role in the proliferation of cybercrime. Users with few technical skills can easily acquire services and tools in the darknet to set up their own criminal operations. An example is illicit crypto-mining campaigns, that use botnets rented in such markets to leverage stolen resources and covertly mine 4.4% of the entire Monero in circulation (circa 58 million USD) [1]. Profits generated by these campaigns introduce massive incomes to cyber-criminals. These incomes fuel the underground economy and gear other cyber-criminal activities. More importantly, these threats generally cause important economical loses to victims.

The purpose of this PhD is to develop data driven approaches to better understand how these communities are structured and the type of crimes they support.

As an outcome, in this PhD you will learn how to devise novel methods to fight against online crime.

[1] A First Look at the Crypto-Mining Malware Ecosystem: A Decade of Unrestricted Wealth. Sergio Pastrana and Guillermo Suarez-Tangil. ACM Internet Measurement Conference (IMC). Oct 21-23, 2019. Amsterdam, Netherlands

The position offers:

• The prospect to publish at top-tier venues
• The opportunity to work on a thrilling environment

The position requires:

• A degree in Computer Science or related field, with a solid academic record
• Background in statistical learning or data analysis
• Programming skills
• Proficiency in English

The selected student will be supervised by: Dr. Guillermo SUAREZ-TANGIL