Iraklis Symeonidis

About

Senior Research Scientist specializing in cybersecurity, cryptography, and privacy. Experience includes projects on secure architectures, privacy-preserving systems, and decentrilized systems Extensive publication record and teaching expertise in advanced cybersecurity topics.

Current Interests

• Cybersecurity & Cryptography
• Secure & Resilient Architectures
• Decentralized Systems & Smart Contracts
• Privacy-Enhancing Technologies
• Digital Trust, Compliance & Governance

Current Projects

• 2023-2025 WG Co-Leader "Cybersecurity in emerging wireless communications" – Behavioral Next Generation in Wireless Networks for Cyber Security (BEiNG-WISE)
• 2025: NexusForum
• 2025: Horizon Europe: TwinLoop
• 2023: FORMAS

Education

• PhD, Applied Cryptography – KU Leuven, Belgium
• MSc, Digital Systems Security – University of Piraeus, Greece
• Diploma, Information & Communication Systems Engineering – University of the Aegean, Greece

Certifications & Training (selection)

• ISO/IEC 27001:2005 Lead Auditor – TUV NORD, Athens, Greece
• Advanced Cybersecurity Course – ENCS, The Hague, Netherlands
• Secure Application Development – SecAppDev, Leuven, Belgium
• Modern pedagogical and teaching methods in primary education - Institute der KPH Graz, Austria

Invited Talks (selection)

• 2023-2025 WG Co-Leader "Cybersecurity in emerging wireless communications" – Behavioral Next Generation in Wireless Networks for Cyber Security (BEiNG-WISE)
• 2021: "Engineering Privacy for Vehicle 2 Cloud Infrastructure" – Privacy Engineering Group
• 2019: "Privacy-enhancing Sharing Platforms" – University of Manchester
• 2018: "Privacy in Car Sharing Systems" – IPEN Workshop, EDPS
• 2018: "Privacy-Preserving Information Sharing" – Chinese Academy of Sciences

Media Attention

Research featured in major international outlets related to privacy, security, and the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

• Wired: The Facebook privacy settings that doesn’t do anything at all – March 2018
• NBC News: Researchers say it was easy to take people’s data from Facebook – March 2018
• France24: Cambridge Analytica : le scandale qui fait trembler l’empire Facebook – March 2018
• The Atlantic: What Took Facebook So Long? – March 2018
• Blog post (summary): Collateral Damage Research Summary – March 2018

Publications

Google Scholar

Academic and Other Services

• 2020: CPDP Event Organizer: "Private messaging: why should we care?"

Program Committee Memberships:

• 2025: CPDP, IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society
• 2024: PoPETS, PhD Review - Oulu University
• 2023: PoPETS
• 2022: PoPETS
• 2021: PoPETS, Computers & Security, IEEE IoT, Journal of Cybersecurity and Privacy
• 2020: PoPETS, Computers & Security, ACM Transactions on the Web
• 2019: PoPETS, Computers & Security, DPM@ESORICS, CPDP
• 2018: ICISSP
• 2017: ICISSP
• 2016: ICISSP

External Reviews:

• 2021: IEEE Security & Privacy

Teaching & Supervision

• 2022–present: PhD Supervision — S. Mohammadi at RISE (industrial PhD student)
• 2020–2022: Teaching Assistant at NSS@KTH
  • Networked Systems Security (NSS): Fundamental concepts and technologies for modern networked systems
  • Building Networked Systems Security (BNSS): Implementing secure network systems (follow-up of NSS)
  • Advanced Networked Systems Security (ANSS): Advanced engineering of secure emerging networked systems
• 2015–2022: MSc Supervision (theses and student projects)
  • NSS@KTH:
    • 2021–2022: A. Kotsias — “Layer 2 Smart Contracts for Secure Vehicular-Sharing Systems”
    • 2020–2021: S. Rabat — “Encrypted Documents Retrieval from the Cloud with Searchable Encryption”
    • 2021: J. Shan — “Secure Vehicular Sharing Systems Implementation” (student project)
  • COSIC@KU Leuven:
    • 2019–2020: D. De Troch — “dPACE: A Decentralized Privacy-Preserving, yet Accountable Car Sharing Environment”
    • 2017–2018: A. Madhusudan — “Applying Smart Contracts to Secure Car Sharing Systems”
    • 2017–2018: D. Reardon — “Prevalence of Device Fingerprinting in Browser Extensions”
    • 2016–2017: S. Dhooghe — “Applying Multiparty Computation to Car Access Provision”
    • 2015–2016: T. Bertels — “Design of a Pairing Protocol for the AR.Drone 2.0”
    • 2015–2016: K. Domin — “Security Analysis of the Drone Communication Protocol: Fuzzing the MAVLink Protocol”
• 2005–2011: Teaching — Ministry of Education (elementary, high school, lifelong learning), police academy, and private sector
  • Web Programming: Training in PHP, SQL, and web technologies
  • Application Development: Algorithmic logic and university entrance exam prep
  • ICT Technologies: Computer science, math, and programming through ICT
  • Microsoft Office Suite: Skills training and certification prep

Personal Interests

• Board Member – Orfeas Choir, Sweden
• Drone Photography & Editing
• First Aid & Lifeguard Certification
• Former Water Polo & Volleyball Athlete

Contact

• Email: iraklis.symeonidis@ri.se
• Phone: +46 73-077 43 52
• Location: Isafjordsgatan 22, 16440 Kista, Stockholm, Sweden
• LinkedIn: Iraklis Symeonidis
• RISE Profile: RISE Webpage