Academic

Courses Organized, Managed, and Delivered

Joseph has directed, managed, and delivered university courses across Sweden, Malta, and internationally, with a focus on information security. He has also authored a full academic textbook on data protection and IT security.

Main Courses:

Information Security Fundamentals.  This course provides an introduction to information security. It is designed to help students develop the foundations and skills necessary to understand the vulnerabilities and threats affecting the digital environment. Additionally, it aims to cover the methods and models used for the protection of important information.

Concept map showing some of the topics covered in the course

The course entails the following high-level content:

  • The Digital Environment
  • Objectives for Information Security
  • Models for Threat and Risk Analysis
  • Models for Information Security
  • Protection mechanisms and Security Policies
  • Ethical perspectives on Information Security

In this course, I also give hands-on lab sessions covering Kali Linux and various penetration testing tools.

Furthermore, every year, I invite different security experts ranging from academics to industry professionals to deliver a guest lecture on a particular security topic (e.g., about: computer forensics, blockchain, IoT security, GDPR, AI and Trust, etc).

Take a look at the content of the lectures for Spring 2020:

Courses delivered in Sweden:

  • INFC40 (7.5 HP course). More information about this course is found here.
  • DA222E (7.5 HP course). More information about this course is found here and also here.
  • DA351A/DA262A (7.5 HP course). More information about this course is found here.

Applied Cryptography. This course provides students with essential skills to design secure systems using cryptography, a field with diverse applications across government, military, web services, e-commerce, and more. Students will learn cryptographic mechanisms, gain practical experience, and create systems that protect sensitive data from unauthorized access or manipulation.

Courses content:

Screenshot 2023-10-08 at 12.17.02

Courses delivered in Malta:

  • CPS3232 (5 HP course). More information about this course is found here.
  • Sample lecture content (redacted).

Information System Security.  This course provides an overview of information system security (IS security), covering areas like communications, data, networking security, and software systems’ performance, with a focus on threat identification, assessment, and countermeasures. It also explores the complexities of managing IS security and evaluating cost-benefit criteria in traditional security analysis.

Foundations of Cybersecurity. This MSc course provides comprehensive cybersecurity fundamentals, examining attacker motivations, system vulnerabilities, and protective strategies. Students develop graduate-level expertise in risk mitigation, security frameworks, and incident management through theoretical knowledge and practical applications. This course is a video course.

Manuscripts Reviewed for Journals and Associations

  • MDPI (Various)
  • International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems
  • IEEE IoT 2021
  • IEEE Internet of Things Journal
  • International Journal of Information Security and Privacy
  • International Symposium on Intelligent Distributed Computing
  • Future Generation Computer Systems
  • Association for Information Systems Special Interest Group on Information Security and Privacy

Subject Matter Expert Interviews and Invited Talks

  • 2025, Interview, AI-Generated Cyberattacks: Threats and Security Strategies for SMEs, Malmö University, Sweden [online]
  • 2023, Interview, Understanding the Human Factor in Cyber Security, Lund University, Sweden [online]
  • 2022, Interview, Smart Homes, Villaägaren, Sweden [online]
  • 2022, Interview, Smart Home Challenges and Solution, Leiden University, Netherlands [online]
  • 2021, Interview, Smart Home Risks and Mitigations,  Staffordshire University [online]
  • 2021, Interview, Smart Home Risks, Högskolan i Borås [online]
  • 2019, Interview, Smart City Security and Privacy Challenges, Malmö University, Sweden
  • 2018, Interview, Implications of GDPR Compliance on IT Companies, Malmö University, Sweden
  • 2018, IoTaP Profile Meeting, Panel Discussion, Privacy in Smart Homes, Malmö University, Sweden
  • 2017, Interview,  Security in Smart Home Design, Malmö University, Sweden

Panels

  • 2022, Career Planning Day for Doctoral Students at TS, Malmö University, Malmö University (Storm building in Gäddan), Sweden
  • 2022, IoTaP KKS Final Meeting, Panel Discussion with Sony, Sigma Technology and Malmö University, Designing IoT Systems, Malmö University, Sweden
  • 2018, IoTaP Profile Meeting (Ishpa and iSmash), Panel Discussion with Verisure and Malmö University, Privacy and Security in Smart Homes, Malmö University, Sweden

