PHD THESIS “ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FOR CYBER DEFENSE AND SECURITY"

As Austria's largest research and technology organisation for applied research, we are dedicated to make substantial contributions to solving the major challenges of our time, climate change and digitisation. To achieve our goals, we rely on our specific research, development and technology competencies, which are the basis of our commitment to excellence in all areas. With our open culture of innovation and our motivated, international teams, we are working to position AIT as Austria's leading research institution at the highest international level and to make a positive contribution to the economy and society.
 
Our Center for Digital Safety and Security located in Vienna invites applications for a PhD Thesis position. At the Center for Digital Safety and Security our research unit “Secure Communication Technologies” closely works with industrial partners across Europe on state-of-the-art technologies and solutions for the future cyber security ecosystem to counteract potential cyber incidents resulting from new and extensive ICT infrastructures with increasing connectivity and unclear attack surfaces. 
 
As part of our Research Field Cyber Security, you will work throughout your PhD project in large-scale European funded projects, contributing to the development of next generation Machine Learning and AI systems in the area of Cyber Defense. The European projects NEWSROOM and EUCINF will start beginning of 2024 and deal with next generation intrusion detection systems, data and CTI collection and analysis, collaborative and federated learning, attack behaviour classification, visualisation techniques, cyber threat intelligence sharing, deception technologies and digital twins.
 
Join our AIT PhD programme with around 150 international students, carried out in cooperation with renowned universities and other research organisations. By working with our experts as well as with our national and international project partners from the industry you have the chance to develop out-of-the box solutions and to contribute to a more sustainable society - Let's make ideas work

PHD THESIS “ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FOR CYBER DEFENSE AND SECURITY"

CENTER FOR DIGITAL SAFETY & SECURITY - Cyber Security Research

• As part of this PhD thesis, you will deal intensively with the topic of active cyber defense, which involves various monitoring and intrusion detection methods using advanced machine learning and concepts from the domain of Artificial Intelligence.
• Under the guidance of our team, you will research and develop new solutions for anomaly detection and the automated application of cyber threat intelligence, and personally contribute to established Open-Source projects.
• You will forensically evaluate log data with methods from data science to learn and understand how cyber-attacks can be spotted.
• You will learn how to build up virtual infrastructures and run simulated attacks to empirically evaluate your implementations on our cyber range.

• You will become part of a complex European research project and build up your scientific profile in cooperation with the European research community.
• Together with renown experts in the field, you will publish your results at international academic conferences and in scientific journals in the field of cyber security.
• You will accumulate experience in your research field, that has high visibility and impact, and an enormous range of applications in the civil as well as military domain.
• You will gain experience in a group of international scientists and build up your professional network and academic profile.

Your qualifications as an Ingenious Partner:

• Master's studies in the field of computer science, artificial intelligence, mathematics, or other related fields
• At least basic domain knowledge in Cyber Security, deeper knowledge in technical aspects of cyber security monitoring, attack techniques and threat intelligence is beneficial
• Good programming skills in Python, R, Go, or other scientific programming languages
• Experience with machine learning applications and Natural Language Processing (NLP) would be an advantage
• Interested in reading and writing scientific publications and enjoy application-oriented questions from industry
• Analytical thinking and enthusiasm for highly innovative research
• High level of commitment and team spirit
• Very good English language and presentation skills are essential, German language skills are an asset

Details:

• Duration of the PhD project: 3 years, extensions are possible and welcome
• AIT supervises PhD students together with local universities, such as the TU Wien, the University of Vienna or the Johannes Kepler University Linz.
• Admission at an university is compulsory and independent from the PhD position at AIT.

What to expect:
EUR 34.507,20- gross per year, for 30 h / week based on the collective agreement. In addition to numerous events, seminars and networking opportunities, there will be additional company benefits. As a research institution, we are familiar with the supervision and execution of PhD theses, and we are looking forward to supporting you accordingly!
 

At AIT diversity and inclusion are of great importance. This is why we strive to inspire women to join our teams in the field of technology. We welcome applications from women, who will be given preference in case of equal qualifications after taking into account all relevant facts and circumstances of all applications.
 
Please submit your documents including your CV, cover letter and your certificates (Transcript of records) online.APPLY NOW!