Cyber Research

From understanding the dynamics and impacts of bushfires to tracking the survival of little penguins – we use mathematical methods and scientific computing to find practical solutions to real-world problems.


Using our understanding of human behaviour through aspects like decision-making, habit, and motivation, we investigate ways in which these promote healthy, resilient adjustments to an increasing range of pressing social problems.

We develop innovative approaches to software-intensive system cybersecurity and resiliency to combat attacks on critical infrastructure. We harness advanced modelling techniques to simulate attacks to improve risk identification, intrusion detection, privacy preservation, and enhance business system processes to respond to cyber intrusions.

We explore war and peace through societal, political, and military dimensions and debate issues related to social and military history.

Our researchers work at the intersection of science and art to explore the challenges posed through changes to the human way of life, applying social scientific thinking to help resolve social conflicts and environmental crises.

UNSW Canberra Cyber is developing innovative research solutions and technological approaches to cyber-physical system design, management, and controls that will reshape our world with more responsive, precise, robust, and efficient systems. 

We tackle the ethical and moral challenges faced in modern cyber warfare to prevent systems and platforms from being disrupted or crippled by the expansion of autonomous systems in combat.

We examine the financial, economic, psychological, and sociological aspects that place certain individuals at higher risk of cybersecurity threats. By researching methods to detect criminals we focus on protecting individuals from scams, terrorism, insider threats, propaganda, and misinformation through fake news.

We focus on understanding modern conflict through gamification, simulation, and wargaming. Using these tactics to study influence propagation and cyber threats, we can test capabilities, identify gaps in cyber strategies, and build leaders’ abilities to make decisions in real-time. 

We explore machine learning, deep learning and emerging artificial intelligence techniques to help address cyber vulnerabilities quickly and protect computer systems, networks, and individuals from potential threats.

Bringing together international relations, political theory, and moral philosophy we debate and address ethical questions in international politics.

Our experts are dedicated to ensuring the systems critical to the well-being and operation of our society can withstand, adapt to, and recover quickly from anticipated or unexpected shocks and stresses - now and in the future.

We examine how to identify, prioritise, target, record, and process information that is critical to cybersecurity. By anticipating what might happen to systems and networks under cyber attack, situational awareness can help protect sensitive data, sustain fundamental operations, and protect national infrastructure from malicious attacks.



Trusted Autonomy is an emerging field of research that focuses on understanding how human-machine interactions and artificial intelligence can be used to develop autonomous systems that have a positive impact on our society and quality of life.


Many of the privacy and security problems that plague today’s online world are the result of a failure to consider system users. Usable security and value-sensitive design consider the influence that culture and technology have on one another and bring human values to the forefront of the technology design process. 

We bring human values to the forefront of the technical design process to provide strategies for identifying and incorporating social and moral values into information technology design and development in defence and security.