Thesis

Thesis info for Cyber Security students

• To defend in TalTech your main supervisor must be from TalTech. Co-supervisors can be from the University of Tartu or external.
• To defend in Tartu University your main supervisor must be from UT. The co-supervisor can be from TalTech or external.

Co-supervisor is not a neccessity.

Important Deadlines for January 2025 Defence

• Submission of the problem statement and research design document: 18 August 2024
• Declaring your thesis topic in your study plan in ois: 9 September 2024
• Submission of the thesis to the reviewer: 8th December 2024
• OIS declaration: 16 December 2024
• Submission of the final version of the thesis: 2 January 2025
• Defences: TBA (possibly 13/14 January 2025)

Moodle: https://moodle.taltech.ee/course/view.php?id=33513#section-1

Important Deadlines for May/June 2025 Defence

• Submission of problem statement and research design document: 15 December 2024
• Declaring your thesis topic in your study plan in ois: 10 February 2025
• Submission of the thesis to the reviewer: 20 April 2025
• OIS declaration: 12 May 2025
• Submission of the final version of the thesis: 18 May 2025
• Defences: TBA (possibly 28 - 30 May OR 2 - 4 June 2025)

Moodle: https://moodle.taltech.ee/course/view.php?id=33512#section-3

Thesis Defence Overview

Defending an MSc thesis is a critical component of the Cybersecurity curriculum, demonstrating your ability to conduct in-depth research in a specialized area. This page provides a general overview of the thesis process, but it’s important to discuss specific details and requirements with your supervisor. The following outline assumes you’re on a four-semester study plan and aim to defend your thesis in May. For those planning a January defense, the phases can be adjusted accordingly.

Thesis Timeline Overview

First Year: Topic Selection

• Start exploring possible research topics and potential supervisors during your first year. By the end of the second semester, it’s recommended to have a solid idea of your topic and to have had initial discussions with your supervisor.

December: Problem Statement and Research Design

• In early December, submit a document outlining your problem statement and research design (detailed below). This submission also serves as your registration for the defense in the following semester.

Research Phase and Thesis Writing

• Begin conducting your research as soon as possible. If you plan to defend in May, aim to complete your thesis by early April. This allows time for your supervisor to review your work and provide feedback. For those defending in January, this deadline is early December.

• After receiving feedback, discuss with your supervisor whether your work is ready for submission. If additional time is needed, you may consider postponing until the January defense.

Final Review and Feedback

• Once your thesis is submitted, a reviewer will assess it and provide feedback, typically about a week before the final submission deadline. You can continue to refine your thesis until the deadline and incorporate reviewer feedback into the final document and your defense presentation. Addressing reviewer comments, such as fixing typos or clarifying sections, will strengthen your submission.

Final Submission and Defense Day

• At the final submission deadline, you must submit your completed thesis. On the day of your defense, you’ll deliver a 15-minute presentation of your work, followed by a Q&A session with the reviewer, committee members, supervisor, and audience. Preparing this presentation in advance will help you confidently convey your research.

Further details are provided below.

Good luck!

Registration and submission of problem statement and research design document

To defend their thesis, each student must submit a problem statement and research design document of up to 10 pages. This document should clearly include:

• The student's name;
• The thesis title;
• The supervisor's name (and co-supervisor, if applicable).

NB: In addition to the problem statement, a student must declare their defense in their study plan for the semester they wish to defend in.

Submission Timeline and Deadlines Students must submit their intent to defend approximately six months before the planned defense date, adhering to the specific deadlines listed above. Generally, for a May defense, this document should be submitted by December, while for a January defense, it should be submitted by mid-July or August.

Submission Instructions Students are required to submit their documents through the TalTech Moodle link found in the "important deadlines" section for the relevant defense period. Make sure to self-enroll in this Moodle link. Expect feedback on your document via the email associated with your Taltech Moodle account within 3-4 weeks.

Document Structure and Content Requirements

Your problem statement and research design document should contain the following sections:

• Thesis Topic: Title of the thesis.
• Author Information: The name of the student.
• Supervisor Information: The name of the supervisor (and co-supervisor, if applicable).
• Motivation: Explain the importance of the problem being addressed and why it deserves a research study.
• Research Problem, Hypothesis, or Question: Clearly define your research problem, hypothesis, or question.
• Scope and Goal: Outline the study's goals, expected outcomes, scope, limitations, and key assumptions.
• Literature Review: Analyze similar studies, discussing the research gap and linking it to the research problem.
• Novelty: Justify the originality of your study by explaining its main contributions and how it differs from existing research.
• Research Methods: Describe the research methods, data collection, and analysis techniques, including how you plan to validate the research outcomes.
• References: List all resources cited in the document.

