Dr Daniel Thomas
Senior Lecturer
Computer and Information Sciences
Personal statement
I deliver research that enables the accurate and ethical measurement of security and cybercrime. By measuring security and cybercrime we can monitor improvement, evaluate interventions and inform regulators. This reveals which techniques work and provides the missing economic incentives to improve security and reduce cybercrime. I work with researchers across disciplines to understand the full picture. More information on my personal page.
I am Director of the University of Strathclyde's Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research.
Prize And Awards
- Department of Computer Science and Technology Cambridge Ring Publication of the Year 2025: Runner-up
- Recipient
- 15/4/2026
- Senior Fellow
- Recipient
- 1/1/2026
- Honorable mention at Usenix Security
- Recipient
- 13/8/2025
- CDCD Digital Research Prizes Best Impact from a Data-Led Project: Joint Winner
- Recipient
- 7/6/2024
- Longlisted for Teaching Excellence Award
- Recipient
- 2024
Publications
- "Sticking their heads out above the parapets": Lived Experiences of Legal Risks in Research
- Park Sunoo, Thomas Daniel R
- USENIX Security Symposium 35th USENIX Security Symposium (2026)
- "Sticking their heads out above the parapets" : lived experiences of legal risks in research (extended)
- Park Sunoo, Thomas Daniel R
- (2026)
- Stand-alone complex or vibercrime? Exploring the adoption and innovation of GenAI tools, coding assistants, and agents within cybercrime ecosystems
- Hughes Jack, Collier Ben, Thomas Daniel R
- Workshop on the Economics of Information Security (2026)
- https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.128900
- Assessing the aftermath : the effects of a global takedown against DDoS-for-hire services
- Vu Anh V, Collier Ben, Thomas Daniel R, Kristoff John, Clayton Richard, Hutchings Alice
- 34th USENIX Security Symposium (2025)
- The ethics of psychological manipulation in adversarial conversational AI : confronting the recognition-behaviour gap
- Aboshi Agyo-Adi Stephen, Thomas Daniel R, Moshfeghi Yashar
- CUI '25: Proceedings of the 7th ACM Conference on Conversational User Interfaces 7th ACM Conference on Conversational User Interfaces, pp. 1-6 (2025)
- https://doi.org/10.1145/3719160.3737616
- Influence policing : domestic digital influence campaigns and algorithmic strategic communications in UK law enforcement and homeland security
- Horgan Shane, Collier Ben, Stewart James, Thomas Daniel R
- The British Journal of Criminology Vol 65, pp. 480-503 (2025)
- https://doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azae063
Research Interests
To deliver research that enables the accurate and ethical measurement of security and cybercrime. By measuring security and cybercrime we can monitor improvement, evaluate interventions and inform regulators. This reveals which techniques work and provides the missing economic incentives to improve security and reduce cybercrime.
Professional Activities
- Jingjie Li
- Host
- 22/10/2026
- 9th Strathclyde International Perspectives on Cybercrime Summer School
- Organiser
- 24/8/2026
- Stand-Alone Complex or Vibercrime: Exploring the adoption and innovation of GenAI tools, coding assistance, and agents within cybercrime ecosystems
- Speaker
- 3/8/2026
- Cambridge Cybercrime Centre: Ninth Annual Cybercrime Conference
- Participant
- 22/6/2026
- RISCS annual conference
- Participant
- 21/5/2026
- OS-level age verification verification and "Is it possible to build an age verification system for children only, and not adults?"
- Speaker
- 3/5/2026
Projects
- Influence policing - mapping the links between preventive policing and new media (SIPR)
- Thomas, Daniel (Principal Investigator)
- 11-Jan-2022 - 30-Jan-2025
- Robustness-as-Traceability: Secure and Legal Calibration Workflows in IoT (RoasT - IoT)
- Nagaraja, Shishir (Principal Investigator) Ahmed, Chuadhry Mujeeb (Co-investigator) Andriychuk, Oles (Co-investigator) Daly, Angela (Co-investigator) Thomas, Daniel (Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2022 - 30-Jan-2023
- SIPR PhD Studentships Proposal:Improving Cybercrime reporting
- Thomas, Daniel (Principal Investigator) Renaud, Karen (Co-investigator) Sikra, Juraj (Researcher)
- 01-Jan-2021 - 30-Jan-2024
- Industrial CASE Account - University of Strathclyde 2018 | Calder, Matthew
- Thomas, Daniel (Principal Investigator) Windmill, James (Co-investigator) Calder, Matthew (Research Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2020 - 01-Jan-2024
Contact
Dr
Daniel
Thomas
Senior Lecturer
Computer and Information Sciences
Email: d.thomas@strath.ac.uk
Tel: 548 3524