M.A. (Hons) (Aberdeen) PhD (Aberdeen) M.B.C.S.
Teaching Fellow
- About
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- Email Address
- robert.duncan@abdn.ac.uk
- School/Department
- Business School
- School/Department
- School of Natural and Computing Sciences
- School/Department
- School of Geosciences
External Memberships
I am a reviewer for the International Council on Systems Engineering, an MIT Journal: Software Engineering.
I am a reviewer for the International Conference on Cloud Computing, GRIDs, and Virtualization.
I am a reviewer for the International Journal of Advances in Security.
I am a reviewer for the Information Technology & People Journal.
I am a reviewer for the Journal of Network and Computer Applications.
I am Co-Chair for the Enterprise Security Workshop at the IEEE/ACM International Conference on Utility and Cloud Computing.
I am a member of the Advisory Committee for the CLOUD COMPUTING series.
I am Chair of a Special Track for the The Eighth International Conference on Cloud Computing, GRIDs, and Virtualization. The Special Track will focus on cyber security in the cloud and is titled:
FAST-CCS: Find A Solution To Cloud Cyber Security
There will be 6 papers in the special track as follows:
I have been invited to give a Keynote presentation on Cloud Cyber Security at the The Eighth International Conference on Cloud Computing, GRIDs, and Virtualization.
I am Chair of a Special Track for The Ninth International Conference on Cloud Computing, GRIDs, and Virtualization held in Barcelona, Spain. The Special Track will focus on the unresloved cloud forensic problem and the resulting impact on compliance with the forthcoming EU General Data Protection Regulation. The special track is titled:
FAST-CFP: Find A Solution To: Cloud Forensic Problem
I was elevated to IARIA Fellowship at The Ninth International Conference on Cloud Computing, GRIDs, and Virtualization held in Barcelona, Spain.
I am moderator for a Discussion Panel on Security and Safety in Cloud-based Systems and Services.
I have given a presentation to the International Cybercrime Symposium which was held in Glasgow in August 2017.
I have presented a morning seminar at the International Cybercrime Summer School held in Glasgow in August 2017.
I have been advising Police Scotland on a number of Cyber Security matters.
I am a member of the programme committee for the first Bright Internet Global Summit (BIG Summit) which will be held in Seoul on 8-12 December 2017.
I am a member of the Technical Program Committee for The 2018 International Conference on High Performance Computing & Simulation (HPCS 2018) which takes place from 16-20 July 2018.
I am chair of The 7th International Workshop on Security, Privacy and Performance in Cloud Computing (SPCLOUD 2018) which will run at HPCS 2018 from 16-20 July 2018.
I will be presenting at the International Cybercrime Symposium which will be held in Glasgow in August 2018.
- Research
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Research Overview
I have an interest in information security and privacy, and I have a particular interest in cloud security and privacy. The goal of achieving good security and privacy in conventional systems presents a difficult challenge, however, in a cloud setting, this becomes much more difficult to achieve. There are far more actors involved in a cloud ecosystem, many of whom have their own agendas, thus adding to the challenge of achieving good security and privacy.
I also have an interest in information systems, particularly those which are used for accounting systems, and particularly on the weaknesses of the audit trail. Information systems have become so complex over recent years, that simply installing and configuring a system presents a serious challenge in trying to attain the right balance between usability of the system, while at the same time, trying to achieve the right level of security and privacy.
I also have in interest in analysing textual information in financial reports, using linguistic tools to allow the processing of data at scale. Traditional accounting numbers are no longer the primary focus of the annual report, and in many cases now comprise as little as 20% of the whole report. The other textual part of the report, with much input from PR people, can provide a fruitful area of research to determine much of the thinking of the company on a diverse number of areas, and can even provide an indicator of the presence of fraudulent activity. There are a few technical issues still to be ironed out, but this area presents the prospect of discovering some very interesting results.
Publications
Click link for download:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/7unoqdu9mj2shhv/BobDuncanPublications_2021.pdf?dl=0
Collaborations
I have a number of collaborations with other academics at various stages of development.