Evaluation Criteria

Your submission will be evaluated on the following criteria:

• Problem Definition: Is the problem statement clear and well-defined?
• Significance: Is the importance of the problem effectively conveyed?
• Literature Knowledge: Does the author demonstrate an understanding of the existing literature and limitations of current solutions?
• Methodology: Has the author considered appropriate methods?
• Validation: Has the author thought about how to validate the proposed solution?
• Novelty: Does the study contribute a novel perspective or solution to the existing body of literature?

Following these guidelines will ensure your document meets the standards required for submission and evaluation.

You can find detailed information about research methods here.

Submission to Reviewer

Each thesis will be assigned a reviewer, sometimes also called an opponent. The reviewer must hold at least a Master's degree and have relevant expertise in the thesis topic. To avoid conflicts of interest, the reviewer should not belong to the same research group as the student. Although students and supervisors may suggest potential reviewers, the thesis defense committee makes the final selection.

The reviewer will provide a written assessment, typically around two pages, covering:

-A brief summary of the thesis.

-An evaluation of its strengths and weaknesses.

-A recommended grade (on a scale from 0 to 5, where 0 is failing and 5 is excellent). This grade considers the clarity of the problem and solution, the problem's complexity, the appropriateness and execution of the solution, and the quality of formatting and language.

-At least three questions for the student to answer during the defense.

-The recommended grade remains confidential; only the defense committee is informed of it, and it is not disclosed to the student.

1st Submission vs Final Submission

The reviewer will receive a copy of the thesis two to three weeks before the university’s final submission deadline. This allows time for the reviewer to suggest minor edits, such as correcting typos or small factual errors, which the student can and should address within about a week. The student will receive the review one week before the final submission deadline, allowing them to make adjustments. Additionally, if the student feels more work is needed, they may choose to postpone submission to improve the thesis for a future defense period.

OIS declaration

Before a student can proceed to the thesis defence, they have to declare the thesis topic in OIS and get approval from their supervisor. Please pay careful attention to the OIS declaration deadline, as without this you will not be permitted to attend the defence. If you will defend your thesis in Tartu University, then you should do your OIS declaration to their systems according to their deadlines.

OIS declaration deadlines can be found in the Academic Calendar!

Submission of Final Copy

Each student will submit the pdf version of the thesis, the relevant thesis metadata and licence information via moodle course page link given in "important deadlines" section of relevant defence period. Please complete the steps 1, 2 and 3 of the thesis submission on this page.

If you will defend your thesis in Tartu University, then you should submit final copy according to the procedures and deadlines of Tartu University.

NB! Do not forget that you need to prepare a 15 min presentation for your defence. This should really not be left to the evening before the defence!

The defence procedure

On the day of defence, students will present their theses according to the announced schedule. Generally, the results will be announced at the end of the day.

The defence procedure for each student consists of the following steps:

• the committee Chairman announces the name of the student, the topic of the thesis, and the names of the supervisor(s) and reviewer.
• the student presents his or her thesis in 15 minutes.
• the student answers the reviewer's questions and the reviewer recommends a grade. This recommendation may differ from the preliminary recommendation, based on how successful the defence was.
• the student answers questions from the committee.
• the student answers questions from the audience.
• the supervisor gives his or her opinion of the thesis and recommends a grade.

NB! The recommended grades by the reviewer and the supervisor are not binding to the committee, who makes the final decision.

• After the thesis defence, you may visit the Dean's Office for more information about final formalities if you'd like.
• Upload your thesis if you would like to have it public

Formal Requirements and recommendations

Until further notice, please use the formatting guide from the School of Information Technologies (link to the guide is given here). Please note that you will have to change the title page as of 01.01.2017:

• write "School of Information Technology" instead of "Faculty of Information Technology"
• write "Department of Software Science" instead of "Department of Computer Engineering".

The thesis code for IVCM is ITC70LT.

The following advices can be considered for a master thesis

• a title page, an author declaration, an annotation in English and Estonian, a list of contents, and references are required in the thesis
• 50-80 pages + appendices if needed
• Times New Roman (or similar), font size 12, 1.5 spacing used for the ordinary text
• Headings are numbered and no more than 3 levels used
• Don't forget page numbers

Topic and supervisor

Every student must have a supervisor when writing the thesis. The supervisor's role is to provide guidance on topic selection and research methods, as well as to give feedback on your work. It is not the supervisor's duty to correct spelling mistakes or formatting errors - they may point such things out, but the responsibility remains with you. Before a thesis will be accepted for defence, the supervisor has to agree that it is of sufficient quality.

