PhD student in Computer and Systems Sciences, with focus on Security oriented Software Engineering

The Department of Computer and Systems Sciences. With over 200 employees and 4,500 students, the Department of Computer and Systems Sciences (DSV) is a strong and dynamic research and educational environment. The discipline of computer and systems sciences bridges the gap between technology and the humanities, social sciences, and behavioral sciences, with great relevance to our lives today and in the future. Our research addresses how new information and communication technology should be designed to benefit people, organizations and entire societies.

DSV offers a stimulating research community in an international environment. As a doctoral student at DSV, you study together with many other doctoral students, collaborate with senior research colleagues and get connected to other researchers in Sweden and abroad.

More information about us, please visit: the Department of Computer and Systems Sciences.

Project description

What does it mean for a piece of software to be related to another? This is a fundamental question that is relevant to many applications: cybersecurity (e.g., malware detection and malware evolution analysis), digital forensics, plagiarism/cheating detection, and broader software engineering tasks such as library recommendation and collaboration analysis. Consequently, it has been the object of abundant scientific work, but without consensus on a clear set of best practices. Prior work has explored similarity at multiple levels of abstraction: from source-code structure (e.g., AST- and graph-based representations), to compiled artifacts and machine code, and up to observed behavior through execution traces, tests, or runtime signals. Each level offers different trade-offs in robustness, interpretability, and provides insights to solve different problems.

This research will follow an empirically driven approach, grounded in the systematic collection and analysis of diverse software corpora. Datasets will be assembled to cover multiple scenarios where code similarity detection is critical: open-source projects with shared ancestry or simply similar aims, AI-generated code variants, student assignments with varying degrees of collaboration, and malware samples exhibiting evolutionary links. Each corpus will be curated with reliable ground truth on the relationships between artifacts, enabling rigorous validation of similarity metrics. Existing similarity detection techniques, as well as underexplored approaches will be applied to these corpora to characterize their performance across contexts.

Potential contributions of this PhD to the field of software analysis include: an improved understanding of the tradeoffs and applicability of different techniques across several domain; the design of novel methods, with testing and comparison to prior work; the exploitation for other applications (e.g. testing or formal verification) of the intermediate abstract representations designed to measure similarity.

The project is co-supervised by RISE. RISE is Sweden's largest research institute, with a focus on applied research to support Swedish and European industry, through publicly-funded research projects and direct assignment from industrial customers. The Cybersecurity Unit is a European leader on cybersecurity for the IoT, 6G, and AI. It also contributes to standardization, notably through the IETF, for IoT and cryptographic protocols.

The project is part of a vibrant academic community with a strong international network, offering opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration, seminars, and scientific exchange within both academia and industry. In addition to a competitive salary and wellness benefits, the candidate is offered strong support for academic development, including funding for books, conference travel, and professional growth opportunities.

Qualification requirements

In order to be admitted to postgraduate education, the applicant must have the general and specific entry requirements. The qualification requirements must be met by the deadline for applications.

You meet general entry requirements if you have completed a second-cycle degree, or completed courses equivalent to at least 240 higher education credits, of which 60 credits must be in the second cycle, or have otherwise acquired equivalent knowledge in Sweden or elsewhere.

Specific entry requirements are described in the general syllabus for doctoral studies in the field of Computer and Systems Sciences and state that the applicant must have completed courses at second-cycle level in Computer and Systems Sciences with a minimum of 60 higher education credits or equivalent. The applicant must also have completed a degree project (thesis) of at least 15 higher education credits. In addition, the applicant is required to have English language skills equivalent of Common European Framework of Reference for Languages Level B2.

Selection

The selection among the eligible candidates will be based on their capacity to benefit from the training. The following criteria will be used to assess this capacity:

• Independence in the analysis and organization of the earlier scientific work
• Problem formulation and rigor in previous scientific work and in the research plan
• Previously shown ability to keep the specified time limits
• Methodological and scientific maturity
• Communication and cooperation skills
• Subject specific knowledge relevant to education.

Regarding the subject specific knowledge, the applicant is expected to possess a deep interest in security and software engineering and should have at least 30 higher education credits in one of these areas.

Admission Regulations for Doctoral Studies at Stockholm University.

About the employment

We offer a fixed-term employment as a doctoral student according to Chapter 5 of the Higher Education Ordinance (1993:100). The period of employment may not be longer than what corresponds to full-time doctoral education for four years. As a doctoral student, you should primarily devote yourself to your own doctoral education, but the employment may include work with education, research and administration to a limited extent (maximum 20 %).

A new employment as a doctoral student is for a maximum of one year, the employment is then renewed for a maximum of two years at a time.

Stockholm University strives to be a workplace free from discrimination and with equal opportunities for all.

Contact

For more information, please contact Senior Lecturer Nicolas Harrand, nicolas.harrand@dsv.su.se, or Professor Stefan Axelsson, stefan.axelsson@dsv.su.se, or Director of PhD studies, Åsa Smedberg, studierektorF@dsv.su.se.

Application

Apply for the PhD student position at Stockholm University's recruitment system. Attach a personal letter and CV as well as the attachments requested in the application form. It is the responsibility of the applicant to ensure that the application is complete in accordance with the instructions in the job advertisement, and that it is submitted before the deadline. We recommend that the application, with associated documents, be written in English.

The instructions for applicants are available at: How to apply for a position.

Stockholm University contributes to the development of sustainable democratic society through knowledge, enlightenment and the pursuit of truth.

Type of employment Temporary position

Contract type Full time

Salary Fixed salary

Number of positions 1

Full-time equivalent 100 %

City Stockholm

County Stockholms län

Country Sweden

Reference number SU FV-1370-26