Martin Gilje Jaatun, of SINTECH ICT, Trondheim, Norway and I wrote a book chapter for the Enterprise Security Springer Book 2016 based on our respective papers presented at the second international workshop on Enterprise Security, which was part of the 7th IEEE International Conference on Cloud Computing Technology and Science. Our paper won a best paper award, and Martin won a best presenter award, and the book chapter is based on these two papers, showing how security measurement could be outsourced in the cloud. We will be looking at other monitoring areas which could similarly be successfully outsourced.
Mats Neovius, of Abo Akademi University, Turku, Finland and I wrote a paper on anomaly detection for soft security in cloud based auditing of accounting systems. Maintaining a proper audit trail for cloud based accounting systems is a particular challenge. Following an audit trail paper I wrote for Cloud Computing 2016 to highlight this issue, which won a best paper award, Mats suggested we could use a formal adaptive methods approach to address this issue. The paper oulines how such an approach might address this issue and has been submited for publication to CLOSER 2017. We plan to develop this approach further.
Alfred Bratterud, of Oslo and Akershus University, Oslo, Norway, and Andreas Happe, of the Austrian Inst. of Tech. GmbH, Vienna, Austria, and I are working on a series of papers, based on the idea of using a unikernel based approach to offer better cloud security and privacy than current approaches offer. We believe this approach will also lend itself to Internet of things applications. the first paper has been accepted for publication, and the second two have already been submitted for publication. We are currently working on another 5 papers in this series, which we are seeking to have published within the next 6 months.
Thomas Pasquier, formerly of Cambridge University, and now of Harvard University, and I are collaborating on a paper on adding stong audit compliance to his information flow control framework. We are looking to publish this work within the next 6 months.
Adam Wyner, of the Computing Science Department, and I are working on the textual analysis of corporate annual returns. This is a particularly challenging issue, due to the difficulty in extracting the data from these reports. It is a trivial matter to extract the data from the electronic files. However, extracting all the data in the right order is particularly problematic. Tim Storer, of the University of Glasgow, is also keen to collaborate on this work once we can resolve the technical issues.
Karen Renauld, of University of Glasgow, and I are keen to work on human-centered security, as we both believe humans present the greatest weakness in information systems. Most approaches tend to focus on technical solutions alone, which ignore completely the weaknesses presented by human actors.
- Teaching
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Teaching Responsibilities
Department of Computing Science Courses Taught
2019/20 Term 1
CS1028 - Programming for Sciences and Engineering
CS3025 - Knowledge Based Systems
CS4028 - Security
CS5099 - Information Security
CS50AH - Information Security (Online)
2019/20 Term 2
CS1520 - Computer Architecture
CS1527 - Object Oriented Programming
CS551J - Knowledge Representation and Reasoning
Previous Classes Taught in the Business School
AW1005 Academic Writing
AC1011 Accounting and Accountability
AC1515 Accounting and Entrepreneurship
FI1004 Finance 1: Finance Risk and Investment
PO1002 Finance Risk and Investment
FI2001 Personal Investment
FI2501 Financial Markets and Regulation
AC2031 Management Accounting 2
BU5026 Accounting and Finance for Managers
BU5031 Accounting
BU5043 Marketing Decision Making
BU5049 Business and Money
BU5070 Accounting and Reporting
BU5571 Management Accounting
BU5574 Financial Analysis and International Accounting
BU5575 Financial Analysis and Markets
BU5595 Accounting and Reporting
BU5847 Studies in Accounting
BU5848 Studies in Finance
BU5849 Professional Finance
AC 4501 Dissertation in Finance - Supervision
AC 4528 Dissertation in Accountancy - Supervision
BU5903 Masters Dissertation - Supervision
Business School: Technology Drop-in Sessions
Course Co-ordinator Roles
I am course co-ordinator for the following courses:
Undergraduate:
FI2001 Personal Investment
Masters:
BU5026 Accounting and Finance for Managers
BU5043 Marketing Decision Making
BU5049 Business and Money
BU5070 Accounting and Reporting
BU5571 Management Accounting
BU5595 Accounting and Reporting
Other School Course Co-ordinator Roles:
I am course co-ordinator for and am developing two new Masters Courses as part of a new Masters degree in Petroleum Data Management, which starts in September 2018:
GL5310 Petroleum Data Governance
GL5401 Petroeum Data Quality Management