Almost any professor and lecturer you have met in your curriculum can act as an supervisor of your thesis. Some of them have some open problems suitable for doing research and writing a thesis, but many may not have a topic to offer right away. It is usually more helpful to have an initial idea of a topic of your thesis and ask someone with interests in the related field to advise you. You can have a supervisor not related to the university, but he can act only as a co-supervisor and you need to agree to somebody related to the curricula or the leading institute of the curriculum to be an official co-supervisor. All (co-)supervisors must have at least a Master's degree.

When refining a topic idea, make sure it has a clear connection with cyber security.

NB! Theses supervised by supervisors from the University of Tartu (UT) have to be defended in UT. Exceptions are possible, but need do be approved by the program manager.

If you will defend your thesis in UT, then you should do your thesis declaration according to the procedures and deadlines of UT. Thesis related guidelines and regulations are available at: https://cs.ut.ee/en/content/thesis-deadlines-and-guidelines In case of any questions contact UT Institute of Computer Science Academic Affairs Specialist Paula Luks (paula.luks@ut.ee).

Potential supervisors & proposed topics

The topics below are offered by potential (co-)supervisors (in alphabetical order). The list is updated as new offers emerge.

From Marko Arik, Industry PhD student, Talgen Cybersecurity Ltd. maarik@ttu.ee

• Offensice Cyber Operations (OCO) planning and execution
• Cyber Operations tools (visualization, planning, automation)
• Motorcycle Drag Racing

From Sille Arikas, Clarified Security

• Incident Response
• Offensive Security
• Cyber Exercises
• Cybercrime
• Cybersecurity Management

Accepting up to 3 more students for 2024/2025

NB: Before approaching, make sure you comply with the checklist below:

• you have previous experience in the areas linked to your topic (relevant courses at the university / work experience)
• you have selected one initial thesis topic suggestion, finished your initial research, approach with a 2-pager and can tl;dr why is this important to you and how is this novel?
• you can meet the agreed deadlines set by your supervisor and accept that there won't be any spoon-feeding

From Hayretdin Bahsi, Tallinn University of Technology, hayretdin.bahsi@taltech.ee

I am interested in various topics which can be categorized as technical and organizational. If you already have specific topics in your mind, we can discuss them and decide to work together.

Technical Topics

• Application of machine learning and data mining methods to the following cyber security problems: Malware detection, botnet identification, code security review, intrusion detection in cyber-physical systems, IoT network or robotic systems
• Cyber security of IoT, cyber-physical systems: Development of a security testbed, threat modelling, honeypots, intrusion detection systems
• Digital Forensics: Forensics issues in cyber-physical systems, IoT networks or robotics systems, mobile forensics, blockchain forensics

Organizational Topics

• Security operation center (SOC) models
• Case studies for the improvement of SOC processes such as threat monitoring, incident handling, vulnerability management or situational awareness

From Aivo Kalu, Cybernetica AS

No topics available for 2024/2025 academic year.

From Shaymaa Khalil, PhD STudent, TalTech

Interested in (but not limited to) topics related to:

• Industrial Control Systems: threat modeling, security, testbeds for education, penetration testing and digital forensics
• Digital forensics related topics, especially topics related to IoT, Windows OS and Digital Forensics tools benchmarking

From Toomas Lepik, Tallinn University of Technology

toomas.lepik@taltech.ee

General areas:

• Network Forensic (related data analysis)
• Reverse engineering (including malware analysis)
• SCADA security
• Incident Handling.
• Log Analysis

Specific ideas:

• Implications of DOH on security and availability + next step from https://www.netmeister.org/blog/doh-dot-dnssec.html
• Domain name availability and how DNS registrant and registrar policy changes affect cybercrime
• Heuristics on ip leasing operations
• Defending organization that does not have internal network
• Do applications do what they promise
• Identifying specific applications based network fingerprints
• Evaluation log collecting methods for Microsoft networks considering log poisoning attacks
• Log collecting frameworks for organisations without internal networks
• Information attributes and their influence on the organisational security beyond CIA
• Frame works for cybersecurity devices / software evaluation
• Evaluation specific software /hardware using ATT&CK Framwork
• ATT&CK -Descriptions and false positives
• Anatomy of cyber fractions during the Russian-Ukrainian war
• Forensic Leaked materials of cyber criminal groups.
• ...

