Rate My Professor Atif Ahmad

Professor Atif Ahmad is a Professor in the School of Computing and Information Systems within the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at the University of Melbourne. He obtained his PhD in Information Security from the University of Melbourne in 2010 and a Bachelor's Degree from the same institution. As Deputy Director of the Academic Centre of Cyber Security Excellence, his primary academic interest is cybersecurity management. Ahmad's research investigates organizational management practices during cyber attacks, encompassing situation awareness for incident response, adoption and integration of cyber-threat intelligence in commercial organizations, competencies required for cybersecurity leaders, and multi-strategy perspectives on information security. A Certified Protection Professional with more than twenty years of experience from the American Society for Industrial Security, he has served as an advisor to the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Malaysian National Cyber Security Agency. He has led cyber capacity building projects in Malaysia and the Philippines, contributing to cyber resilience and countermeasures against disinformation.

Atif Ahmad has produced over 120 peer-reviewed publications, including key works such as 'Adopting and integrating cyber-threat intelligence in a commercial organisation' (2022, European Journal of Information Systems), 'How can organizations develop situation awareness for incident response: A systematic literature review and novel model' (2021, Computers & Security), 'Information security strategies: Towards an organizational multi-strategy perspective' (2012), and 'Digital forensic readiness' (2015, Computers & Security). He has successfully supervised twelve PhD students to completion. His accolades include the Faculty Teaching & Learning Engagement Award (2021), the Coursework Development Excellence Award (2017), and an award for capacity building contributions from the Chief Executive of the Malaysian National Cyber Security Agency. Ahmad pioneered video-enhanced storytelling for cybersecurity education, earning seventeen international film festival awards, including Best Original Screenplay at the London International Film Festival. Through executive training programs, public lectures on cyber-attack management, and roles in research groups like the Information Systems Group and Cybersecurity Management, he significantly impacts the field of cybersecurity practice.