Muhammad Nouman Nafees

Nouman is a Lecturer in Cyber Security and Forensic Computing, and his research focuses on cyber-physical systems and critical infrastructure security. He has received a Royal Society Exceptional Talent endorsement in recognition of his research contributions to the field. He leverages his expertise in moving target defence strategies, indicators of compromise analysis, and physics-informed security. His projects, including those funded by Innovate UK, combine technical rigour with practical resilience outcomes.

Email: [email protected]

Background

Nouman holds a PhD in Computer Science from Cardiff University and specialises in physics-informed cyber-physical and smart grid security, with particular emphasis on moving target defence strategies, attack modelling, and contextual anomaly detection for critical infrastructure. His research integrates cyber-physical simulation, attack impact analysis, and machine and deep learning to enhance the security and resilience of critical infrastructure systems.

He is Principal Investigator on an Innovate UK-funded project on Dynamic Security for Industrial Control Systems Powered by Physics-Informed Moving Target Defence. Nouman has received multiple conference grants (ACM CCS, NDSS, ACSAC, IEEE S&P), including a PhD studentship from Cardiff University. Alongside his research leadership, he contributes to peer review, student supervision, and research-led teaching across undergraduate and postgraduate cybersecurity modules. He has received a Royal Society Exceptional Talent endorsement in recognition of his research contributions to the cyber security of cyber-physical systems and critical infrastructure.

Research interests

• Cyber-physical systems (CPS) security
• Smart grid cybersecurity and resilience
• Physics-informed anomaly detection
• Stealthy false data injection and process-aware attack detection
• Attack modelling and cyber-physical attack impact analysis
• Moving target defence for critical infrastructure
• Security of distributed energy and power-system communications
• Incident response and forensic analysis in critical infrastructure environments

Area of Expertise

• Cyber-Physical Systems and Operational Technology (OT) security
• smart grid cybersecurity, physics-informed security
• attack modelling
• context-aware detection for critical infrastructure

Areas of research supervision

Nouman is keen to supervise PhD students in the areas outlined in his research interests, particularly those engaged in interdisciplinary research.

Teaching

• Module Leader, Advanced Network Security Principles (postgraduate)
• Module Leader, Digital Security (undergraduate)

Qualifications

• Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Computer Science, Cardiff University, UK - Research focused on physics-informed security for cyber-physical systems and critical infrastructure.
• BSc (Hons) in Computer Networks and Cyber Security (First-Class Honours), Northumbria University, UK

Memberships, editorial boards

• Member, IEEE
• Member, ACM
• Member, Chartered Institute of Information Security (CIISec)
• Reviewer, IEEE journals and conferences
• Reviewer, ACM journals and conferences

Research grants, consultancy, knowledge exchange

Principal Investigator, Innovate UK Grant (~£32,000): Dynamic Security for Industrial Control Systems Powered by Physics-Informed Moving Target Defence.

Selected recent publications

Nafees, M.N., Saxena, N., Cardenas, A., Grijalva, S. and Burnap, P., 2023. Smart grid cyber-physical situational awareness of Complex Operational Technology Attacks: A review. ACM Computing Surveys, 55(10), pp.1-36.

Nafees, M.N., Saxena, N. and Burnap, P., 2022. Physics-informed anomaly detection in power systems. In: IEEE SmartGridComm 2022, Singapore.

Nafees, M.N., Saxena, N. and Burnap, P., 2022. Physics-Informed Augmentation for Contextual Anomaly Detection in Smart Grid. ACM CCS 2022, Los Angeles. CCS ’22, pp.3427-3429.

Nafees, M.N., Saxena, N. and Burnap, P., 2021. Optimized Predictive Control for AGC Cyber Resiliency. In: ACM CCS 2021, Seoul. CCS ’21, pp.2450-2452.

Orr, F., Nafees, M.N., Saxena, N. and Choi, B.J., 2021. Securing publisher-subscriber in smart grid. Electronics, 10(19), p.2355.

Nafees, M.N., Saxena, N., Burnap, P. and Choi, B.J., 2020. Impact of energy consumption attacks on LoRaWAN-enabled devices. In: ACM CCS 2020, USA.

Nafees, M.N., Saxena, N. and Burnap, P., 2023. Adaptive moving target defence in power systems. In: ACNS 2023, Kyoto, Japan, 19-22 June 2023.

Nafees, M.N., Saxena, N. and Burnap, P., 2021. Process control attack detection in substation automation. In: IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy 2021.

Nafees, M.N., Saxena, N., Khan, R. and Burnap, P., 2020. Relay attack discrimination for situational awareness-based anomaly detection. In: ACSAC 2020, 7-11 December 2020.

Recent presentations and conferences

Google Research Workshop, Cardiff University, United Kingdom, 2024 - Research presentation on cybersecurity in cyber-physical systems.

UKIERI Workshop, Cardiff University, United Kingdom, 2024 - Participation in workshop on socio-technical research capabilities for autonomous electric vehicles’ critical safety, security, and adoption.

ACNS, Kyoto, Japan, 2023 - Presentation on adaptive moving target defence in power systems.

IEEE SmartGridComm, Singapore, 2022 - Presentation on physics-informed detection in power systems.

ACM CCS, Los Angeles, USA, 2022 - Presentation on Physics-Informed Augmentation in Smart Grids.