From Birgy Lorenz, Tallinn University of Technology

birgy.lorenz@ttu.ee

No topics as of 2024/2025

From Seyed Mohammad Hadi Mirsadeghi, PhD Student, Tallinn University of Technology

Students can approach Hadi with topics in the following: adversarial machine learning, deep learning, network security, intrusion detection/prevention, software-defined networking (SDN), programmable networking, distributed intelligence seyed.mirsadeghi@taltech.ee

From Sten Mäses, Tallinn University of Technology

• Creating educational hands-on virtual labs in rangeforce.com platform

From Andrew Roberts, PhD Student, Tallinn University of Technology

Topics: 1. Evaluation of Methods for Threat and Risk Assessment of Autonomous Self-Driving Vehicles 2. Design and Development of a cyber range for Autonomous self-driving vehicles Contribution:

Topic 1: The outcome of this work will form part of TUT contribution to standards and methods research within the International Alliance for Mobility Testing and Standardisation (IAMTS).

Topic 2: The developed cyber range will be integrated into the EU ECHO-Federated Cyber Range.

From Aleksi Kajander, Tallinn University of Technology

• legal aspects of cyber security
• international law
• Cyber Conflicts and the Law of War/IHL
• EU-Law
• Cybercrime
• Interaction of Law and Technology

From Rain Ottis, Tallinn University of Technology

• national cyber security
• serious games in cyber security/cyber security exercises

From Mauno Pihelgas NATO CCDCOE

• system and network monitoring
• observability and situation awareness
• IDS/IPS systems
• automating cyber defences

No spots available for 2024/2025

From Jaan Priisalu, Tallinn University of Technology

• TBD

From Muaan Ur Rehman, PhD Student, Tallinn University of Technology

Research focus is on machine learning in intrusion detection, security monitoring of maritime systems and android malware analysis. Students can come up with their own idea/research topic and contact Rehman through email muaan.ur@taltech.ee

From Nikita Snetkov, Industry PhD Student, Cybernetica / Tallinn University of Technology

• Protocols security in ProVerif
• Protocols security in CryptoVerif
• Systematic analysis of quantum-safe cryptography migration strategies in Europe
• Improving multiplicative-to-additive (MtA) functionality for threshold ECDSA protocols
• Blind Smart-ID signature protocol

Topics are not limited by ones above. If a student has a topic in mind, Nikita's research interests are e-voting, digital identity, cryptographic security proofs and post-quantum cryptography.

From Matthew Sorell, Tallinn University of Technology / Adelaide University Australia

Matthew James Sorell <matthew.sorell@taltech.ee>

Topics in digital forensic science may be available. Students should come with an idea that can be turned into a proposal.

From Eneken Tikk, Tallinn University of Technology

• Technical and organizational implementation of the GDPR
• Monetization of personal data
• Economics of cybersecurity (the cost of implementation relative to the anticipated and evidenced gains)
• Cyber insurance
• Non-military strategies for national and international cybersecurity
• Legal aspects of cybersecurity

From Risto Vaarandi, Tallinn University of Technology

Here are potential areas for selecting a thesis topic:

• event log collection
• event log analysis
• event correlation
• network monitoring
• intrusion detection
• data mining methods for security monitoring
• machine learning methods for security monitoring
• any area that is connected to security monitoring
• other system security engineering topics (for example, system hardening or firewalling)

When applying for supervision, make sure you have selected at least one initial thesis topic suggestion with a background research about its validity.

From Jelizaveta Vakarjuk, Industry PhD Student, Cybernetica / Tallinn University of Technology

Jelizaveta's general research interest includes different privacy-preserving technologies and multiparty computations that are used for digital identity management systems. Additionally, post-quantum cryptography (with a main focus on digital signatures) and migration to post-quantum cryptography.

• Lattice-based cryptography
• Privacy Preserving Protocols
• Threshold Cryptography
• I-Voting

She does not have any specific topics to offer for the 2024/2025 academic year, but if something from her research interest sound appealing, please feel free to contact her (jelizaveta.vakarjuk@cyber.ee).