Other Scientific Experiences

  • 2025, Technical Program Committee (TPC) member, 20th Swedish National Computer Networking and Cloud Computing Workshop (SNCNW 2025), Sweden
  • 2024, Technical Program Committee (TPC) member, 19th Swedish National Computer Networking and Cloud Computing Workshop (SNCNW 2024), Sweden
  • 2023, Technical Program Committee (TPC) member, 18th Swedish National Computer Networking and Cloud Computing Workshop (SNCNW 2023), Sweden
  • 2022, Session Chair, Internet Technology Track @ WEBIST 2022, Malta

Main Research Projects

  • 2022-2023, Synergy
  • 2020-2022, Dynamic Intelligent Sensor Intensive Systems – DISS
  • 2018-2021, Smart Connected Homes – SCH++
  • 2015-2018, Intelligent Support for Privacy Management in Smart Homes – iSMASH

External Lectures

  • 2023 – present: Guest lecturer for the Bachelor’s course: “Information Security” at Malmö University, Sweden
  • 2022 – 2023: Guest lecturer for the Bachelor’s course: “Information Systems Security” at Lund University, Sweden
  • 2021 – 2023: Guest lecturer for the Bachelor’s course: “Internet of Things and People“ at Malmö University, Sweden
  • 2020 – 2023: Guest lecturer for the Master’s course: “Datavetenskap: Tillämpad data science” at Malmö University, Sweden
  • 2019 – 2023: Guest lecturer for the Master’s course: “Information Systems Security” at Lund University, Sweden
  • 2016 – 2022: Course responsible and main lecturer for the Bachelor’s course: “Information Security” at Malmö University, Sweden

Thesis Supervised, Co-Supervised, and Examined

  • 2023, A Comparative Analysis of Different Machine Learning Techniques in Intrusion Detection Against Evolving Cyberthreats (Bachelor thesis, co-supervisor)
  • 2022, Towards Engineering Trustworthy Distributed Reputation Systems over the Blockchain (Bachelor thesis, examiner)
  • 2022, On prototype pollution in third-party software components (Bachelor thesis, supervisor)
  • 2020, Impact of GDPR on Data Sharing Behavior in the Context of Smart Homes: A study on Consumer Trust and of IoT privacy (Bachelor thesis, supervisor)
  • 2020, Hacking Your Drone Data (Master thesis, co-supervised)
  • 2020, Intrusion Attack & Anomaly Detection in IoT using Honeypots (Bachelor thesis, examiner)
  • 2019, On the Assessment of Denial of Service Vulnerabilities affecting Smart Home Systems (Bachelor thesis, supervisor)
  • 2018, Protecting Web Applications from SQL Injection Attacks – Guidelines for Programmers (Master thesis, examiner)
  • 2018, Towards Designing Open Secure IoT System: Insights for Practitioners (Master thesis, co-supervised)
  • 2017, On the Investigation of Vulnerabilities in Smart Connected Cameras (Bachelor thesis, supervisor)
  • 2016, Towards Presenting Mainstream Smart Home Users with Privacy Controls (Bachelor thesis, supervisor)
  • 2016, Evaluating Privacy and Security Risks in Smart Home Entertainment Appliances, from a Communications Perspective (Bachelor thesis, supervisor)
  • 2016, How Performance is affected as Package Complexity Increases (Bachelor thesis, examiner)
  • 2016, Applying Personalized Recommendations on Retail Store Datasets (Bachelor thesis, examiner)

Mentorship

  • 2022, Ph.D student on the areas of privacy and trust as applied to smart living systems (ongoing)
  • 2019, Foundations of Offensive Security Testing (Self immersion course VT20)

Ph.D. Coursework

  • Quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research design
  • Pedagogical strategies
  • Actors, networks, power, and ethics
  • IoTaP seminar series
  • Data science (with topics covering machine learning/teaching, context awareness, statistics, etc.)
  • Philosophy and theory of science
  • Foundations of security analysis and design
  • Privacy and identity management
  • Applied ethics
  • Human-centered artificial intelligence
  • Academic writing and publishing

Main Courses Created and Directed

  • INFC40, Lund University, Sweden, 2023-2024, 7.5 HP
  • CPS3232, University of Malta, Malta, 2023-2024, 5 ECTS
  • DA222E, Malmö University, Sweden, 2021-2023, 7.5 HP
  • DA351A, Malmö University, Sweden, 2016-2022, 7.5 HP
  • DA262A, Malmö University, Sweden, 2016-2022, 7.5 HP