Hung Nguyen

Associate Professor Hung Nguyen

Associate Professor/Reader

School of Computer and Mathematical Sciences

Faculty of Sciences, Engineering and Technology

Eligible to supervise Masters and PhD - email supervisor to discuss availability.


I am an associate professor in the school of computer and mathematical sciences and the leader of the Information warfare and advanced cyber theme within the Defence trailblazer, the University of Adelaide.

I'm leading a research group on Cyber-AI, applying new advances in AI to solve problems in network fragility and security. We focus on developing autonomous and provable cyber defensive solutions. This means building and configuring systems that are secure by design and training trustworthy AI agents to help defend networked systems. By employing tools from graph theory, game theory and AI/ML we are able to develop practical solutions that help human operators deal with the complexity, fast-paced and deceptive nature of the cyber environments.

For most recent updates to my work (especially code, data and papers), please visit https://hxnguyen.github.io.

(01/12/2023): We have recently been awarded a 2.5-year grant for provable network security. We are looking for 2 research fellows and one research engineer to join this exciting project. Please contact me if you would like to know more.

(10/08/2023): We are recruiting a post-doc to work on our industry-funded project on IoT security, please consider applying. See the position description https://careers.adelaide.edu.au/cw/en/job/512206/postdoctoral-researcher-ab-resilient-platform-interfaces.

Short Bio: A/Prof Hung Nguyen is the Cyber lead for the Defence trailblazer (the University of Adelaide and UNSW). He has an excellent track record in working with Industry and in developing academia-industry collaborations. Over the last 15 years, he has been leading more than 15 successful projects delivering solutions in network security, modelling and simulation of networked systems for Defence and Industry. Outside of academia, he has worked both in start-ups (Telari); consulting to leading telecom and solution providers such as Telstra, CSL, AT&T and CISCO; and providing security and modelling solutions for the Australian Defence Force and Cybersecurity SMEs. He has published more than 80 publications on these topics at prestigious international journals and conferences.

Since 2009, I have been developing autonomous and provable techniques for securing the information environment. This means building and configuring systems that are secure by design, not just addressing problems when they strike. By leveraging tools from graph theory, game theory and AI/ML we build practical solutions that help human operators deal with the complexity, fast-paced and deceptive nature of the cyber environments. Our research program is supported by multiple grants from Defence and the Australian Research Council - current projects are shown below.

Current Projects

For details of these projects, please contact me directly.

My paper on network auto-configuration in 2010 started the Autonetkit software (ANK). ANK is currently being used as the auto-configuration tool for the Cisco VIRL simulation and emulation environment. See for example here

The Internet Topology Zoo that I helped build  is widely used in all areas of networking research and development worldwide and has been cited  more than 1200 times.

My tomography papers were nominated for awards at major networking conferences. 

Find out more about my research publications at my Google scholar page.

Over last five years I have been responsible for securing research funding worth over $9M – most if not all
are in the area of networks and security. I am the leading chief investigator and/or technical lead for $8M
of this funding. The grants comprise of 1 Defence trailblazer project, 3 Next Generation Technology Fund
(NGTF), 8 direct Defence research projects, 1 Industry funded project, 1 ARC NISRDG grant, 1 Linkage
grant as the first named chief investigator, and 1 ARC LIEF grant. Three of these projects started in 2024
and six are on-going with a total funding of $5.05M that enables me to build a substantial research group
and research programs. We have made great progress with the projects with significant publications and
capabilities delivered to the customers.

I co-lead (with Prof. Salil Kanhere, UNSW) the Advanced Cyber and IW theme of the Defence Traiblazer - a joint initiative between UoA and UNSW with a total funding of ~$240M (over 4 years, 6 themes).

Highlights of my teaching include

  • My student evaluations (SELTs) are consistently extremely high; I have been well above the School, Faculty, and University averages for every question in every semester I have taught.
  • I was nominated for a Faculty of SET Excellence in Teaching Award for my lecturing in 2022.

Details of the courses that I developed and taught are given below.
Lecturing

  • 2023 Cybersecurity fundamentals (CS3308) 238 students
  • 2023 Hot Topics in IoT Security (CS7106 50 students
  • 2022 Hot Topics in IoT Security (CS7106 12 students

Course coordination

  • 2023 Cybersecurity fundamentals (CS3308) 238 students
  • 2023 Parallel and Distributed Computing (CS 3305/3705) 125 students
  • 2023 Hot Topics in IoT Security 50 students
  • 2023 Applied Privacy course 20 students
  • 2022 Hot topics in IoT security 12 students
  • 2022 Parallel and distributed computing 108 students

Course development

  • 2022: I designed and developed on my own the entire course materials (lectures, workshops, and assignments) for Hot topics in IoT Security
  • 2022: I developed the Master level course for Applied Privacy
 
  • Current Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)

    Date Role Research Topic Program Degree Type Student Load Student Name
    2023 Co-Supervisor Internet Traffic Matrices Master of Philosophy Master Part Time Mr Eric Parsonage
    2023 Principal Supervisor Dynamic Metagraph Models and their Applications in Active Directory Security Master of Philosophy Master Full Time Mr Nhu Long Nguyen
    2023 Principal Supervisor Algorithms for the Analysis of Network Robustness Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Yumeng Zhang
    2022 Principal Supervisor Scalable Hypergame models and solutions for Autonomous Cyber Operations. Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Quang Huy Ngo
    2022 Principal Supervisor Characterising Cyber Environments and Assets using Graph Modelling and Machine Learning Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Mr Ben Luo
    2021 Co-Supervisor Distributed intelligence in smart satellites Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr James John Cormack
    2021 Co-Supervisor Algorithms and Equilibrium Computation for Defending Active Directory Style Attack Graphs Master of Philosophy Master Full Time Mr Jialiang Li
    2021 Principal Supervisor Hannan Consistent Countermeasures Against Non-Stationary Adversarial Attacks on Autonomous Cyber Operations Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Nhat Dao Anh Nguyen
    2017 Principal Supervisor Routing and security in Mobile adhoc networks Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Ameer Shakayb Arsalaan
  • Past Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)

    Date Role Research Topic Program Degree Type Student Load Student Name
    2021 - 2024 Principal Supervisor Analysis of New Methods for Inference in Markov Decision Processes Master of Philosophy Master Full Time Mr Blake Edward Donnelly
    2015 - 2018 Co-Supervisor Adaptive Reinforcement Learning for Heterogeneous Network Selection Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Duong Duc Nguyen
    2015 - 2018 Co-Supervisor Community Detection in Complex Networks Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Ba Dung Le
  • Memberships

    Date Role Membership Country
    2004 - ongoing Member IEEE -
    2004 - ongoing Member Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) -
  • Position: Associate Professor/Reader
  • Phone: 83136214
  • Email: hung.nguyen@adelaide.edu.au
  • Campus: North Terrace
  • Building: Ingkarni Wardli, floor 5
  • Org Unit: Computer Science

Connect With Me
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