Doctoral students Software Engineering and Cyber-security - Hiring in process/Finished, not possible to apply

Project description

The doctoral work will be done as part of research project ”CHAINS: Consistent Hardening and Analysis of Software Supply Chains”. Project CHAINS has been granted to KTH by the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research for 32M SEK.

We’re building a team for CHAINS or 4 PhD students, 2 postdocs, 2 engineers and interns. Now, we have the following openings for Doctoral Students in Software Engineering.

Software Diversification: This thesis aims at creating augmenting diversity in the software supply chain of applications. Modern applications depend on a large number of open source libraries, and are built with a large number of software tools (e.g. for continuous integration, compilation, etc.). They form of the software supply chain of the application. Many applications depend on the same supply chain (same log library, or same build tool), which is a severe risk for reliability at a systemic level. In this thesis we will develop novel technology to augment diversity in the supply chain of applications, in order to reduce the risks of systemic failures or attacks.
Contact: Benoit Baudry <baudry@kth.se>.

Automatic Repair of Breaking Updates: This thesis aims at automatically proposing patches for breaking updates of software libraries. It is a best practice to keep all software dependencies to the latest version. However, some dependency versions are not compatible with the previous version. In this case, automated dependency management (eg with DependaBot or Renovate) still involves some heavy manual work in order to adapt the code to the new version of the library. The PhD student will design, implement and evaluate novel program analysis and program synthesis techniques to automatically repair breaking updates.

Threat modeling of software supply chains: This thesis aims at assessing and improving cybersecurity in the software supply chain of applications. Modern applications depend on a large number of open source libraries, and are built with a large number of software tools (e.g. for continuous integration, compilation, etc.). They form the software supply chain of the application. The complexity that these dependencies bring makes it difficult  to understand and assess the overall vulnerability and risks related to the application. In this thesis we will develop novel methods and technology for automated threat modeling of software supply chains in order to support software engineers to reduce cybersecurity risk in application development.
Contact: Mathias Ekstedt <mekstedt@kth.se>

The PhD student is expected to publish in the top conferences and journals in the field of Software Engineering. The working language is English.

Third-cycle subject: Computer Science

Supervision: Professor Martin Monperrus and Professor Mattias Ekstedt. 

What we offer

• The possibility to study in a dynamic and international research environment in collaboration with industries and prominent universities from all over the world.Read more
• A workplace with many employee benefits and monthly salary according to KTH’s Doctoral student salary agreement.
• A postgraduate education at an institution that is active and supportive in matters pertaining to working conditions, gender equality and diversity as well as study environment.
• Work and study in Stockholm, close to nature and the water.
• Help to relocate and be settled in Sweden and at KTH.

Admission requirements

To be admitted to postgraduate education (Chapter 7, 39 § Swedish Higher Education Ordinance), the applicant must have basic eligibility in accordance with either of the following:

• passed a second cycle degree (for example a master's degree), or
• completed course requirements of at least 240 higher education credits, of which at least 60 second-cycle higher education credits, or
• acquired, in some other way within or outside the country, substantially equivalent knowledge

In addition to the above, there is also a mandatory requirement for English equivalent to English B/6, read more here

Selection

In order to succeed as a doctoral student at KTH you need to be goal oriented and persevering in your work. During the selection process, candidates will be assessed upon their ability to:

• independently pursue his or her work,
• collaborate with others,
• have a professional approach and
• analyse and work with complex issues.

The successful candidates should have a strong background in computer science. The PhD students is expected to publish in the top conferences and journals in the field of Software Engineering. The working language is English.

 After the qualification requirements, great emphasis will be placed on personal competency. 

Target degree: Doctoral degree

Information regarding admission and employment

Only those admitted to postgraduate education may be employed as a doctoral student. The total length of employment may not be longer than what corresponds to full-time doctoral education in four years ' time. An employed doctoral student can, to a limited extent (maximum 20%), perform certain tasks within their role, e.g. training and administration. A new position as a doctoral student is for a maximum of one year, and then the employment may be renewed for a maximum of two years at a time.

Union representatives

Contact information KTH's website.

Doctoral section (Students’ union on KTH Royal Institute of Technology)

Contact information section's website.

Application

Apply for the position and admission through KTH's recruitment system. It is the applicant’s responsibility to ensure that the application is complete in accordance with the instructions in the advertisement.

Applications must be received at the last closing date at midnight, CET/CEST (Central European Time/Central European Summer Time).

Applications must include:

• CV including your relevant professional experience and knowledge.
• Application letter with a brief description of why you want to pursue research studies, about what your academic interests are and how they relate to your previous studies and future goals. (Maximum 2 pages long)
• Copies of diplomas and grades from previous university studies and certificates of fulfilled language requirements (see above). Translations into English or Swedish if the original document is not issued in one of these languages.Copies of originals must be certified.
• Representative publications or technical reports. For longer documents, please provide a summary (abstract) and a web link to the full text.

Other information

Striving towards gender equality, diversity and equal conditions is both a question of quality for KTH and a given part of our values.

For information about processing of personal data in the recruitment process please read here.

We firmly decline all contact with staffing, recruitment agencies and job ad salespersons.

Disclaimer: In case of discrepancy between the Swedish original and the English translation of the job announcement, the Swedish version takes precedence.