From Adrian Venables, Tallinn University of Technology

• Cyber security aspects of Information Warfare
• Strategic Communications doctrine development
• Information Operations doctrine development
• Cognitive Warfare in the Digital Information Environment

Note: a background in International Relations, Political Science or Strategic Studies is required

From Gabor Visky, PhD Student, NATO CCDCOE / TalTech

Gabor Visky <gabor.visky@ccdcoe.org>

• Network traffic analysis in the maritime cyber-lab

From Kaido Kikkas, Tallinn University of Technology, IT College. kaido.kikkas@taltech.ee

• Cyber security risks in telepresence robotics and their mitigation (practical experimenting is possible at IT College; see [1]
• Cyber security lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic (incl. surveys in Estonia)
• Evolution of Cyberwar (Estonia 2007, Georgia 2007, Ukraine 2014/2022
• Total defence in cyberspace (might try to suggest a strategy for Estonia)
• Specific traits of cyber capabilities in totalitarian societies

Some more possible keywords to spark Thesis topic ideas: (e-)learning/training, FLOSS/Linux, smart devices, IoT, social engineering, usability/accessibility vs security/privacy

Also might study cyber counterparts to (legal) self-defence and citizen's arrest

From Ricardo Gregorio Lugo, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonian Maritime Academy

Any topic from Human Aspects and cyberpsychology are actual.

Topics can include:

• Human performance in cybersecurity
• Individual and Team Processes in Cybersecurity defense/exercises
• Human computer interaction in cybersecurity
• Human-AI trust and decision-making
• Communication and Decision-making in recognized cyber threat situations
• Human Perception and Information Visualizations in cybersecurity
• Cognitive factors in risk perception and decision-making
• Mental Health in Cybersecurity

From the TalTech IT office

• Security implications in Migrating Taltech Campus LAN to IPv6; Toomas Lepik
• Improving SOC and Information security processes; Toomas Lepik
• Auditing Taltech EITS compliance based on public information; Toomas Lepik
• Improving Log analysis pipelines; Toomas Lepik

From the TalTech Space Centre

NB: Please contact Adrian Venables, if interested in any of these topics.

• Methods and tools for capturing, identifying, analyzing, and reverse engineering satellite protocols

• Study of security features and use of cryptography in nanosatellite communication protocols

• Reusable low-footprint cryptographic primitives for microcontrollers with limited resources

• Testing framework for nanosatellite communication protocol implementation correctness and robustness

• Adaptation of existing protocol or designing a new protocol for the next Taltech nanosatellite

• Implementation of a fully reusable and secure protocol stack as part of the platform for future nanosatellites

• Implementation of the new Taltech nanosatellite protocol for ground station

• Security review of TTU100/TTU101 software to identify errors and risks that should be avoided in software for the next satellites

• Suitability, performance, properties, and security of LoRa technologies when used for nanosatellites

From the University of Tartu

NB! Theses supervised by supervisors from the University of Tartu (UT) have to be defended in UT. Exceptions are possible, but need do be approved by the program manager. If you will defend your thesis in UT, then you should do your thesis declaration according to the procedures and deadlines of UT. Thesis related guidelines and regulations are available at: https://cs.ut.ee/en/content/thesis-deadlines-and-guidelines In case of any questions contact UT Institute of Computer Science Academic Affairs Specialist Paula Luks (paula.luks@ut.ee).

Cybersecurity-related research in the University of Tartu is conducted by the following persons:

- Arnis Paršovs, University of Tartu, <arnis.parsovs@ut.ee>

- Danielle Morgan, University of Tartu, <danielle.morgan@ut.ee>

- Alo Peets, University of Tartu, <alo.peets@ut.ee>

- Dominique Unruh, University of Tartu, <dominique.unruh@ut.ee>

- Vitaly Skachek, University of Tartu, <vitaly.skachek@ut.ee>

- Mubashar Iqbal, University of Tartu, <mubashar.iqbal@ut.ee>

- Abasi-Amefon Obot Affia, University of Tartu, <amefon.affia@ut.ee>

- Mari Seeba, University of Tartu, <mari.seeba@ut.ee>

- Sabah Suhail, University of Tartu,

- Raimundas Matulevicius, University of Tartu, <raimundas.matulevicius@ut.ee>

Some topics are provided at <https://infosec.cs.ut.ee/Main/ThesisTopics>. For other topics, students can contact directly the supervisors and course lecturers.

A full list of thesis topics offered by the Applied Cyber Security Group (UT) is available in the thesis topics database. Students can also get access to various hardware that can be used for research experiments.

From Estonian Police

TBD

Useful links

ITX8040 Thesis advice slides

Format requirements of a thesis and MS-Word Template (TalTech)

LATEX template for master thesis (TalTech) (accessible by UNI-ID)

Databases, books, research papers accessible from the TTU network

An Overview of Research Methods

Previously Defended Theses