AI-Enhanced Threat Intelligence Sharing against Online Harm and Crypto Crimes: Privacy-Preserving Analytics and Public-Private Coordinated Response and Recovery

About the Project

Project Details

Online harms and crypto-enabled crimes increasingly use crypto payments and dark-web services to scale abuse, including pay-in-crypto sextortion, ransomware monetisation, fraud-as-a-service marketplaces, and laundering and cash-out networks. The indicators and evidence needed to detect and mitigate these activities are fragmented across banks and payment service providers, crypto businesses, online platforms, cyber security providers, and law enforcement. Privacy, legal, and trust constraints limit the speed and quality of intelligence exchange, and sharing often happens only after escalation or harm has occurred. This undermines timely, coordinated response and recovery and prevents effective real-time collaboration. This PhD will address that gap by developing an advanced, privacy-preserving intel-to-action framework that enables public and private organisations to share actionable intelligence and coordinate response and recovery without transferring raw sensitive data. It will apply AI-enhanced analytics using privacy-preserving collaboration centred on federated learning, with selective use of homomorphic encryption and/or blockchain anchoring where appropriate, to support cross-partner detection, correlation, and prioritisation while maintaining lawful and auditable handling of information. To ensure interoperability and operational uptake, analytic outputs will be normalised into STIX objects and distributed via TAXII collections segmented by typology and sensitivity, such as pay-in-crypto campaigns, dark-web fraud shops, and wallet cluster signals. A key innovation is coupling intelligence generation with a coordinated public and private response and recovery mechanism aligned with national cyber resilience priorities and UK Government Cyber Action Plan style coordination. The framework will define governance structures including roles, decision rights, service level agreements, escalation paths, and audit trails so shared intelligence can trigger timely and accountable actions such as disruption, for example wallet blocking and takedown requests, safeguarding through victim alerts, and structured recovery workflows. Methodologically, the project will combine analysis of open-source case studies, OSINT, public blockchain data, and selected dark-web intelligence to derive typologies and baseline indicators, alongside stakeholder engagement through semi-structured interviews across law enforcement, national coordination bodies, and industry. It will then develop and evaluate a proof-of-concept federated socio-technical framework that keeps sensitive data local while enabling privacy-preserving analytics and interoperable intelligence exchange using STIX and TAXII under agreed workflows, roles, and auditability. The framework will be assessed for feasibility, actionability, governance fit, and its impact on timely response and recovery. The research will be delivered in close collaboration with Aston University’s Cyber Security Innovation (CSI) Research Centre and a strong network of government and industry partners, providing an applied research environment with clear routes to impact, scalable pilots, and follow-on larger projects. This PhD is ideal for students interested in threat intelligence, privacy-preserving AI, and cybercrime disruption who want to help reduce online harms and crypto-enabled crimes.

This PhD will be delivered in close collaboration with Aston University’s Cyber Security and Innovation (CSI) Research Centre, providing access to an established applied research environment, sector networks, and clear routes to impact. The supervisory team works within a strong public–private ecosystem relevant to threat intelligence sharing, online harms, and crypto-enabled crime, including regional and national stakeholders and SME engagement. The project aligns with ongoing funded research and bid activity across the wider CSI portfolio, supporting stakeholder access, data collection, and pathways to scale through follow-on research and larger UK and EU-funded projects.

Person Specification

The successful applicant should hold, or expect to achieve:

A First or Upper Second Class Honours undergraduate degree, and a Masters degree with Merit or Distinction, both in relevant subjects.

Qualifications from overseas institutions will be considered, but performance must be equivalent to that described above, and the University reserves the right to ascertain this equivalence according to its own criteria.

Desirable / Essential Skills or Experience

Desirable characteristics

• Distinction in the MSc or BSc dissertation.
• Evidence of research experience (e.g. publications, research assistantships, etc.).
• Professional experience relevant to the proposed research.

Submitting an application

We can only consider applications that are complete and have all supporting documents. Applications that do not provide all the relevant documents will be automatically rejected.Your application must include:

1. English language copies of the transcripts and certificates for all your higher education degrees, including any Bachelor degrees.
2. A Research Statement detailing your understanding of the research area, how you would approach the project, and a brief review of relevant literature. Be sure to use the title of the research project you are applying for. There is no set format or word count.
3. A personal statement which outlines any further information which you think is relevant to your application, such as your personal suitability for research, career aspirations, possible future research interests, and further description of relevant employment experience.
4. A Curriculum Vitae (Resume) which details your education and work history.
5. Two academic refereeswho can discuss your suitability for independent research. References must be on headed paper, signed and dated no more than 2 years old. At least one reference should be from your most recent University. You can submit your references at a later date if necessary.
6. Evidence that you meet the English Language requirements. If you do not currently meet the language requirements, you can submit this at a later stage.
7. A copy of your passport. Where relevant, include evidence of settled or pre-settled status.

Contact Information

For enquiries about this project, contact a.patel122@aston.ac.uk

Location

This position will be based on the Aston Campus in Birmingham, UK. The successful candidate will need to be located within a reasonable distance of the campus, and will be expected to visit in person regularly.

Interviews

Interviews will be conducted online via Microsoft Teams. If you are shortlisted, you will be contacted directly with details of the interview.

If you require further information about the application process, please contact the Postgraduate Admissions team at pgr_admissions@aston.ac.uk

Funding Notes

This project covers all tuition fees.

Please note that the successful candidate will be responsible for living expenses, and any costs relating to moving to Birmingham and/or visiting the Aston campus. International students must meet the financial requirements for the visa, flights, and NHS Surcharge. Applicants should be confident that they can meet these costs before applying.

Further information can be found here: Financial Requirements | Aston University