Hi all,
I’m a PhD student at the University of Cambridge (Raspberry Pi Computing Education Research Centre), and I’m looking for experienced DFIR practitioners and educators to join an expert panel for my research.
What the study is about
“Thinking like an attacker”, or adversarial thinking, is widely seen as a core skill in cybersecurity, but there’s no agreed definition of what it involves, particularly for beginners. That makes it hard to teach deliberately or to assess.
I’m designing lessons for secondary school students that use digital forensics and incident response scenarios to build this skill. Investigating an incident means reasoning about what an attacker wanted, how they achieved it and what they did next, without students having to carry out attacks themselves. I’d like people who do this work, or teach it, to help define what adversarial thinking looks like during an investigation and what a beginner’s version of it looks like. The results will shape classroom resources and an assessment for schools.
Who can take part
You need to be 18 or over, with at least 3 years’ experience (currently or within the last two years) in either:
- an investigative role, such as digital forensics, incident response, SOC, threat hunting, threat intelligence or law-enforcement digital forensics
- teaching or training in cybersecurity that involves investigation or reasoning about attackers, including university teaching, professional training or designing forensics CTF challenges
You can be based in any country.
What’s involved
- Up to four rounds of short online questionnaires (about 15-20 minutes each, with later rounds shorter) between November 2026 and January 2027
- Each round is open for 10-14 days, so you can complete it whenever suits you
- The questions ask for your general professional judgement, not details of specific cases, clients or employers
- Responses are anonymous to other panel members. You can choose to be acknowledged by name as a panel member in publications, and everyone receives a summary of the findings.
Register your interest by Saturday 7 November: https://forms.gle/WKKbq7dhf5fCGUnW8
The full information sheet is linked from the form. If this isn’t for you but you know someone who’d be a good fit, I’d be very grateful if you passed it on. I’m happy to answer any questions here or by email (linked on the info sheet).
Thanks for reading!